Advertiser, Amazonian and gay. Victor Israel, better known as Vito, is one of the most visible influencers in the northern region of the country. For six years he has been creating content, addressing themes from the Amazon region, showing the culture, richness and Amazonian flavors. The influencer is the creator of the “Respira Amazonas” project, which sought oxygen and supplies for the state of Amazonas during the second wave of Covid, in January 2021.
Son of the great musician and composer Paulo Onça, a reference in carnival sambas, Vito always saw his father as a source of inspiration. Onça took the title of carnival champion in the 90s, through the Vitória Régia Samba School, with the theme ‘Nem Verde e Nem Rosa’. Another title came in celebration of 100 years of samba in Brazil, with the song “Ivete do Rio ao Rio”, in honor of Ivete Sangalo in Grande Rio, written by him and his partner Alan.
Vito started his internet journey with the blog “It’s for eating. “I created an Instagram account, like a blog, something that was very scarce at the time. My intention was to catalog the places I liked to eat and share with people. I loved discovering businesses that were starting and fostering the dream of that new entrepreneur. I did it the way I could: disclosing it to my, until then, few followers, consuming and encouraging my community to do the same”, comments Vito.
Today, the influencer has more than 170,000 followers on the internet, but his journey to reach that number has not been an easy one. “The path remains very hard to build a solid and engaged follower base. I lived in São Paulo, I had a consolidated career, but I didn’t see myself as belonging to that place, it was then that I turned the key and realized how invisible we, from the Amazon region, are to the rest of Brazil. Beyond the Amazon rainforest, there is a people who deserve to have their culture celebrated and praised”, says Vitor Israel, creator of the Respira Amazônia project.
Breathe Amazon
On January 14, 2021, in the second wave of Covid-19, Manaus faced the collapse of the healthcare system due to the lack of oxygen in hospitals. For days, health units were without supply in the face of overcrowding. The lack of oxygen caused several deaths. In the race to save hospitalized patients, Vito created the Respira Amazonas movement. The project had the support of the local population, of Brazil and mainly of national artists such as Thelminha, champion of Big Brother Brasil 20, singer Maria Gadú, in addition to other artists who campaigned to help save lives.
The Respira Amazonas movement got around 746 cylinders, 270 donated to municipalities in the interior and hospitals and 476 to home care in Manaus. The database of people needing oxygen for treatment at home reached more than 2,000 people. 28,000 units of PPE were donated, including N95 masks, aprons, caps, foot pads and others. There were more than 500 oximeters, 30 units of manual resuscitators, 500 units of respiron and 500 units of thermometers, most destined for smaller municipalities, through FAS (Sustainable Amazonas Foundation).
The Respira Amazonas project is still standing, now focusing on ensuring food for many families. More than 1,000 units of basic food baskets have already been donated in Manaus and in the riverside communities, as well as a ton of fish for the indigenous community in Tarumã, Parque das Tribos, the first indigenous neighborhood in Brazil.
Thinking about joining forces with another northerner, Vito and Dina Carmona, an influencer from Belém do Pará, are now together on the Papo no Tucupi podcast, a program to give prominence to the people of the Amazon.
The interviews promoted by the duo Dina and Vito appear weekly on the Youtube channel, in audiovisual and podcast on all audio streaming platforms.
In a celebration of the voices of the region, in the first season of the program, the duo invites personalities such as Vanda Witoto, leader of the Witoto people and coordinator of the movement of Indigenous Students of the State of Amazonas, to the conversation. From inherited habits like sleeping in hammocks to questioning current genocidal policies, Vanda calls on the new generation to take a path back to its origins. She questions:
“People are sometimes ashamed of indigenous ancestry, but it praises the European blood in their veins, when in fact this origin is colonizing, the result of the historical rape of women in Brazil. To build our future, it is necessary to recognize and honor our roots, and whoever was born in this territory has an indigenous history.”
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