A solidarity food bank has been launched to help the families of street vendors who are out of work. The manteros, or street vendors from Top Manta, have turned their store in Barcelona’s Raval neighbourhood into a sewing workshop, where they produce material for Catalan hospitals, specifically masks and medical gowns.
They have started production with eight sewing machines and their own fabrics, which have allowed them to start creating a thousand masks. They will continue to work by joining the initiative launched by surgical cap company RobinHat, from Rubí, and the Sentmenat City Council, and which already has some 2,000 volunteers throughout the country.
The street vendors have a dressmaking workshop, where they make the pieces for the Top Manta collection and make and stamp orders for other entities or companies. In recent years, they have developed professional dressmaking skills. Now, in the face of the crisis caused by the coronavirus, they have decided to rededicate their normal activity to assist medical personnel.
To do this, they have had to adapt their space, maintaining the 1.5-meter distance between workers established by the government, while also observing all the occupational health and safety regulations derived from the coronavirus.
The price of the coronavirus for manteros
Street vendors are paying a much higher price for the coronavirus crisis. Those who work by selling their goods on the street find themselves without a job, and many have trouble paying the rent and affording basic necessities like food.
For this reason, the Association of Street Vendors has created a solidarity food bank. These days, they are distributing milk, cooking oil and basic necessities, which at the moment have reached 154 families who cannot work and have no aid or social benefits.
Consequently, the street vendors have also opened a checking account to receive donations (ES22 3025 0001 1614 3359 2200; Account Name: Asociación Popular de Vendedores Ambulantes de Barcelona; Reference: Food Bank Donation) as well as a PayPal account ([ Ссылка ]). They have also made an email address available to anyone who wants to collaborate (bancodealimentosmantero@manteros.org). Help is essential because the survival of hundreds of families depends on it.
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Somos un sindicato popular de vendedores ambulantes que intenta dar voz a los manteros, para poder denunciar el racismo, la persecución policial y la exclusión social que vivimos. Hemos decidido organizarnos y luchar por nuestros derechos básicos, por que somos trabajadores y no mafias como algunos medios tradicionales dicen.
Desde este canal compartiremos entrevistas y relatos de compañeros vendedores para que la sociedad conozca de manera directa la palabra, y saber quiénes somos y cual es nuestra lucha.
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