A worker linked her job, study and sacrifice to become an industrial engineer and is still attached to the only occupation of her life.
Milbia Hernández had no hope of returning to her second home. She says: «It was not a miracle that allowed me to meet again in the factory with my colleagues and to continue to love the work of drawing, cutting, sewing…»
Two phenomena tried to keep her away from sewing, the only occupation in her life that she has been doing for more than three decades, in the Clodomira Acosta textile workshop in the town of Velasco, in the Avilanian municipality of Primero de Enero.
She refers that «Hurricane Irma wreaked havoc in our work center in 2017; on the other hand, it was demonstrated that it was indeed possible to have better lighting and ventilation, new furniture and other benefits after the damage to the roof that the wind took away was repaired.
«Despite that difficult stage, we never stopped working because the seamstresses who had machines in their homes, continued to laboring, and in the home of one of them we concentrated most of the chores until we achieved the finished product.»
The storm passes and three years later comes another «storm». Because, she says: «COVID-19 interrupted the productive rhythm between April 14 and July 1, 2020, but the pandemic could not stop us either because we collaborated in the investigations, distributed medicines at home and carried out other actions to confront the pandemic».
Back at work, with buttons, thread and fabric to cut, she and her colleagues began the recovery stage of the unit’s production plan, and as a teacher of trades, she is now dedicated to the effort to complete the collective of seamstresses. One of her students, young Dianelys Rodríguez Santos, said: «I had never made a stitch before, I already make face masks and I am still learning».
Annabel García, administrator of the Clodomira Acosta workshop, emphasized: «Milbia linked work and sacrifice to get into sewing, become a quality technician, a specialist mainly in our workshop, take care of her family, study and study until she graduated as an industrial engineer, that is why this courageous woman has been able to sew and sing victory».
