El Ropero de Puente Ladrillo prepares its 12th container for Capiatá, in Paraguay. This shipment will be made in February and will be loaded with solidarity on the part of all the people of Salamanca that they will be able to leave clothes, sewing tools and everything they do not need, in Jesús Arambarri street, number 81, from Monday to Thursday from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. and from 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.
The wardrobe team ask the citizens for help to finish filling the container. “We will send clothes, sheets, blankets, library books and school supplies. We already have almost everything ready, but we need more clothes, sewing machines and sewing materials (pins, buttons, scissors, thimbles, fabrics, scraps…) for the seamstresses of Capiatá”, asks Chuchi Razquin, from the Wardrobe team. .
The number of shipments made to date is 11 containers since 2010. Thanks to these, a community development dynamic has been generated. 11 seamstresses have been born from capiateña women who have had the opportunity to learn to sew and earn a living with their work. At the beginning, more than 100 people worked in the seamstresses to increase the income in their homes.
The clothes that arrive from the Wardrobe shipments distributed to the poorest neighborhoods and then sold “at a symbolic price to families with the greatest needs”, explains Chuchi. They also travel books and school supplies that have allowed the opening of a school, a library and the distribution of books to other abandoned schools.
In addition, the Capiatá Central Sewing Center has been built, where several official professional training courses in cutting and sewing are taught in collaboration with the Ministry of Education. Over time they have added industrial sewing machines to do custom sewing work.
The arrival of the pandemic has made life more difficult in the city of Paraguay and soup kitchens have been opened to alleviate hunger. Currently, thanks to shipments from Salamanca and the work of the seamstresses, 37 dining rooms are kept open that feed more than 4,000 people each week. In this 2021-2022 academic year, the Capiateños have sought another alternative to sewing machines and give sewing classes to school students.
The team and collaborators of El Ropero request help from the people of Salamanca to keep the project alive and to be able to send their new container in February.
–
