James Oatway

01/09/2026

Happy spring day!

An aerial view of the fountain at Zoo Lake in Johannesburg, South Africa. OUR CITY NEWS/James Oatway

18/08/2026

The Pride of Fietas - Bernice Ferreira, South Africa’s first female WBC boxing world champion.

Bernice “The Badger” Ferreira made South African boxing history by becoming the country’s first female WBC world champion. After defeating Canada’s Caroline ...

17/08/2026

Bernice Ferreira’s cousin Johan, brother Dylan and father Dougie watch the fight.

03h37am, Sunday, August 16, 2026. Vrededorp (Fietas), Johannesburg. OUR CITY NEWS/James Oatway



Bernice Ferreira
World Boxing Council
WBC Woman

15/08/2026

“Protected by Angels. Surrounded by love.” Reads the inscription on the medallion that Bernice’s ouma gave her years ago.

Today, Saturday, August 15, 2026, IBO World Champion Bernice Ferreira of South Africa will challenge WBC World Champion Caroline Veyre of Canada for the unified super-featherweight world championship at State Farm Arena in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. The fight, which is on the undercard of Claressa Shields, will be streamed live on DAZN.

Bring it home Champion!

Bernice Ferreira

15/08/2026

“I grew up in hardship, a lot of poverty, a lot of drugs, a lot of gangsterism. Not a lot of opportunities for the people around,” Ferreira says. “It’s not a nice area to grow up in. But you need to decide, are you going to stay in that situation, or are you going to do what you need to do to get out of it?” she says as we continue walking towards a dry and dusty play area. “I used to love this place, it felt like a holiday resort sometimes. But it’s changed a lot. Most of my friends are either on drugs or in prison or dead.” 

At her mother’s flat, where she grew up, the balcony has been sealed off with chicken-wire and converted into an aviary, where an African Grey Parrot and several bright green parakeets flit about in the afternoon light. Ferreira’s father, Douglas, who is seated on the couch watching TV, rescued them as chicks after they fell out of their treetop nest.

Her parents met nearby at the “Cottesloe Boys Club”, an amateur boxing venue in Fietas, popular since the 1940’s. “My dad used to box and my mother did karate, so I guess fighting is in my blood!” laughs Ferreira.

It was here that Ferreira was first exposed to boxing. “When she was a toddler we used to take her with us to his [Douglas’] boxing matches,” explains her mother Sionnie. “We always knew that she would have a love for boxing because she was always there with us, as a three-year-old, cheering and cheering and screaming and screaming. People didn’t come to watch her father box, but came to watch her cheering!” Sionnie jokes. Now, the Cottesloe Boys Club lies in an advanced state of dereliction, shuttered and decaying.


On Saturday, August 15, 2026, IBO World Champion Bernice Ferreira of South Africa will challenge WBC World Champion Caroline Veyre of Canada for the unified super-featherweight world championship at State Farm Arena in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. The fight, which is on the undercard of Claressa Shields, will be streamed live on DAZN.

Bernice Ferreira
southafrica

15/08/2026

Johannesburg’s Bernice Ferreira stands on the brink of making history. On Saturday August 15, 2026, she will step into a floodlit boxing ring in Atlanta and fight to become the first South African woman to win boxing’s legendary WBC world championship belt.

But for Ferreira (34), this fight began many years ago in one of Johannesburg’s most troubled neighbourhoods, Vrededorp, or Fietas, where she grew up. In Fietas, unemployment, drugs, alcoholism and gangs have left many trapped inside a cycle of poverty, violence and hopelessness.

As a pro-boxer in South Africa with no sponsorship agreements, it’s not easy to make money. The costs of training, following a strict diet and getting around the city add up. As a result Ferreira works mornings in a small, private bakery, baking rusks. Her tattooed hands – the left shouting “Boom!” – pat down the rusk mixture in a baking tray. Together with her fiancé, Lee-Anne, also a professional boxer nicknamed “Mshoza”, they bake rusks in the morning and teach boxing and fitness to different age groups at a nearby gym in the evening. Her parents are poor, but they help wherever they can. Her dad, Douglas, even washes all the sweaty training gear every week. “That’s how I sponsor her.” He smiles wryly. She has also worked in call centres, sales, as a child minder and even a truck driver, while trying to keep her boxing dream afloat.

On Saturday, August 15, 2026, IBO World Champion Bernice Ferreira of South Africa will challenge WBC World Champion Caroline Veyre of Canada for the unified super-featherweight world championship at State Farm Arena in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. The fight, which is on the undercard of Claressa Shields, will be streamed live on DAZN.

Bernice Ferreira

08/08/2026

Got lost at the Zoo recently. It was giving The Jungle Book, Jumanji, Night at the the Museum and Apocalypse Now.

01/08/2026

People gather after church in Doornfontein, Johannesburg. July 2026

27/07/2026

Some work published in the The Guardian this weekend.

“In Thembelihle, an informal settlement south of Johannesburg where thousands of breeze-block houses and metal shacks line dirt streets flooded with filthy water, Malawians had lived for years alongside South Africans without any problems.

But in the last few weeks, a series of armed robberies has shaken the community..”

Story by Rachel Savage

18/07/2026

Marshall Street, Johannesburg. July 2026.