Initially I would like to show some photos
that I selected for you today.
Would you know who these people are?
It could be, for example, in a farm near Brasília, right?
Perhaps…
It could be the lake, the North Lake.
These are citizens, but they are a special type of citizens.
They are border citizens.
And it’s a very special border for me, because it’s a border on which I grew up,
and there I maintain personal relationships, including my family.
Now imagine …
if they still consider the state in which my family lives, Roraima,
so far,
imagine at that time,
at the time I grew up in the 90s.
Roraima is part of a triple border,
along with British Guiana, Venezuela and, of course, Brazil.
These are some of the photos from my childhood.
They even represent locations that are located on the border.
These, specifically, are from the border with British Guiana.
As you can see from the photos, there is one element common to all of them,
which is water.
And that’s what I wanted to stop a little more now.
Roraima is part of the so-called Isle of Guianas.
It shares with these two territories,
Guyana and Venezuela, what would be called an island,
even because they are two countries that have entry to the sea.
However, being part of an island, it is not necessarily isolated.
And that’s what I want to pause for a little while now.
However, if on the one hand we see that it really is not an isolated area,
so where are these opportunities headed?
Some of these opportunities are directed towards Venezuela,
with the Andean Community of Nations,
or even on the side of Mercosur, here in Brazil,
or even to Caricom, the Caribbean Community,
on the Guianas side.
If, on the one hand, opportunities have not been consolidated,
there are some trends that we have already seen,
such as the migratory issue.
Like several border states,
Roraima also has several groups that go there.
The ones I’m showing are Nicaraguans,
but there are also Haitians,
there are Cubans,
there are Argentines, who are our close neighbors.
There are also Colombians.
Besides these, there are others, who come from overseas.
For example, people from Eritrea, the Gambia,
there are several groups that go there.
Again it is the seas that are connecting us,
are the waters that are carrying these people.
At present what we see is the migration, mainly of groups of Venezuelans
that due to a serious crisis of governability in Venezuela,
have emigrated to the region, mainly in search of health services, work
and care in the most diverse social areas.
Besides these groups of migrants, we also have the most traditional populations,
populations of the region.
And much of the state is of indigenous population,
there are almost ten groups that exist there.
We have the ingarikós, the waimiri atroaris,
the most internationally recognized the Yanomami, the Wai Wais and so many others.
However, being border state
and being close to other countries with serious social problems,
Roraima is not without problems.
Some of them, for example, such as the issue of unemployment, productive insertion,
life in the region.
However, there are opportunities in other areas,
for example,
of contacts that have been established with young people across the border,
who enjoy sports, mainly,
who enjoy cultural exchanges.
It is these exchanges that dynamize this border relationship.
However, although we see this integration, there are also serious problems,
which we also see in other parts of the world, such as in Europe,
where many wars were established.
Luckily we do not have it here yet.
Thus, the borders are a space that shelters a multiculturality.
I could say that there are indigenous peoples;
more than an indigenous people.
Besides the indigenous peoples, we have the migrants.
we have the very population that lives there.
At last I wanted to say that these seas,
these people who came,
which are arriving in Boa Vista, in Roraima, on our borders,
they came from seas, from distant seas.
Many of them came from [distant] locations and began to integrate this mosaic
which is the Brazilian social construction.
And just as these people who come from distant seas,
it is these seas that have increasingly connected these populations to us.
It is. Thank you.
(Applause)
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