Maria Vargas Puin is a Colombian entrepreneur and mother who is dedicated to the beauty industry (she has a hair salon in Bogota), but also beautifies the lives of many vulnerable people in her country through teaching, donation campaigns and other social aid activities. In this interview for the 3Love Inc. blog, we talked with Maria about the different campaigns she and her family have carried out to train and empower hundreds of women, give shoes to 1500 children, help mothers who have children with cancer, give clothes and other donations to those displaced by the armed conflict, among other activities.
How did this desire to organize activities and donation campaigns in favor of the most vulnerable in your country originate in you?
My family and I come from a very humble background. We went through very difficult situations during our personal and professional growth. So, that is what drives me to contribute to the people who need it most.
Tell us about the project for which you provided training to the girls and women of Nueva Venecia. What did the training consist of and how many people did it benefit?
The training consisted of empowering women who are heads of households and girls to have a financial opportunity. What we did was to teach them what we know in the beauty field: haircutting, brushing, manicure, pedicure, that is, everything we know how to do at a professional level. Those were the trainings that my sister and I gave in Nueva Venecia. There we trained between 100 and 150 women who are heads of households, but there were also girls and young women. That allowed them to know how to do something additional and to have an income, because they had no opportunities at that time.
You also had a campaign to give shoes to 1500 children. Tell us about that campaign, how you carried it out and how you got the donations.
When we were training all the women in Nueva Venecia, we realized that all the children and people there were barefoot, they had no shoes. So, that led us to give shoes to all the children, even if it was only one pair of shoes for each one. That project was very nice because I did it with my whole family: my sister, my brother, my children and my nephews and nieces. The first thing we did was to do a census among all the families and we saw that there were 500 houses. There were 10 to 15 people living in each one. We were able to give shoes to 1,500 children with the help of our customers. We brought them the list, we gave each client or each member of our salon a duty, which was to give shoes to each child or each family, according to the resources of each person. We even got the transportation with donations from our clients, because we had to bring them from Bogota. It was very nice to see the happiness of each child and each mother. In Nueva Venecia several donations were also made. In addition to training all the girls and women, we also donated a hairdressing salon, we set it up and gave it to them with all the equipment so that the girls had a place to work. We also gave them many tools for manicure, pedicure and hairdressing, so that they could make everything they had learned a reality.
How do you support foundations that help women and mothers who have children with cancer?
In Bogota we have helped several foundations, but above all we help children and mothers. Our support consists of making the mothers more beautiful, so that they forget for a moment the suffering that a mother who is going through the process of her child’s cancer carries on her shoulders. So, we comb their hair, we do their nails, we cut their hair, we give them massages, we relax them a little. The objective is to beautify the mothers, because they lead a very hard life and they are almost always low-income people, who can’t even afford to have their hair cut. So, we try to help moms to make it a little easier for them.
You are currently working on a project to help displaced people. What kind of donations are you collecting?
We are currently collecting donations of toiletries, new or used clothes, among others. We are helping the people of the armed conflict in Colombia. There are many displaced people, there are many children to help. There are entire villages that cannot enter their own homes, they are displaced from their land, from the little they have. So, these people are living in shelters. At this moment in Bogota there are several places to leave donations. These donations are being made by everyone who can help and the government is in charge of distributing them. My clients and my close people are the ones who are helping me with that. Helping is something that comes from the heart. My motto is: “The person who was born to serve, serves to live”.
What is the greatest satisfaction you get at the end of a training project or donation campaign?
On a professional level, it gives me a lot of satisfaction, because I was an empirical professional and my colleagues helped me a lot to prepare myself. So, I carry that in my heart. It fills me with pride and happiness to see how people grow and to be told: “Thank you, because thanks to what I have learned I am bringing a livelihood to my house”. Or that a mother tells me: “I am helping my children to get ahead”. And to receive a smile or a hug from the children, that they say “Thank you”, that they feel happy for the little they are given. All this fills me with happiness, because I have lived through a difficult situation and believe me, when there are people who can help and can do things without expecting to receive anything in return, it is very nice. That fills me with strength and desire to do things.
What does it mean to you and your siblings that 3Love has collaborated with a grain of sand to the donation campaigns that you organize?
It means a lot to us. They helped me with a percentage to buy donations for those displaced by the conflict we have in Colombia. Now we will send the new batch of clothing donations. So, I thank you very much, because every little grain of sand helps us a lot, because it is giving food to a family, it is giving shelter to a family. Maybe that doesn’t mean much to one person, but for them it means everything.
If someone wants to collaborate with the campaigns you organize, how can they help you?
There are two ways. Reach us directly through Clear Peluquería’s social networks on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/clearpeluqueria) and Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/clearpeluqueria/). And there are also several collection points in Bogota and throughout the country to make donations. So, you can go and leave donations there, there are several entities such as the Red Cross that receive donations. It is a way to help the country infinitely, because there are many people to help. Being able to help is spectacular. It changed our lives through hairdressing, art and everything we know how to do. I would like to achieve that with many families who need it, who suddenly do not see a way out, but there are some. And it is really very satisfying to be able to empower many women and help them to get ahead.
