Albanistería en La Brega: changing women's history one screw at a time

Alba Montero and Zulnette García have created Albanistería en la Brega with a drill in hand. This non-profit organization seeks to break gender barriers by developing “Do It Yourself” (DIY) and cabinetmaking skills in girls and women.

This initiative began in 2018 as a response to the gender violence experienced in Puerto Rico. At the time, Garcia, a professional mental health counselor, offered direct service to women survivors of violence in housing projects. "In those settings, I realized that there were many circumstances where women had needs to repair things in their living spaces and didn't know how to do it. This meant that they remained damaged for a long time because they didn't have the money to pay someone to fix them or that they would have to turn to male figures who were not safe for them to solve the problem," Garcia said.

So, she approached Montero and proposed offering DIY workshops - a concept that refers to the performance of any manual work related to carpentry, plumbing, electricity, furniture repair, installation, or assembly - and the use of tools for these women.

By offering the workshop, "one of the things we learned is that all the skills we taught were capitalizable. That is, that -for example- you can charge for changing a door lock, so it was a life skill given to the participants and at the same time an opportunity for economic development," both leaders observed. After this experience, they saw the opportunity to generate income by offering this workshop through a new business called Albanistería.

"Another thing we have discovered is that we still need to do some groundwork so that women can understand that they could work as handywomen or cabinetmakers," said Montero. She has been in the DIY and cabinetmaking industry for more than 30 years and, on many occasions, was the first and only woman working in the workshop.

 However, "in the last year, I have coincidentally met two women who decided to become cabinetmakers. Two women in 30 years and both are over 50 years old. I do not see that desire in young women who say I want to or can dedicate myself to this as a possibility yet," Montero added.

ConPRmetidos is currently supporting Albanistería en La Brega with a grant of $20,000. With this grant, the organization will hold two camps for young people between the ages of 14 and 17 and offer workshops to women survivors of gender-based violence.

 "We want to give them a taste of our work and let them know DIY is an alternative for them. So, if someone told you growing up that working with tools was not a “girl's job” you would now see girls using them", said García.