The project started in the countryside of Maranhão in 2017 and is now present in several communities across the country
Located in the countryside of Maranhão, between Vargem Grande and Cantanhede, on the border of the Amazon and the Cerrado, lies Quilombo Rampa — a quilombola territory with more than 200 years of history. Officially recognized by the Palmares Foundation around two decades ago, electricity only reached the territory in 2004, and the internet arrived in 2017. It was from this community that Quilombo Radio and TV, the first quilombola media outlet in Brazil, was born.
What makes the initiative unique is the use of what founder Raimundo Leite calls ancestral technology – equipment they create themselves. “We adapt modern technology to our reality. For every need, we look for a solution within the community itself, especially one connected to nature. That’s how we developed the Bamboo Drone, one of the most incredible tools in the project. With it, we can capture aerial footage, especially of the roda de tambor, our most important cultural celebration”, explains Raimundo.
From cell phones to tablets and microphones, the equipment blends with natural materials, giving it an ancestral character. “We also wanted to inspire reflection on the fact that technology is always accessible within our communities. In other words, it’s something we’ve always used, even today, despite all the modern advancements”, he emphasizes.
Ancestral Technology
It all started playfully. Using a cardboard camera, a bamboo tripod, and a stick as a microphone, Raimundo Leite and his cousin William Cardoso founded Quilombo Radio and TV in 2017.
“We started doing reports at local soccer fields in a very relaxed way, using the cardboard camera to get closer to what we really wanted—to create a TV station for the community. From there, that camera became a powerful tool in our hands”, recalls Raimundo.
With technology crafted from nature and a lot of creativity, what started as play quickly evolved into a professional initiative recognized nationally. “Even though it may have looked like a joke to others, for us, it was something very serious. We proved day by day that it was possible. The bamboo tripod, the cardboard camera, and the bamboo drone worked in real life”.
Quilombo Radio and TV
Today, the radio has its own FM station and broadcasts nationwide through the Google Play Store. The TV produces video reports and shares them on social media. The main idea is to tell, or not tell, their own stories, as Raimundo explains.
“What matters more than what is shown is what is kept hidden. Even though this is a media project focused on visibility through videos and photos, there are things that cannot be shown. We also bring this understanding that quilombola communities have sacred people, times, and spaces that must not be exposed”.
The stories are told at the pace set by the community itself. The team also provides support for Indigenous communities. Last year, they attended a gathering in Manaus. Earlier this year, they organized their own gathering, bringing together nearly 70 grassroots communicators in their territory. Quilombo Radio and TV has already partnered with communities in Bahia, Goiás, São Paulo, and Rio de Janeiro. Recently, they visited the Kalunga Quilombo in Goiás to support Rádio Kalungueira.
Quilombo Rampa
Raimundo recalls, with excitement, how the community embraced the idea of creating media tailored to their reality. “Everything you’d see about quilombola communities in Brazil was made by outsiders – theses, college projects, news reports. There wasn’t a single community telling its own story. From the moment we started, back in 2017, we managed to break many stereotypes about us”.
“Our goal isn’t to create a counter-narrative, but rather to tell the real narrative – the truth of what exists within the community, the story as it is, told by those who are meant to tell it. Our project was born with this difference: it doesn’t bow to what traditional media imposes, nor to the way it operates. We have autonomy. We do what needs to be done through our own lens”, he continues.
“In 2018, our quilombola territory turned 200 years old. With the TV, we wanted to document this historic moment for ourselves and for other quilombola people from our community who were living elsewhere. Little by little, we started connecting with other communities and with people from farther away. Several TV stations wanted to cover our project. We even appeared on national television, on Globo. We were on Luciano Huck’s show”, he says proudly.
Quilombola Youth
The Rampa territory is home to about 500 people, living across four certified communities and other smaller villages. In Quilombo Rampa alone, where Raimundo was born, there are 270 residents.
Raimundo graduated in geography from the Universidade Estadual do Maranhão – UEMA (State University of Maranhão, in English) and is currently pursuing a master’s degree in African and Afro-Brazilian Studies at the Universidade Federal do Estado (UFAM) (Federal University of Amazonas – UFAM, in English). He shares that he became a reporter, presenter, cameraman, director – pretty much everything related to media – by learning on the job.
Around 60 young people are involved in the project. There are several partnerships both within and beyond the community. One of them is Medonha Tranças, a braiding collective. “Quilombo Radio and TV came to empower us,” says Mary de Jesus, who founded the collective alongside three other women. The community also has a public library and plans to open a community kitchen soon.
These and other achievements are remembered with joy by Raimundo. Quilombo Radio and TV participated in an exchange program in the United States at the invitation of the U.S. Embassy. They also attended the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Japan in 2023, advocating for internet democratization in marginalized communities.
Additionally, they participated in COP28 in Dubai, raising the demand that “communities are not being heard the way they should be”. Raimundo was also voted one of the most admired Black journalists in Brazil. “We were among the 50 most admired Black journalists in Brazil for two consecutive years, in 2023 and 2024”, he shares.
“Sometimes, we don’t even realize how powerful we are. That gets lost in everything we’ve already achieved. But we’ve managed to make things that once seemed far from our reality accessible to everyone. The generations before us were essential in resisting so we could have access to this today”, he emphasizes.
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