Tarik Benzari’s eyes shine when you ask him about his daughter, who lives in Paris. Here, she says, she is “lonelier than ever.” He arrived in Spain almost two decades ago from his native Rabat and recognizes that “I have had to hit rock bottom to be well.” With his experience as a painter, upon arriving in Valencia he dedicated himself to portraiture, but it was not enough to survive. He started caring for the elderly, but when he suddenly lost his job, he also lost his accommodation.
He went through shelters and lived on the streets, until he entered the Cáritas Valencia Homeless People program. They referred her to Moda Re-, where she has been working for a year in the position of classifying products by fiber composition. He goes to work every day by bicycle, although sometimes he takes the bus, which drops him off near this plant located in Riba-roja del Túria where 20,000 kilos of used clothing arrive every day, deposited in the many containers in cities like Valencia, but also Castelló, Alicante or Teruel are located in its streets.
The clothes Tarik checks open two doors. That of the reuse and sale of it in the store that the program has in Valencia, and that of hope for people like Tarik who, mired in a thousand and one difficulties, were lucky enough to find the solidarity of others. It also happened to Geraldine Mejía, a young woman who has spent almost half of her life in Valencia after traveling from the Dominican Republic for family reunification, or to Mayerlin Carabali, almost the same age as her, who works on the automated line. . This is the first job she has had since she arrived from Colombia.
Along with them are social educators, who accompany them throughout the process. They teach them social skills, but they also help them prepare for job interviews, since the ultimate objective of this program, where they can stay for a maximum of three years, is employability. “There are cases of success, of course, but also of people who do not achieve it. For us, what is important above all is that they know how to function in society despite the problems they face, since many have addictions that are difficult to manage,” says one of those responsible.
Cáritas opened the doors of its plant this week to publicize a project of which they are especially proud, since one in every five people who participated in some socio-labor insertion itinerary managed to return to the job market.
Last year they accompanied 68,065 people on this journey to which people like María Georgina Navarrete put a face and history. His talks about personal improvement after a separation. A mother of three children, she entered the program seven years ago and three years ago she applied for an internal promotion offer through which she is today a quality technician. She likes her work, she says with a huge smile.
The Riba-roja plant has different sorting points for used clothing and is part of a project, that of the Moda Re cooperative, which boasts of being the largest used clothing collection and recycling operator in Spain and one of the largest. of Europe. There are a total of 44,000 tons of textiles, shoes and even toys – 44% of all the textiles collected in Spain – that arrive after collecting them from the 8,038 sensorized containers to speed up their management. Manuel León, manager of Moda Re-, explains that “nine out of every ten pieces of clothing end up in the landfill.”
In the program there are 1,315 people hired and more than 2,000 volunteers involved. Moda Re-, as a non-profit cooperative focused on generating inclusive employment, has more than 1,400 workers and is made up of the 44 diocesan Cáritas. “This is the best example of how sustainable profitability can be at the service of people,” says Aurora Aranda, director of Cáritas Valencia. While the visit concludes, the workers continue unloading tons of clothes. We are in spring and it is time to change our wardrobe, a good time to continue opening doors to those who need it most.
