The Coopa-Roca sewing cooperative perches high up in Rocinha, South America's largest favela or shantytown, a Cubist jumble of tin rooftops, spindly antennae, and bare-brick walls. People navigate the concrete labyrinthine passageways single-file.

Inside the cooperative on a warm afternoon, seamstresses push cloth under the needle to the sewing machines' soporific whirr, which blends smoothly with radio samba music – until fireworks erupt outside. The blast tells the neighborhood that a new load of drugs has arrived.

The seamstresses don't even glance up; they have an order to fill for their largest client, an international fashion designer. If all goes well, top models will strut these luxurious clothes on a London catwalk.

To be sure, earning money by dealing drugs seduces some of the 180,000 residents of Rocinha, but this shantytown just south of Rio de Janeiro is steadily transforming itself into an official neighborhood with legal business alternatives. One unlikely but successful enterprise has emerged thanks to Maria Teresa "Tetê" Romeiro Leal, who founded Coopa-Roca 20 years ago.

Since then, Tetê has constructed a social and economic bridge between the two disparate worlds of favela and fashion. Tetê's innovative idea of "creating value NOW!" plays with common perceptions: she takes design and labor that are perceived as "poor" (but which really are culturally rich, e.g., migrant women) and juxtaposes them with materials perceived as "luxurious" (but which are really free, e.g., fabrics that are donated, recycled, or provided by the client).

Coopa-Roca's members are women between the ages of 18 and 65. The vast majority were homemakers with no income before they joined the cooperative. Now they can now earn from 200 - 600 Brazilian reais per month (US$87-$263), depending on how many pieces they agree to sew or crochet.

The cooperative's members have migrated to Rocinha from Brazil's drought-stricken northeast region, trading the danger of rural starvation for the risk of urban violence. Here, seamstresses whisper pronouns: "My son is friendly with them, so I hope he'll be OK." "Don't point out the window, they might see you."

Although these women use prudence when navigating Rocinha's alleyways, they walk with their heads high. Their talents for fine sewing and handmade craftwork have given them change for their pocketbooks, and a new attitude.

Turning Scraps into Treasures

The "value chain" theory describes how producers overcome obstacles in order to add value to things that the market previously perceived as worthless. Today, ironically, the cooperative has succeeded in adding so much value to its products that they often are too expensive for members to purchase.

The cooperative members are women who arrived in Rocinha from northeast Brazil with sewing skills but no marketing vision, Tetê said. She had been an art educator and social scientist, and was coordinating a children's program, when she received a random donation of fabric scraps.

The students' mothers said, "Don't give that material to the kids, let us use it instead," said Tetê – and they stitched up quilts and pillows.

The cooperative movement is growing due to this entrepreneurial spirit and because it offers a secure economic and social structure.

Tetê was impressed with their brilliant color combinations and spontaneous style, but she noticed that the products took a long time to sew and rendered little income. And these women did not have a moment to spare – they truly needed (and still need) to "create value NOW!"

None of the women have a bank account, savings at home, or health insurance. When they arrive in Rocinha, they usually know only an aunt or a cousin who had previously migrated to the city.

Guided by the philosophy of the renowned Brazilian pedagogue Paulo Freire, Tetê asked the women if they wanted to form a cooperative in 1981. She believed that by working together and sharing ideas, materials, and sewing machines, the women could create items worth buying.

A Culture of Entrepreneurism

During the 1980s, before the cooperative hit its stride, it offered its wares at public art fairs and shopping mall kiosks. Because these outlets were limited, and because patchwork was considered "quaint," profits fluctuated and prices had to be kept low. Nevertheless, they consistently sold all their stock thanks to the high manufacturing quality of the goods.

Before forming Coopa-Roca, the majority of cooperative members were financially dependent on their husbands, who work as construction site assistants or taxi drivers. Poverty in Brazil is linked to racial bias: non-white women earn only 53 percent of white women's income, according to research by the Inter-Union Department of Statistics and Socio-Economic Studies.

Further, prejudice against people who live in favelas means that education and employment opportunities are few. Nevertheless, the entrepreneurial spirit here remains strong. One out of eight Brazilian adults runs a business, compared to one out of ten in the U.S. and one out of 100 in Japan. The cooperative movement is growing due to this entrepreneurial spirit and because it offers a secure economic and social structure.

Even while creating immediate value, the interpersonal commitment between the group of women and Tetê grew gradually. "Little by little, the cooperative grew to trust me," Tetê said.

Seeing the Invisible

Tetê comes from an upper-middle class family with a tradition of philanthropy and social work. The cooperative gave Tetê its full approval in 1988, seven years after it was founded, when Tetê helped buy a headquarters building with a small loan from the now-defunct National Cooperative Credit Bank.

Since all Coopa-Roca decisions were (and continue to be) made collectively, Tetê and the group argued over how the headquarters should be used. Tetê recalls, "Everybody wanted a big, lovely kitchen, because nobody had one at home, but I insisted that every square meter be dedicated to production."

The wisdom of this choice became evident when Tetê used the manufacturing site as a base to raise more money and paid off the loan early. The cooperative's president told her, "You can see the invisible."

What Coopa-Roca members see clearly now are their own creations sported by models in London, Milan, and Berlin – in addition to Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. Members attend the shows in Brazil.

"It's a huge joy. That's when we feel we are Coopa-Roca," says Marta Moreira de Mesquita, a seamstress with three children who has been part of the cooperative for ten years.

When Marta migrated to Rocinha, she kept house for a rich family but barely made ends meet. Today, the sack of stitchwork she swings onto the Coopa-Roca workshop table spills open to reveal the 35 pieces that she has completed in the past eight days.

Members sew, crochet, and stitch patchwork in their own homes, so they don't have to get outside help to watch their children. They determine their own workloads, sew at their own pace, and set their own hours.

Each member contracts individually with Coopa-Roca, but the collective meets weekly. Membership in the cooperative grew from eight members in 1982 to 16 in 2000, and has surged to 70 steady members today. Adjunct participants stretch Coopa-Roca's rolls to 90 people, and Tetê predicts that number will zoom to 120 within the next year.

Coopa-Roca's next step is to construct a new site. Five years from now, Tetê expects the cooperative to "perhaps triple" in size, and the workshop will need to expand. The current building will remain in use as a training center for new cooperative members.

From Handcrafts to High Fashion

Tetê noticed that the secret to success lies in surprising the buyer. From this she derived her socio-marketing formula that "poor plus poor equals poor, but poor plus rich equals new possibilities." Coopa-Roca's most original creations juxtapose "homestyle" techniques with unexpectedly luxurious fabrics: silk patchwork; crochet on an evening gown.

Coopa-Roca's way of evolving up the value chain is not churning out cheap bric-a-brac, but employing original craftsmanship and the finest materials to create big-ticket items. The sensorial pleasures of the unexpected are reflected in the startling natural beauty of Rio de Janeiro itself, where charcoal-colored mountains and azure skies contrast with hot sands and rolling surf.

Luxury fabrics were out of budget range until factories agreed to give Tetê silk and cotton end-bolts and remnants – but then they refused to deliver to the favela because of security concerns. A German partner linked to the European Fair Trade Association paid for a mini-van to collect the donated cloth, resulting in a no-cost solution to the raw materials supply problem.

Coopa-Roca's shift from handcrafts to high fashion was born amid the public fervor generated by Rio de Janeiro's international fashion shows in 1994. Prior to this, Brazil's fashion capital was São Paulo.

Tetê took advantage of this shift and networked in her hometown of Rio to identify fashion designers who would offer pro bono lessons to Coopa-Roca members with two purposes: teaching the basics of clothing production, and heightening members' awareness of trends. One day after the first training session, Elle and Vogue magazines came to report on the cooperative.

Tetê used fashion events to promote merchandise, showing Coopa-Roca's new clothing line at non-traditional venues like Brazil's National Museum of Fine Arts and the Banco do Brasil Cultural Center, in addition to fashion shows held at shopping malls. Cooperative members even traveled as far as Berlin, showing at the Haus der Kulturen.

At every show in Berlin, all of Rocinha's finest climbed up on stage for cascading rounds of applause. National and international media recognized the uniqueness and high quality of the seamstresses' work, and brand equity in the Coopa-Roca name grew.

The next turning point occurred in 2000, when Tetê organized an international exhibition called "REtalhar," a Portuguese word that means both "patchwork" and "to give a new shape to something." Once again mixing "high" and "low" culture, Tetê invited Brazil's best designers to imagine installation art, furniture, and clothing – confections then brought to life by Coopa-Roca's artisans.

The show included a swimsuit constructed entirely out of buttons, Japanese lanterns sewn of tiny silken circles, and a poodle-fluffy ottoman made up part of the show, and it was a roaring success. A spin-off benefit from REtalhar is that Coopa-Roca members have expanded their repertoires beyond clothing.

Styles Based on Social Exclusion

Through REtalhar, Tetê has met designers with a deep social vision. REtalhar linked Coopa-Roca with M. Officer's Carlos Miele, whose collections sell at elite shops in England, Hong Kong, the U.S. and Brazil. These clothes are based on Miele's notions of social exclusion. He mixes indigenous Brazilian textures with Afro-Brazilian visual patterns. Orders from M. Officer helped boost the number of Coopa-Roca members from 16 to nearly 70 associates.

REtalhar 2002 introduced Coopa-Roca to Oskar Metsavaht of the well-known brand Osklen. Osklen both exports clothing from Brazil and has a large and creative market within Brazil.

Osklen's designer Metsavaht is negotiating a partnership with Coopa-Roca that will likely generate another upswing in production and therefore further boost the number of artisans in Coopa-Roca. Tetê's fashion show / designer exhibition strategy has proven extremely effective in bringing mutual benefits to both designers and the cooperative.

As Tetê says, "in my opinion it would be healthier for us to link up with a group of designers rather than marry our name to one single designer. The fact that Coopa-Roca works with more than one designer demonstrates the cooperative's capacity to network within the marketplace, and it eliminates that sense of dependence that a single relationship alone can bring."

Mixing Fashion and Furniture

REtalhar 2002 was one of the high points for Coopa-Roca during the past year. Some 24 top stylists showed off the brainchildren they had handed over to Coopa-Roca in nearly 1,000 square meters of exhibition space from June through July.

The "design stars" of the fashion and furniture industries attracted big crowds and raised Coopa-Roca's profile further. Tetê also seized the opportunity to cultivate a new crop of "creatives" with a social consciousness.

REtalhar 2002 ran a contest for students poised at the threshhold of their professional careers. Of 12 student entrants, three were chosen by a panel of judges. Their sketches were brought to fruition by Coopa-Roca artisans, to stand beside the work of famous stylists.

At the same time, the seamstresses have undertaken another order for an unanticipated client: Gilberto Gil. The world-renowned crooner is releasing a boxed set of his CDs, to be entitled "Palco" ("stage" in Portuguese) and he has asked Coopa-Roca to create a fabric patchwork cover for the packaging.

The "value chain" model describes taking a product with little recognized worth and giving it a fresh twist so that it not only survives, but it flourishes in the marketplace.

"It's a technical challenge because the patches will be tiny, and each package will be unique," Tetê said. "We are thrilled to be working with Gil – everyone loves his music, and it has so much to do with Brazilian culture and the culture of Rocinha."

When Gil's design representative met with Coopa-Roca members to explain the project, the radio started to play one of Gil's songs the moment she set the CDs down on the sewing table. They all took it as an excellent sign.

Coopa-Roca currently has no competition nipping at its heels. That is to say, no other seamstresses' cooperative has attained their level of production quality plus scale. Co-ops in other Brazilian cities have invited Coopa-Roca members to speak about their success, but none have put the advice into action, at least for the moment.

Tetê offers three pieces of advice to people ready to start cooperatives in their own communities:

1. Make extensive contacts to discover the potential of your product's market
2. Stimulate collective decision-making, and continue training the group in advanced cooperative management
3. Ensure the highest quality in production and operational structure

Tetê adds that Coopa-Roca is not about unloading cloth on seamstresses, demanding that they finish shirts in 15 days, and then handing out cash. "At our weekly meetings, we decide collectively which partnerships to pursue, what to do about financial challenges, and which programs to invest our time and energy into," she said.

Coopa-Roca ran a "New Generations" program that encouraged teenage girls from Rocinha to join the cooperative. It was so successful, the young women have been requesting a sequel ever since, and the organization is seeking funding. "It was rewarding to pass on what I knew, and the girls learned a lot," said Maria Romana Faria Rodrigues, a member for four years who taught basic sewing during the five-month course. "Most had never even turned on a sewing machine before."

Rocinha has the highest teen pregnancy rate in the state of Rio de Janeiro, but none of the "New Generation" students became pregnant while studying at Coopa-Roca, Tetê notes.

The "value chain" model describes taking a product with little recognized worth and giving it a fresh twist so that it not only survives, but it flourishes in the marketplace. The able fingers of Coopa-Roca members have spun bits of stray cloth into a new source of income for themselves, and a new social awareness for both consumers and fashionistas.




Written by Shannon Walbran, a writer, nonprofit consultant, and filmmaker based in Rio de Janeiro. Reprinted with permission from Changemakers.net.

To read another Global Envision article about women empowering themselves through market opportunities see Women at Risk (WAR) Battles Prostitution Waging Weapons Borrowed from Business.