The “Pentinant Vincles” in Lleida, which was born from a project to transform the environment, will enable four young people to offer their services to the community while also assisting vulnerable groups such as the homeless to dignify their lives
Suara Cooperativa, in collaboration with Arrels Centre Obert de Lleida, has launched “Combing Connections”, a community hair salon and barbershop staffed by young care leavers.
These young people have received training in hairdressing and barbering, skills they will now be able to put into practice at this centre. Among other groups, they will provide services to people experiencing homelessness with the aim of helping restore dignity to their lives. However, these will not be the only beneficiaries, as the service, officially inaugurated this Monday, will be open to the entire community.
During the launch event held on Monday, attendees were able to watch a live demonstration of the skills of the young professionals involved in the project: a young barber, another young man working as both barber and hairdresser, and two young women specialising in African braiding.
Among them was Walid Karttasou, who had already worked as a barber in his home country. “Being able to practise my profession here and now while also providing a service to the community is very rewarding,” says Karttasou.
One of the distinctive features of “Combing Connections” is that the professionals involved will not receive financial compensation. Instead, the initiative is based on an exchange of knowledge, through classes, workshops or services that clients and community members can offer in return.
The participants who completed the hairdressing and barbering training are young care leavers currently living in housing managed by Suara Cooperativa, where they take part in an employment integration programme. These young people often have limited contact with the wider community. Through this initiative, the aim is not only to strengthen their professional skills but also to help them build community connections and facilitate their social and labour integration in Lleida.
“Suara Cooperativa’s mission is to transform the social environment, and this project achieves that goal in two ways. On the one hand, it promotes the social and labour integration of the young professionals involved in ‘Combing Connections’; on the other, it helps improve the lives of many people in the community who cannot afford the cost of visiting a barbershop or hair salon,” explains Laura Cortés, social educator for Suara Cooperativa’s housing programme for young care leavers in Lleida and leader of the project.
Community Transformation Projects
“Combing Connections” is part of Suara Cooperativa’s “Community Transformation Projects”, through which the cooperative funds initiatives proposed by its members with the aim of improving the lives of service users and their communities. These projects embody Suara’s essence because, as a non-profit cooperative, we reinvest our surpluses in social initiatives in line with one of the values that lies at the heart of our identity: social responsibility.
At the same time, Suara Cooperativa operates through a horizontal and democratic governance model in which all members participate in decision-making. Participation is therefore another of our core values. In this context, the selection of projects to be funded begins with a participatory process in which members vote on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that they wish to prioritise.
Members then submit their initiatives, which must always involve cooperation with other services or organisations and fall within one of three categories: services, aimed at improving service provision and support for beneficiaries; community, focused on enhancing the local environment and community in which services operate; and global, dedicated to supporting an international project. In this way, the process reflects Suara Cooperativa’s third core value: proximity, since the proposals emerge from and are developed together with local communities.
Finally, the projects that receive funding are selected through a vote by the cooperative’s members. As a result, it is the members themselves, through a participatory, horizontal and democratic system, who decide how this portion of the cooperative’s surplus is invested.
“Combing Connections” was one of the most highly voted proposals by Suara Cooperativa’s members within the services category.
