Street sellers in Mallorca who are on a training programme

By the end of this month, there will be eighty trainees. | Pilar Pellicer

Andrew EdePalma24/03/2023 09:35
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The Balearic ministry for social affairs and a charity, Fundació Patronat Obrer, have established a training programme to help illegal street sellers find jobs and regularise their situation in Spain. By the end of the month, eighty people will be taking part in a programme that will last for two years. In exchange for agreeing to cease illegal selling, they will be receiving training and assistance amounting to 31 euros a day. The budget is 1.6 million euros.

Called 'T'acompanyo', this programme follows five years of work by the church charity, Càritas Mallorca, to identify the number of street vendors. Despite difficulties this presented, 230 people engaged in illegal selling in Mallorca were located.

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At an event for the trainees on Thursday, social affairs minister Fina Santiago said that the training seeks to integrate them and to establish them in public administration systems in order to guarantee their well-being and regularise their situation. "'T'acompanyo' is a new model. If it works, it will continue on a regular basis." The minister added that the most common questions they have concern possible amendment of immigration law.

Catalina Serra, the president of Fundació Patronat Obrer, which has been helping the most disadvantaged since 1907, said that "street selling is survival". One of the trainees, known as Mr. D., spoke at the event and explained that street selling is "very difficult and dangerous because you find policemen who disrespect you". "If I go on the streets to sell, I don't do it because I like it, but I don't have anything else and I have to eat. I have to pay the rent and I have to send money to my family in Senegal. If I don't work, I don't survive."