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Dorival Gonçalves Santos Filho worked from a young age in the landfill to help his family, dropped out of school, discovered a passion for reading in discarded books, and became a doctor at UFSC in a journey that defies any statistics about the fate of a former garbage picker, according to OCP News
At 35 years old, Dorival Gonçalves Santos Filho defended his doctoral thesis in Linguistics at UFSC (Federal University of Santa Catarina) and completed a journey that began decades earlier when he was a former garbage picker who did not even attend school. Raised in the landfill of Piedade, in the interior of São Paulo, Dorival had to work from a young age to help his family survive, and it was the books found among the waste that paved the unlikely path to the title of doctor.
Dorival’s story is not about luck. It’s about a boy who, even spending the whole day working in the landfill, found ways to study with the books that appeared among the trash or that he exchanged with work colleagues. While competing with crows and dogs for discarded food that helped compose the family’s meals, the future doctor at UFSC devoured pages that others considered useless enough to throw away.
From the landfill to the books of Machado de Assis
Dorival’s childhood was marked by necessity. As a former garbage picker from his earliest years, he divided his time between collecting materials and searching for anything that could be used by the family. The food partly came from the landfill itself. Discarded food packages by others and fruits in poor condition were recovered and competed for daily with animals that also survived there.
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Even without attending school, Dorival never stopped learning. The books he found in the dump became his private classroom, and exchanging titles with other collectors functioned as an informal library. It was like this, reading among leftovers and waste, that the future doctor from UFSC consumed almost all of Machado de Assis’s works during his adolescence. The passion for books that was born in the dump was the first sign that the trajectory of that former garbage collector would take a direction that no one around could predict.
The Bolsa Família and the return to school that changed everything
The turning point in Dorival’s life happened when his mother started receiving the Bolsa Família. With the minimum financial security guaranteed by the benefit, the former garbage collector was finally able to resume the studies he had abandoned out of necessity. Dorival returned to the classroom already grown, carrying a reading background that many formal students never accumulated, built entirely with the books rescued from the dump.
At 21, an apparently small episode completely changed the direction of his life. Dorival heard his teacher speaking French on the phone and fell in love with the language at that moment. He decided then that he wanted to speak that language one day. It was during this same period that luck knocked on the door in a concrete way: he was selected by Unesp to take the entrance exam for free. The former garbage collector who had learned to read in the dump now had before him the real chance to enter a public university.
From a degree in Literature to a doctorate from UFSC
Dorival was accepted and entered the Literature course with a specialization in Portuguese and French. The path within the university was not simple. He had to live away from his family, balance a scientific initiation scholarship with a job to support himself, and face the difficulties that accompany any student from a vulnerable background in higher education. But the same former garbage collector who had survived the dump did not let himself be defeated by academic barriers.
After graduation, Dorival and his family moved to Guaramirim, in Santa Catarina, where he began teaching. The desire to dedicate himself to academic research, however, only grew. With scholarships, he went on to a master’s degree and then a doctorate at UFSC, where he defended his thesis in Linguistics at the age of 35. The boy who learned to read with books thrown in the dump had officially become a doctor from one of the most respected universities in Brazil.
The former garbage collector who now gives back to society what he received
Today, Dorival works as a teacher for the Florianópolis City Hall. The PhD holder from UFSC who grew up in the landfill believes it is time to give back to society all the investment he received throughout his academic journey. He acknowledges that, besides personal effort and family support, he had the help of teachers, friends, and opportunities that were crucial for a former garbage collector to achieve the title of doctor.
Dorival’s story challenges the narrative that the fate of those born in the landfill is sealed. The books that society discarded were exactly what paved the way for this former garbage collector to UFSC. Each page found among the waste turned into knowledge, and each obstacle overcome proved that education can sprout in the most unlikely places when someone refuses to accept that their origin defines their future.
The journey of Dorival Gonçalves Santos Filho shows that books change lives, even when found in the landfill, and that the PhD title from UFSC achieved by a former garbage collector is the most concrete proof that no starting point is definitive.
What does Dorival’s story awaken in you? Do you believe that Brazil offers enough opportunities for other people in similar situations to follow the same path? Leave your opinion in the comments.
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