A social entre­pre­neur has helped bring women from a shan­ty­town in Rio De Janeiro into world­wide fash­ion recog­ni­tion. Maria Teresa Leal has helped women work out of poverty by sewing and stitch­ing cloth­ing for famous brands such as Car­los Miele, and Lacoste.

From the Chris­t­ian Sci­ence Mon­i­tor, writer Andrew Downie pro­files Leal and her work.

Coopa-Roca is the Rocinha Seam­stress and Craft­work Coop­er­a­tive Ltd. Leal started it in 1987 after notic­ing how women in the favela loved fash­ion. Leal had gone to Rocinha to help with a pro­gram that recy­cled trash, like tin or paper, into children’s toys. But when the women were given scraps of cloth, they used it to make clothes and acces­sories. Leal decided to orga­nize these gifted women.

The seam­stresses’ work has focused on cus­tomiz­ing gar­ments. They adorn cloth­ing with their trade­mark embroi­dery, cro­chet, sequins, and beads. Some­times they add their cro­chet or patch­work to prod­ucts or packaging.

Their hand­i­work has con­tra­dicted out­dated notions that work from fave­las – Brazil’s impov­er­ished shan­ty­towns – is of poor qual­ity, and Coopa-Roca now has a world­wide rep­u­ta­tion for crafts­man­ship. Its client list includes lin­geriemaker Agent Provo­ca­teur; Car­los Miele, the first Brazil­ian designer to hire super­model Gisele Bünd­chen; and Lacoste, the French label that recently hired Coopa-Roca to sew hun­dreds of limited-edition polo shirts.

Such coups have cemented Leal’s rep­u­ta­tion and won her numer­ous awards, both at home and abroad. She was named a fel­low of the Rock­e­feller Foun­da­tion in 1996, and she was hon­ored by the Ashoka Foun­da­tion, which invests in social entre­pre­neurs, in 2000, and the Avina Foun­da­tion, which pro­motes sus­tain­able devel­op­ment in Latin Amer­ica, in 2004.
…

Coopa-Roca has taught its mem­bers aware­ness of issues such as women’s health and has just signed an agree­ment with the Avon Insti­tute to give work­shops designed to raise self-esteem, teach proper makeup tech­niques, and show ways to check for breast cancer.

The work has given the women inde­pen­dence, finan­cial sta­bil­ity, and faith in them­selves, they say. They love Leal, but they have learned that this is not a nor­mal mas­ter and ser­vant oper­a­tion, no small feat in such a hier­ar­chi­cal nation.

When asked what she thought of her boss, Marta Pinto almost bris­tled. “She isn’t our boss,” says Ms. Pinto, one of Coopa-Roca’s vet­er­ans. “We work together. But in every sit­u­a­tion you need some­one to lead, to bring busi­ness, to show us what to do. Every­thing has to be done as a team. Tete [Leal] would be noth­ing with­out us, and we’d be noth­ing with­out Tete.”

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