Laundry Project helps people regain dignity through access to water and helps the environment by preventing the rapid disposal of clothes
Have you ever stopped to think about how homeless people wash their clothes? Well, most of the time they don’t wash them. They use the pieces for about 10 days and then throw them away.
In 2013, Lucas Caldeira created a social mobilization project to talk to people sleeping on sidewalks to understand their needs and distribute items such as blankets, hygiene products and clothes. A few years later, when he met those he assisted again, about two weeks later, he began to notice that they had already discarded the pieces they had received.
“A garment that lasted at least 5 years, 8 years, wouldn’t last 10 days,” Lucas explains (watch the video of the interview above) about the lack of access to water so these people could wash their clothes. “Where can you wash your clothes? In the sewer? In the hostel that has terrible opening hours?”
From this realization, he says he began to feel guilty for contributing to the cycle of scavenging and discarding parts by those he helped and for the environmental impact that practice caused. “It takes more than 12 thousand liters of water to produce a pair of jeans,” recalls Lucas.
So he did research, talked to other initiatives, took courses and learned about the social laundry. that’s how Laundry project. “It’s the first social laundry with its doors open for the homeless,” she says.
The project has a space near Cracolândia, located in Campos Elíseos, a neighborhood of São Paulo (SP), and offers not only laundry, but all the necessary sanitation services. “Clean clothes don’t always solve 100% of hygiene problems. What’s the point if my body is dirty?” she says.
Laundry project structure:
- Industrial laundry
- 3 changing rooms
- 8 showers
- 4 toilets
- Sinks
- drinking fountain
- Towels, brushes, toothpaste, razor and shaving cream, deodorants, perfumes, cotton balls, moisturizers and other hygiene items
- Underwear and socks
The services have symbolic values: a bath costs R$1 and washing up to nine items of clothing costs R$4. The cost per service is R$21 and the difference in value is subsidized through donations.
More than 2,200 toilets and 14 thousand tons of washed clothes have already been offered in the space. Lucas concludes by saying that it offers more than just water, “it offers dignity, self-esteem, relationship saving, new access and health for those on the streets, through a dignified, clean space, where people feel comfortable coming in.”
Watch the video of the interview at the beginning of the article.
Source: Terra
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