Stylist Gustavo Silvestre changes the reality of inmates through crochet

After studying fashion in Brazil and taking technical courses in Italy, stylist and craftsman Gustavo Silvestre, 39, realized how the textile industry harms the environment🇧🇷 The malaise led him to approach handicrafts and, four years ago, he began to work with crochet professionally.

Not that needles were exactly a novelty: in childhood, Gustavo already watched the women in his family always “crocheting” something. 🇧🇷I discovered in this art a way to take power and history into one’s own hands“, account.

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The connection was such that he decided to create, in 2015, Ponto Firme, project that takes crochet classes to convicts at the Adriano Marrey Penitentiary, in Guarulhos (SP)🇧🇷

In partnership with the sewing shop Novelaria, which offers a menu of manual courses in São Paulo, the stylist goes to the prison every week not only to teach, but also to provide new professional and personal perspectives for the incarcerated.

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“I believe that education and the arts play powerful roles in personal and social transformation and directly influence the reduction of violence”, he says. In addition to receiving a certificate at the end of the course modules (basic, intermediate and advanced), the inmates have reduced their sentence by one day every 12 hours in the project.

In just two years of existence, Ponto Firme has trained around 100 people🇧🇷 “I’ve already met students who, in freedom, continued to develop crochet and make many plans through it”, she recalls.

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Now, Gustavo intends to expand the project with the help of partners and develop a clothing collection with convicts🇧🇷 “It is rewarding to see their hope in build a new future based on what they learn in class”.