Viral Christmas photo prompts flood of donations and gifts
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">A 12-year-old boy and his family have received a flood of donations, after a photo of him pulling a Christmas tree out of a pile of rubbish went viral.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Gabriel Silva lives with his mother and two older brothers in a mud hut in Pinheiro, a town in northeastern Brazil, and spends most days after school digging through mountains of rubbish at the nearby dump.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">On November 8, he uncovered a discarded plastic bag containing a small artificial Christmas tree.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“I had never had a Christmas tree before,” he </span><a rel="noopener" href="https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/christmas-tree-turns-symbol-of-hope-at-brazil-dump/JMPG6HOAF5XRBIDDEB2PWMXGPI/" target="_blank"><span style="font-weight: 400;">said</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">.</span></p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
<p dir="ltr">|| <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/fotojornalismo?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#fotojornalismo</a> 📷<br /><br />O poder da fotografia. Um registro feito pelo fotógrafo João Paulo Guimarães no município de Pinheiro, a 333 km de São Luís, tem chamado atenção nos últimos dias. Uma foto tirada em um lixão da cidade mostra Gabriel, de 12 anos, que acompanhava a mãe <a href="https://t.co/eHt2BL1j2T">pic.twitter.com/eHt2BL1j2T</a></p>
— Biólogo Henrique, o Biólogo das Cobras (@BiologoHenrique) <a href="https://twitter.com/BiologoHenrique/status/1468026523785613316?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 7, 2021</a></blockquote>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The image of Silva with his find, taken by photographer Joao Paulo Guimaraes, quickly went viral.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Instead of the small tree, Silva’s home now has a giant Christmas tree inside, gifted by a benefactor who was moved by the photograph, as well as a flood of other donations.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“We’ve gotten clothes, mattresses, baskets of food. Thank God, we’ll be able to get by fine for Christmas this year,” Silva’s mother, Maria Francisca Silva, said.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The family has also received money through online collections - coming as a significant jump from the approximately 600 reais ($NZD 157) Maria Francisca makes selling recyclable materials from the dump each month.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">After an initial donation of 500 reais, the family has fulfilled a longtime wish and installed a hydraulic pump, replacing the rope and bucket they use to retrieve water from their well.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">They also hope to fulfill another wish of building an actual house.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">But Silva’s favourite gift was a bicycle he received from a teacher at school.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">He spends most of his free time at the dump with his mother, who says he always helps her.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“I prefer to bring him with me. If I let him run around in the street, he could get into drugs, do things he’s not supposed to do,” Maria Francisca said.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“He’s a good boy. He always helps me.”</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Along with a flood of gifts, the viral photo has turned Silva into a local celebrity.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“Every day, people want to take my picture, ask me things,” he said.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Guimaraes, who lives in the neighbouring state of Para, said he got the idea to shoot photos at the dump after seeing a video captured by Pinheiro’s public defender Eurico Arruda. In the clip, residents are chasing a garbage truck carrying rubbish from a supermarket.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“It was just crazy. There were probably 50 people chasing it,” Arruda said.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“That dump is like something out of the apocalypse. There are fires and smoke everywhere, vultures, dogs. It’s the bottom rung of destitute poverty.”</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Arruda hopes Silva’s photo will raise awareness of people like him and his family, and has set up a cooperative to help trash-pickers defend their rights.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The local government has also promised that trash-pickers would receive monthly welfare payments of 100 reais ($24), and has vowed to build a legal dump that complies with sanitation regulations next year.</span></p>
<p><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Images: Joao Paulo Guimaraes / Getty Images</span></em></p>
