The protagonists of this initiative are a group of women, mothers, who, taking inspiration from the figure of the Venerable Margherita Occhiena, wanted to lay the foundations of developing a tailoring workshop in the heart of the Ballarò neighborhood, at the Salesian oratory of Santa Chiara. The oratory has for decades been a place of meeting, sharing, and hope for the many diversities, social and cultural, that live this neighborhood.
A heterogeneous reality that contains people with different life stories, amid sorrows and hopes, joys and worries, united by the desire to keep smiling while interacting with lightheartedness and joy in this place that becomes unique and inimitable for them. The reason? It is the only place that makes them "dreamers" able to build a rosy path for their own and their family's future. They convey a full determination to make their own creative products, continuing, day after day, to believe in what represents a second family for them, that of the Salesians.
Marina Profeta, coordinator of the group, describes her approach to this reality and how she would like to see the workshop expand. "My commitment was born last summer, out of my own choice as a future Salesian Cooperator," she explains, "This tailoring shop represents an encounter with the women of this neighborhood, with whom we meet three times a week and together, in addition to working, creating, we try to socialize, talking about those issues that are close to our hearts, family, work, children. Here they do not feel judged; on the contrary, they share together their fears, their expectations, the desire to learn something for the future," Marina continues. "We would like to approach migrant women who have different life experiences and are rich in values. They can give us an intercultural exchange that could make our reality a dressmakers’ workshop of the world."
Fr. Domenico Luvarà, Rector of the Salesians of St. Clare, recalls the importance of their presence in the oratory: "We consider it one of our priorities to pay attention to these women through our pastoral educational project of the Community of St. Clare. Their presence here is vitally important, first of all, to work more with the youngsters, and impact them from an educational point of view, and then to support them as women, as mothers, who also need to be supported and encouraged." And it is within this overall framework that LABMAG becomes critically important to "make community."
Source: Il Mediterraneo 24
