Throughout the past few months, The Welcoming Center and Up & Go have been working together in order to create “Brightly”, a cooperative franchise whose vision is to contribute to a fair and non- exploitative national cleaning industry, with ample opportunities for the professional development of domestic workers with TWC’s support. This cooperative has officially launched and is the first of its kind in Philadelphia.

Most of the worker-owners of the Brightly Philadelphia cooperative are immigrant women from different parts of Latin America. These women have spent years supporting their families through traditional cleaning jobs that are extremely exploitative, especially of migrant communities, and that pay very low wages. In many cases, women often find themselves with several exhausting jobs just to survive.

Brightly has completely changed the narrative. This cooperative has given these women agency, independence, and a positive work experience. Gloria Canchola, an immigrant mother of two and the president of Brightly shares, “The cooperative is important to me because it taught me coexistence, it trained me, I joined a group, and it gave me wonderful opportunities to be independent and to be my own manager of my business.”

Brightly’s mission is to open opportunities for workers across the United States to become market-recognized cooperative business owners, and to ensure decent jobs for domestic workers. Now, women like Gloria are making four times what they were making before with traditional cleaning jobs.

Providing more and better jobs for the immigrant community in Philadelphia is essential to the city’s economic and social growth. Supporting cooperatives like Brightly is supporting Philadelphia.

To use Brightly’ services, visit https://www.upandgo.coop