The women in the DonArsu Tot workshop – from the La Illeta Activity and Reception Center, in turn from the Addictions and Mental Health Service at Sant Joan Hospital – began looking for second-hand sewing machines and fabrics in April this year. They appealed to the public in order, once achieved, to be able to meet a solidarity goal: to sew up to 50 cushions against breast cancer.
“We have recently got the machines and we will start sewing shortly. In fact, we started yesterday,” says educator Sara Ferrando. She is in charge of the women’s workshop, which is also a meeting point where experiences are shared and activities are carried out; its members participate in initiatives that empower women and people from the LGTBIQ+ collective. Within the framework of the announcement of the project that concerns us, Ferrando explained that “these cushions are heart-shaped and help to pass the secondary effects of the surgical intervention that is carried out on women who have gone through the disease,” she said then. . For now, she adds, “we have only cut the fabrics; Earlier this month, we were already fixing up the used machines, because some of them were missing the engine.” Now they will take advantage of the next few weeks in which they attend the local social to advance work. “We already have almost everything, they brought us the machines and the fabrics last week and we are missing threads, but everything goes on”, she completes.
The project
As a reminder, this initiative is part of a collaboration that DonArsu Tot maintains with the Tarragona Association Against Cancer, from which they have been provided with the patterns to make the cushions. Regarding the activity, Ferrando previously explained that “everything arose as a result of participating in a social intervention project that addressed, among other issues, gender violence and it was proposed to create these cushions for the postoperative period.”
The young Mireia González also participates in the cushion project, who – at least at the time of interviewing her in April – was studying the Integration cycle at the Institut Gaudí in Reus and was the one who, in part, energized the solidarity project.
The members of the women’s workshop also distributed a video to acquaintances detailing the initiative and their need to obtain used sewing machines. In said piece, they defended the motto “we are all one”, making a clear reference to the union they want to promote in and from the group, that message is its foundation.
The group, in fact, pursues the same message: to create a community of women in this listening space.
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