The campaign to collect food and clothing is already a Christmas tradition at MIT School. This year, the solidarity of the students will benefit the shelter Casa Pepe Bravo, a therapeutic community where 20 people live. Many of them are adults at risk of social exclusion, but there are also young people who live there to take a breather from specific family situations. What joins them is that everyone is trying to overcome difficult life situations (drugs, domestic violence, mental health…) through coexistence and through the recovery of artisan professions.

This house’s name is not random. At the end of the 70s, the engineer Pepe Bravo created a textile cooperative for the village women. After a remarkable success in the manufacture of clothing -among their clients were El Corte Inglés and Zara, for example- they found themselves having a hard time due to the crisis. However, Bravo had already introduced a social, cultural and educational element in the company, that combined its roles as shelter with the therapeutic work related to the typically Andalusian crafts (pottery, carpentry, ironwork, leather…)

Today, this integration project depends on donations and volunteers, even if they get some extra revenues from the craft store. This shop shows not only the work of the residents but also the one of professional artists who have found a place to sell under the protection of Pepe Bravo. The MIT School educational community, admired for this enterprising  initiative of self-improvement, will try its best to keep the Casa running and providing a healthy alternative of life for those who need it most.