Andréa raised him on her own, with a broom and an early-morning shift on the streets of Goiânia.
Twenty-two years later, her son Kawê Guilhermy graduated with a nursing degree. He was the first in the family to complete a university degree. For the photo shoot, he asked her for something she didn’t expect: to wear the uniform of the Goiânia Urbanization Company, the same one she puts on every day to clean the city.
That was when the gesture everyone would remember took place. He put on his mother’s cap. She put on the graduation cap. “The people who were there were moved”, he recounts.
Kawê knew why he was doing it. As a child, he accompanied her to work and saw how some people treated her because she was a garbage collector. “My son has always been proud of me”, says Andréa, her voice breaking. At 42, she has a degree that is hers, too.