Gari - street cleaners in Rio de Janeiro

Between projects and while walking along the beaches and public places in Rio de Janeiro I could not help noticing the beautiful orange uniforms worn by the street cleaners. The “gari”, the street cleaners, work for Comlurb, the company that uses a bright orange as the brand colour for their employees' uniforms. The many "gari", men and women working for Comlurb keep Rio and its beaches tidy. Many of the women, especially the younger women, seemed to take good care of their looks, were done up nicely and look very pretty as a result. Spending time in the streets I started talking to some of them, and found out how much pride these women take in their job.

“Not everyone can work for Comlurb. You have to take part in a ‘concurso’, a public test, and only the best get selected." “It is a good job. We work for the council and have all our working rights guaranteed.” ”We get a lot of respect from the public.” ... were some of the comment they made. And when I mentioned that I thought they had done themselves up very nicely, some replied: “You have to make an effort, don’t you?”