Rio homeless's stories become a Facebook hit

A Facebook page called Rio Invisível (“Invisible Rio”) has had more than 20,000 likes and attracted about a thousand followers a day with heartwarming stories of homeless people. Each illustrated with a photo, they are first-person accounts providing some insight into each subject's background and living conditions. Stories are often tragic, usually sad, but most are filled with hope.

The page went live on September 2, created by journalist Yzadora Monteiro and advertising creative Nelson Pinho, both aged 23. They took inspiration from a similar page called “SP Invisível” about São Paulo, which has nearly 74,000 followers. “Even as we created the page, I wandered around for a week before I felt comfortable enough to take the first picture. The first person I interviewed was a man I always used to see on my way to work,” Ms Monteiro recalled.

The purpose of their initiative, she explained, is to turn the spotlight on a still widely unknown world and give some visibility to a part of the population that many people do not seem to care to notice. “We try not to get judgmental, because we used to have a lot of bias at first. We used to ask questions like, 'is it hard to live on the street?', or, 'do you like living here?' Now, we ask simply, 'what is it like to live on the street?'” she pointed out.

Visitors' comments show people are touched and inspired by the stories and offer to help. “We ask if they [street dwellers] are in need of something, and where we can help, we do so right away. It's so nice to get involved that some followers have set up a new group called Rio Invisível, Mãos à Obra [which would roughly translate as “Invisible Rio – Taking Action”] designed to get people to help,” Ms Monteiro told Agência Brasil.

So far, there are a total 12 stories. The help efforts have resulted in the subjects being offered goods to sell, receiving job offers. One of them who used to stage gigs was given a guitar. Ms Monteiro looks surprised at the impact of the project: “Many people ask if the stories are true – some are so striking that it they hardly seem real.”

“Even we sometimes wonder if our interviewees have made them up. But we don't really care much about it – the key is really letting them be the subjects of their own stories – [portraying them] the way they want to be seen, [telling] the story they want us to tell about them. So it just turns out it's all real, because the meeting really happened and the stories were really told.”

Other Brazilian cities have created their own pages, like Curitiba Invisível and Fortaleza Invísível. One source of inspiration was Humans of New York, which began in 2010 with pictures and stories of ordinary people.

Translated by Mayra Borges