Female-led Andalusian care cooperative celebrates 25th anniversary

Claros, a social and healthcare company dedicated to the care sector in Andalucía celebrated its 25th anniversary at the Caja Rural Granada auditorium on Monday 20 April.

Claros started when five women working in the care sector decided to merge their cooperatives into one larger organisation to provide a greater range of services to patinest and users.

President of the association, Sebastián Girón Vallejo, said, "I have also been there for 25 years and many people and situations come to mind, but always with a smile on my face".

The care that the first co-operatives provided to older people has been transformed into home help services, residential centres for older people, day centres and early childhood care centres. This last "small arm started in 2011". Thanks to all this, almost 3,000 people are employed and 16,000 users are cared for. The vast majority of them are dependent older people.

In 2001, five small Andalusian cooperatives formed by women, Linasur (Linares), El Cerro and Abre Caminos (Seville), Costa Sur (Motril) and Multisap (Úbeda), decided to join forces to give the greatest possible support to the care of the elderly and people in situations of dependency and vulnerability. From this fusion of forces and enthusiasm, the cooperative Claros S.C.A de Interés Social was born.

Three of the founding members, Chari Fernández Román, Maru Megina Navarro and Quina Pascual Martínez could not be more excited and happy about this well-deserved recognition. They are all pioneers in Claros, but they had been pioneers before in the province of Jaén as members of the Linasur cooperative.

"It is a reward for so many years of hard work," says Chari. They began in 1986 thanks to their founder Alicia Mairlot Galán, a secondary school teacher who left her job "to give women without resources a job opportunity". At that time there were few members, little training and a low number of users. In fact, they combined caring for the elderly with cleaning jobs. Linasur gave hope to people living on the margins of society or with very few resources.

"We were going through a difficult period due to labour problems. There was competition and more companies doing this. We were small and we knew that we weren't going to have much of a future". Joining forces with other co-operatives was the only way to become stronger, and although there was "fear and uncertainty" and people who told them it was madness, "we fought and put all our effort into it. We learned what a co-operative was, its values and what it meant to share with other people". Becoming part of Claros made them grow "as people and as workers".

For Maru Megina, Monday's event was "a moment to remember with gratitude those women who believed in this". Along with the aforementioned Alicia Mairlot, Victoria Peláez also played an important role in the beginnings in Seville.

The profile of those first Claros women has changed radically, but in the beginning there were many moments of generosity. "The initial group had basic training and that was a challenge because it was decided that they would only work part of the time and dedicate the other part to training. Together we paid the full salary of these people because they needed it to live on". These gestures "demonstrate cooperation".

After retiring, Quina Pascual maintains her status as a partner of Claros. "I remember the past, the good and the bad and the people who have been important". When they merged into Claros they say "we were mothers with no resources and no training. The partners who join now do have it and they do it because they like the project and not because they are in need. Everything has changed for the better".

Claros is "a cooperative company with objectives and two sides: the corporate and the entrepreneurial" in the opinion of the general manager, Antonio Richarte. That is why they are constantly growing. "We are at a very good moment. A very strong commitment has been made to care in Andalucía and we are dedicated to it, to older people, the vulnerable and those in need of help".