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COMMUNICATION-BRAZIL: The Voices of the Homeless

Mario Osava

PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil, Aug 5 2004 (IPS) - “Boca de rua” is a unique newspaper, written and sold by the homeless in this city in southern Brazil, bringing together the exceptional stories of people who seek to rejoin society and reclaim their rights in adverse conditions.

Reinaldo Luiz dos Santos, 35, dropped out of law school in the northeastern state of Bahia shortly before graduation and ended up living on the streets of a number of Brazilian cities until he discovered his “destiny” in Porto Alegre, a city he describes as “the spearhead of social movements” with “an excellent public social safety net for the socially excluded.”

“My family got involved in drug trafficking and killed a friend of mine,” he told IPS. He did not want to inform the police on his relatives, but he did not want to live with them either, so he chose to leave.

Joao Dutra, meanwhile, left home at the age of nine, because of problems with his stepfather. He survived on the streets of Porto Alegre, the capital of Rio Grande do Sul state and recently went back to school at the age of 19 to complete his third year of primary education.

André Cardoso de Araújo was orphaned when he was just two years old. He went from orphanage to orphanage until at the age of 11 he “failed to adapt” to a new institution and went to live on the streets.

Survival options for homeless children include doing odd jobs like looking after people’s cars, running errands for others or seeking assistance in public or private welfare institutions.

Cardoso de Araújo, who only went to school until fifth grade, is articulate and has a broad general knowledge. When praised for his “intelligence”, he answers that he learned “everything in the street, observing how others spoke, and looking things up in dictionaries.”

Today, at the age of 30, he is once again studying after 17 years out of school, and has fulfilled his dream of having a house. He works as a voluntary “street teacher” for children and adolescents in several projects.

Cardoso de Araújo is no longer on the streets, but he has maintained his links with “Boca de Rua” (which roughly translates as “intersection” or “entrance to the street”) where he takes pride in writing his own articles. Many of the others need help doing this from the journalists who started the project and are responsible for its production.

All three of these men form part of the “Boca” publishing experience.

The paper has been issued quarterly since 2000 and has a current print run of 10,000 copies. Adults writing for the publication are given 30 papers a week to sell at one real each (33 cents of a dollar) by way of income.

There are currently 32 people signed up to sell the paper, but only 25 are actually working at this time, Clarinha Glock, one of the project leaders, told IPS.

Three of the eight pages are dedicated to “Boquinha” (little Boca) with articles, drawings and photographs from children and adolescents, who have been barred from selling the paper since a lawyer accused the project of exploiting child labour in 2002. Instead, the 15 participants under 18 earn a weekly “grant” of 10 reals (3.30 dollars) paid to their mothers or guardians.

“Boca de Rua” is an initiative of volunteer reporters who came together in ALICE (“free agency for childhood, citizenship and education”), which also organises meetings among journalists to discuss aspects of their profession and reading groups that make a critical analysis of the media.

In this case it is “Alice in the land of inequalities,” said Glock.

The publication is one of 55 affiliated with the International Network of Street Papers (INSP), which produce about 26 million copies in 28 countries each year.

The list of affiliates includes projects in rich countries like Canada, Japan and Sweden, where the homeless benefit from this means of communication and social reinsertion or inclusion. There are also nine INSP papers in Germany, and five each in the United States and Britain. Latin American members include newspapers in Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Uruguay.

But “Boca de rua” differs from most as it only carries reports, columns and poetry by street children and the homeless themselves, stressed Glock. In some cases semi-literate authors dictate their text to the journalist-editors, but their stories and experiences are respected.

Almost all the other street papers are written by journalists and sold by the homeless.

Apart from the income, the paper represents “visibility, identity and self-confidence” for a population suffering discrimination and frequent police abuse, said Glock. The homeless learn they have rights, and are invited to give talks on their experiences and on how to make a newspaper, she added.

Access to public health services is one of the biggest problems for the homeless, she explained. Some are drug addicts in need of treatment, others are living with HIV.

The group – which has a “waiting list” of people keen on playing an active part in production and sales – carries out other activities as well.

It produces videos about Porto Alegre from the point of view of the street people, and has formed a rap group, whose “anthem” was composed by a former “Boca de rua” member, Luciano Felipe da Luz, also known as “Mercedes” for the number of times he has been hit by trucks of that make.

Da Luz died of AIDS in August 2001.

“God created the world and poverty as well, Brazil has to change,” goes his “Rap from the Boca de rua”.

Reinaldo dos Santos, nicknamed “Bahiano” after his home state, stands out in the group because of his educational level. The former law student plans to graduate from the university as an archivist and then create a larger scale “Boca de rua” for the thousands of people living on the streets or at risk of homelessness in Porto Alegre.