Textile workshop

During the 4th transnational meeting within the Erasmus+ project MILMET, which took place in Trieste (Italy) from 3 to 5 May 2023, partners from France, Romania, Greece, Spain and Italy, could participate in a workshop on textile recycling, organized by Duemilauno Agenzia Sociale, hosting organization, in cooperation with the local stakeholder Lister Social Tailoring.

Lister, a social cooperative for work inclusion, from its start decided to implement the proper entrepreneurial activity in the field of green and circularly economy! In this way Lister contributes to create solutions focused on two important issues: the inclusion of people with vulnerabilities (mental health, migration etc.) in the labour market, and tackle environmental challenges.

During the workshop, which has been proposed several times also to the young unaccompanied Minors hosted in our communities, participants could acquire two types of knowledge: the technique of transforming a broken umbrella into a creative bag and the necessary professional Italian language skills. In a continuous act of communication with the professional trainers, they collected, dissembled and sew up broken umbrellas, transforming them into new colourful backpacks.

Important is also to stress Lister’s philosophy on which is based the activity: work with what comes from the territory! The collection and recycling of broken umbrellas has its own history. During rainy and windy days (through a wind called BORA), in Trieste citizens throw their broken umbrellas into bins, if not simply in the street corners. Lister works with schools, fair-trade shops and its own workers, in between migrants, to give these umbrellas a second life.