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BRAZIL: Delivery Boy Newshounds Show Life in Sao Paulo

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jun 18 2008 (IPS) - Cleyton Perroni’s motorbike has been a part of his life since he was 12. But 19 years later, its role changed from recreation to an essential working tool as, equipped with a cell phone, he became a reporter of daily life in the Brazilian city of Sao Paulo.

The first transformation, nine years ago, “was out of necessity,” when he found himself unemployed after losing his job as packaging manager for a store. Perroni’s life changed completely. He left his sedentary office existence and gained the “freedom” of the streets, delivering small parcels on his motorbike.

But he also assumed the risks facing the “motoboys”, as the delivery boys are known in Brazil. In Sao Paulo, one motorcycle courier dies every day, or more precisely, on average or 371 per year were killed between 2000 and 2006, according to the Traffic Engineering Company (CET), a branch of the city government.

Motorcycles make up one-tenth of the total number of vehicles on the city’s roads, but they are involved in one-quarter of fatal traffic accidents. The proportion is not the same everywhere, but tragedy stalks the mushrooming number of motoboys and moto-taxis, which has reached three million all over Brazil, a country of 188 million people.

Moto-taxis are devoted primarily to the transport of persons, and they are more common in the interior of the country. There are hardly any in Sao Paulo, but they do operate in other large cities, like Rio de Janeiro.

Perroni, now 40 years old and with only a technical course in accountancy to his credit, equivalent to a secondary education, earns a little more than the average wage of local motoboys, which is about 1,200 reals (730 dollars) a month, from his two steady delivery contracts.

Last year he gained a new perspective on life, using the same motorbike and cell phone that are indispensable to his work. “Today I go about the city with a new way of seeing things; the Channel opened my eyes to a reality that I didn’t use to see before,” he told IPS.

The Motoboy Channel he was referring to was opened 13 months ago by Antoni Abad, a Spanish artist who uses digital technology in video and installation art and works in several countries, primarily with discriminated groups, including migrants, the disabled, prostitutes and gypsies, as well as taxi drivers and motoboys.

Abad initially persuaded 12 Sao Paulo motoboys (women make up about one-fifth of the group, who now number 24) to record their daily life in Sao Paulo, using their cell-phone cameras.

Accidents, crimes, water pollution, traffic jams, street protests, street art like graffiti and sundry other events make up a visual diary of the city, in photos, video or short texts that are instantly webcast on the Motoboy Channel’s (canal*Motoboy) web site.

The project was supported in 2007 by local cultural institutions and Spain’s development aid programme. Perroni and some of the other members are taking journalism and website editing classes at the University of Sao Paulo.

In future the group plans to share its experience with other Brazilian cities, said Perroni, who took part in the Free Media Forum held in Rio de Janeiro last weekend and made contacts with motorbike delivery boys there.

“We report on what’s happening all over the city, we go where the police and journalists never go, like the ‘favelas’ (shantytowns),” he said, with obvious pride in his work.

“We show what it’s really like to live in extreme poverty, and we bring visibility to groups of people who are neglected by the state,” he said, adding that he lives in the centre of Sao Paulo but is constantly riding around the poor neighbourhoods on the outskirts of the city because of his work.

Motoboys are “ubiquitous, because we keep an eye on the whole city,” said project coordinator Eliezer Muniz, who has just earned a philosophy degree after 15 years of working as a motorbike delivery boy.

Delivery boys are a fountain of knowledge about the city, and especially its chaotic traffic conditions, and as such they take part in forums where solutions to urban problems are being sought.

Canal*Motoboy has also opened up an educational opportunity for delivery boys, who are poor and lacking in formal qualifications and who number “between 150,000 and 300,000” in the city of Sao Paulo, according to their trade union representatives.

Perroni said he has “wider dreams and horizons” and wants to “make a professional living as an artist.”

“They are growing as people, too,” Muniz told IPS. “It’s not only the technology they use that is advancing.”

The new photo-journalists have played a leading role in a photographic expedition to two reservoirs that supply a large part of Greater Sao Paulo’s drinking water, organised by the non-governmental Socioenvironmental Institute (ISA) to raise awareness and safeguard the water sources of this city of 18 million people, where the water system is on the verge of collapse.

These activities help to reduce the discrimination suffered by motoboys, constantly portrayed by the media as aggressive drivers who cause accidents and make traffic more dangerous.

The spectre of hired killers with their faces hidden by motorcycle helmets has caused several Brazilian authorities to try to ban passengers on motorbikes. In some northeastern cities, the use of helmets is prohibited, creating a safety risk.

To counter the prejudice, Muniz imagines “10,000 motoboys” reporting by text, photos and videos from all over the country, in a new-style news agency that will offer a different, wider and more democratic view of urban life.

The movement pursues communication, art, and education for the motoboys. In May a Motoboy Culture Week was held in Sao Paulo, which showcased the work of a large number of artists from the favelas.

“A revoluçao cultural dos motoboys” (The Motoboys’ Cultural Revolution) was the headline under which the May Brazilian edition of Le Monde Diplomatique reported the event.