Ten-year-old children become shoe shiners in Vila de Viana

“My mother doesn't work, my father isn't working either, that's why my brother and I come here every day to shine shoes to bring food home”.

This was the justification of a ten-year-old boy named Andrade, who, accompanied by his older brother, aged 13, explained to Correio da Kianda, as the reason that led them to look for small services such as shine shoes to help parents, now unemployed.

They leave their homes early in the morning, covering distances, crossing roads, often alone, facing different difficulties, in an exercise that can be understood as a challenge to life, but in search of a little, for self-sustenance.

Despite being small and leaving their homes very early in the morning in search of food, working as shoe shiners, they claim to enjoy what they do, as they have been doing this small job for almost two years.

“My father used to tell us not to mess with what belongs to the other and that stealing means going to jail, that's why we prefer to shine shoes”, said the older brother, named Euclides.

Continuing their studies is one of the goals of the two shoeshine brothers. Andrade aged 9 and Euclides aged 12. The first says he stopped studying in the third grade, while the second studied until the fourth grade. Both pointed to financial impossibility as the reason behind the stoppage of studies.

“If my father had money, we could continue studying, but since he doesn't, let's wait one day to be older to pay for our studies, because we also want to be someone in the country”, they said.

In addition to shoeshine children, what does not stop growing in Vila de Viana, is also the number of families subsisting on handouts and small expedients, as noted by Correio da Kianda.