- Title: Former 'crackland' addict turns Sao Paulo trash into livelihood
- Date: 3rd August 2017
- Summary: SAO PAULO, BRAZIL (RECENT) (REUTERS) GARBAGE COLLECTOR AND RECOVERING CRACK COCAINE ADDICT, FABIANA SILVA, PULLING HER PUSHCART THROUGH THE STREETS OF SAO PAULO SILVA PULLING HER CART SILVA COLLECTING TRASH TO RECYCLE SILVA LOADING HER CART WITH TRASH TO RECYCLE SILVA SITTING ON HER CART NEAR HER HOME (SOUNDBITE) (Portuguese) GARBAGE COLLECTOR AND RECOVERING CRACK COCAINE ADDICT, FABIANA SILVA, SAYING: "We have to clean up our planet. For our future great-grandchildren, our kids, our great-great-great-grandchildren. So yeah, we have to clean it up. I walk around a lot and I see how dirty the city is getting. You can really see it when it rains, the sewage, the way it leaves the streets that people have cross. It's dangerous and you could fall into a hole and get washed away or killed. So yeah, we have to be aware. We have to clean up our planet. We're living in it." SILVA IN A BEAUTY SALON GETTING HER HAIR STYLED FOR HER GRADUATION SILVA IN MIRROR AS SHE HAS HER HAIR STYLED STYLISTS APPLYING MAKE UP AND NAIL POLISH TO SILVA CLOSE UP OF SILVA'S FACE AS MAKE UP IS APPLIED
- Embargoed: 17th August 2017 19:46
- Keywords: Sao Paulo Brazil cracolândia crackland addict recycler crack cocaine
- Location: SAO PAULO, BRAZIL
- City: SAO PAULO, BRAZIL
- Country: Brazil
- Topics: Human Interest / Brights / Odd News,Society/Social Issues
- Reuters ID: LVA0016SLSHFN
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: Fabiana Silva called the streets of São Paulo home for 16 years as one of hundreds of people trapped in cracolandia, the open-air drug markets in South America's biggest city. Now the street has become a livelihood for Silva, who has kicked an addiction to crack cocaine and moved into an informal two-story dwelling in a nearby slum.
Silva, 38, pulls her bright purple cart by hand through the São Paulo, piling it high with more than 400 kg (800 lbs) of recyclables picked from refuse to earn roughly 100 reais ($32) per day - the only money she earns to support three children. "The street today puts food on my table," she said. Silva is one of a small army of trash pickers who comb the streets of São Paulo, home to 20 million, for materials missed by the city's official recycling trucks. "The recycling trucks can't keep up," she said. "Now imagine how much people like me have cleaned up. We've saved millions of trees because a tonne of recycled cardboard saves 22 trees from being cut down."
Silva ran away from her home in the outskirts of the metropolis at age 7 to flee an abusive stepfather, ending up in a corner of the city center where dealers sell openly to addicts living on the street. Silva described her years in the drug market as "hell." Silva said her children, including an 8- and a 14-year-old, were her motivation for quitting drugs after floating through halfway houses. "It took so much strength for me to leave that life," she said. "But along came my kids, and I just had to get out."
Having overcome her own addiction, Silva's aspirations do not end on the street. She recently graduated from middle school and will start high school this month. She plans to go to university and become a veterinarian. "I was a street girl," she said, standing outside her humble new home while on a break from recycling runs. "I left school in third grade. Now, after becoming an adult, I went back to school to graduate. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
- Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2017. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
- Usage Terms/Restrictions: None
