At Suara Cooperativa we want to dedicate this March 8, International Women's Day, to all the workers of the home care service who do essential work to guarantee a dignified and quality life to people in the aging process and/or in a situation of dependency.
“My job goes far beyond cleaning”, explains Yolanda Pérez, a worker of a Home Care Service (SAD) managed by Suara Cooperativa. When she arrives at the homes, she finds elderly people who are very alone. “These people do need someone to go to their home, to talk to them, to listen to them”, she says.
The role of the people who work in the SAD, mostly women, is essential both for the people they care for, for their families and for society as a whole. Thanks to them, people in the aging process and/or those in a situation of dependency can enjoy a quality and dignified life in their homes.
However, the work they do is very invisible and little recognized socially, mainly because it is a feminized sector and with a high number of migrants. That is why, this March 8, Working Women's Day, we want to make their transcendental work visible.
"It is a sector that is not valued, but when I enter a home and see that the person welcomes me with a smile, the rest is completely forgotten", says Pérez.
Essential
Currently, in Catalonia there are 68,000 people who work in this service, of which around 3,800 do so at Suara. In an aging population, their work will be even more essential in the not too distant future: in 2050, around 33,500 more will be needed than the nearly 60,000 that exist now.
“The current care system, anticipating the growth of people over 65 in the coming years, will soon collapse. Therefore, it is not sustainable and it is a system that we must look at and we must commit the whole of society to finding new solutions”, says Àngels Cobo, director of the Digital Transformation Office of Suara Cooperativa.
In this context, Cobo ensures that the current care model must be reconsidered and everyone must be involved in this process, including the person being cared for, their relatives and the SAD workers. In addition, technological tools must also be included that can facilitate the work of professional caregivers.
However, in a sector that is undervalued, there must also be social, political and economic recognition of SAD workers so that they can improve their working conditions and build their life projects.
Growth within the cooperative
That is why, at Suara, we promote their training and growth within the cooperative so that they can change their realities and collaborate in building the new care system.
One example is Mar Sentis, who began working at Suara 13 years ago as a family worker. Later, she rose to become a mentor for new workers and is currently part of the innovation team, specifically within the Connected Homes project, which aims to bring sensors to homes to improve care in homes.
“The cooperative promotes the professional growth of the workers and I believe that I am a clear example of this”, highlights Sentis, who also uses all the knowledge acquired at the SAD that has served her in later jobs: “Especially personal ones such as empathy, assertiveness, managing emotions and resolving conflicts”.
For her part, Pérez is studying at the Suara Campus a training course to become a family worker and grow in her professional career. “I am very happy and very grateful that Suara is giving me this opportunity. It is a step forward for me. For my training, for a job change that always goes well and, in this way, to be able to help people in a different way. This obviously empowers you”, she highlights.
This March 8, at Suara Cooperativa we want to make the work of the SAD workers visible and put them at the center. IF we want a welfare and care system to live with dignity at home, this, without a doubt, happens so that workers in the sector have decent working conditions that allow them to build their own life project.
