You can get a Uber in many places around the world, however, not in northern Sao Paulo's Brasilandia. A local app is filling the gap as our correspondent Paulo Cabral reports.

Brasilandia is a poor neighborhood in northern Sao Paulo. Crime and crumbling infrastructure are serious problems in this region. And this often limits the population's access to services - like transportation. Multinational Uber - for example - does not send drivers here. A message comes up instead informing customers that the service is not available in this area. We wanted to ask Uber about its policies here - but the company didn't reply to a request for comment.

DEBORA LUCIS PHOTOGRAPHER "There's much prejudice with our region. More than once I was stuck here late at night because there are no buses at this time and I couldn't get a taxi or a driver from an app to pick me up here. All I could was ask friends for lifts."

PAULO CABRAL SAO PAULO "The fear of crime and the poor infrastructure in the region proved a business opportunity for local entrepreneurs. Partnering with drivers from the community itself, they created a homegrown alternative to Uber, to serve locations where the multinational company refused to venture."

Alvimar da Silva - born and raised in Brasilandia - created the similar-sounding 'UBRA' about one year ago, working with his family. Initially they took calls by phone and messaging services to connect customers with local drivers. Now they also use a smartphone app.

ALVIMAR DA SILVA FOUNDER, UBRA "We feel abandoned by these transport companies, but I can't say it's really absurd that they don't want to come here. To work in these suburbs you need the knowledge, to understand the codes. For example, our drivers don't leave their phones showing and we know the locations where we have to drive carefully, with our car windows opened to be seen from the outside."

Ubra now has about 60 drivers working regularly with them - and a couple hundred more who come and go on their own terms -- to make extra-cash when needed. It became the primary source of income for Diogenes da Silva about four months ago. He says he's happy with the wages he makes driving people around in the community where he's lived all his life.

DIOGENES DA SILVA UBRA DRIVER "We drive in areas considered to be risky. But I think there's risk everywhere. We go everywhere, to places where other services do not get to. We do it during the day, late at night, anytime, short and long rides."

For people in this neighborhood, Ubra has made getting around easier while also creating jobs and a new company inside the community. Paulo Cabral, CGTN, Sao Paulo.