Fabiola and Fabian were present at COP30 and spoke about the importance of showing Amazonian reality as content creators
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The AM River Sisters, creators of the “As Ribeirinhas da Amazônia” channel, have gained fame by sharing their routine in the community and participating in COP30, highlighting the importance of showing Amazonian reality and inspiring young people.
Sisters Fabiola and Fabian Pedrosa, known on social media as “the banks of the Amazon River”, both 25 years old, spoke to… land About the work they are developing on social media through their YouTube channel of the same name, which has over 450,000 subscribers. Young women living in the community of Santa Luzia do Bari, within the state of Amazonas, have been sharing their routines in videos they have been producing since 2021.
They say the idea was brought by a friend, Mauricio Cabral, who championed the charisma of young women to be in front of the cameras. Another pair of YouTubers from Mato Grosso, Dalcio and Marilda Araújo, from the channel “Jabuti Motor Home,” saw the sisters in a video from another creator and offered their help in making the project a reality. This is because the lack of internet and electricity made it difficult to communicate and publish content on the video platform.
“At the time this happened, we traveled for about 14 hours by Rabita, in Kanoau, to the nearest town and sent them these videos in parts,” says Fabiola. “When they were able to receive them, they put the video together and released it to us.” The closest city to the community is Tefi, also located within the state.
The sisters recall with humor the moment they discovered one of their videos had gone viral and their channel would be monetized.
“At that time there was no internet in the community, so these people who were supporting us called the radio in Tefe from São Paulo, where they were, and said: ‘I want to warn the girls that their channel has 70,000 views,’” the young woman reveals.
Four years later, they say, the channel has become the main source of income for the farming family, enabling them to buy an electric generator, access the Internet at home using a Starlink device, and realize an old dream. “Today we have a boat, and thanks to the canal, which was built 10 years ago, we were never able to complete it,” says Fabian. “Today we earn income from this boat and it is one of the family’s dreams come true.”
Participation in COP30 activities
Women of the River were invited to the conference in Belém by the Foundation for Sustainable Amazon (FAS) and participated in panel discussions at the event alongside other Amazon content creators. They spoke about the importance of taking a position in the climate change debate.
“We have always had climate problems,” says Fabiola. “In our community, it takes basically two years to have access to drinking water. We have lived there for 30 years. We have had all these severe droughts in recent years. We had to dig a casimba (shallow well) for 7 days.”
Improving the living conditions of the community in which they live is also a great incentive for the work done on the canal. Residents of Santa Luzia do Bari currently have electricity, but only at night, the sisters say. The distribution of drinking water depends on this energy, and today it is only sufficient for consumption and food preparation. “There is also communication. We only communicate if we have the energy, and we don’t have the energy every day,” reveals Fabian.
They say the determination to continue the channel comes from a desire to motivate other young people in the area to share their stories.
“Our goal is to encourage more young people like us, who live in isolated places, to be able to earn an income and stay on their land, without having to leave their communities for the cities, unless it is to study,” says Fabiola.
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