Previously, a meeting between friends from Jardim Jaqueline, a neighborhood in the West Zone of the city of São Paulo, to exchange ideas and experiences and to discuss day to day challenges. Now, this conversation has become a business: production and sale of dish towels. The Papo de Mulher Craft Coop is one of the activities of the Clean Easement Strip Program, a Transpetro initiative that promotes environmental education, improvements, preservation and income generation in the communities located along the pipeline easement strips.
The coop is coordinated by the  GEA Institute – Ethics and Environment. The President of the Institute, Ana Maria Domingues Luz, describes that since the women made dish towels, a business enterprise was considered, a coop. To transform the idea into reality, the first steps were the establishment and implementation of the coop, the purchase of raw materials (fabric, ink, industrial sewing machine). In addition to technical training and the development of a business plan.
“To see the business up and running was exciting”, remembers Ana Maria, adding that the main initial barrier to the enterprise, selling the production, was overcome by sales to other neighborhoods and in street markets.
Since some of the women did not have income from working, the revenue from the coop resulted in improved self-esteem. “The money I used to spend at the pharmacy, now I spend it on myself”, said Isabel Aparecida Maciel do Amaral, one of the coop members.