Albanistería marks 1st year of leading women into self-sufficiency
The Albanistería workshop is marking its first anniversary as an organization helping women and girls build a path to self-sufficiency by learning to skills in repairs and construction work.
The project located in Bayamón, and founded during the COVID-19 pandemic, has already trained more than 320 women and 60 girls since 2020, including a cabinetmaking internship.
Albanistería has also struck alliances with companies such as Bermúdez & Longo among others, which have shown solidarity by offering scholarships to students and “are committed to evaluating suitable candidates for jobs,” said Zulnette García-Ramos, administrator of the Albanistería workshops.
“We decided to open a space to teach other women to use tools and learn how to fix things at home with a caring, loving, conscious learning model, where we work fighting the culture that has historically told us that we cannot and do not know how to do that kind of things,” she said.
Cabinetmaker and Founder Alba Montero teaches her students to repair a lock, a leak under the sink, or fix a drawer door, among many other things, “without having to depend on anyone.”
Now, Albanistería is moving to another stage, in which it puts this project at the service of the fight against gender violence, the women said.
The nonprofit has already offered the basic workshop to participants from Hogar Ruth and Casa Protegida Julia de Burgos, and it intends to replicate these workshops in other shelters and organizations that support women.
In the first five-hour workshop, the students develop strategies for planning, taking safety measures and assembling wooden pieces, they learn mathematical and theoretical terms, how to remove screws and use tools such as the jigsaw, hammer, and drill.
Albanistería seeks to increase the scope of this support to be able to expand the facilities where the classes are taught, buy materials, and continue offering scholarships to those students who cannot afford the workshops. Donations may be sent to Albanistería through ATH Móvil or Paypal.me/Albanisteriapr.
