Tired of being exploited by their employers, a group of 17 women joined together to form their own housecleaning cooperative. These valiant housewives, most of them Mexican, thus left behind the mistreatment and low pay at their former jobs to create the cooperative known as “Sí se puede” (Yes We Can).

But the entrepreneurial vision of these mothers and family women goes much further than that. They are not limiting themselves to cleaning houses and apartments, but plan in the near future to offer child care and food preparation services.

“They used to pay me $8 an hour to clean a house. Now I have a respectable salary, since my fee has risen to between $15 and $20 an hour. Since I became part of the cooperative my self-esteem has increased, and that has made me feel more secure,” confessed Mexican Luz María García, 32, and mother of two children. “Our ideas about work have changed. We're not employees but businesswomen.”

Ironically, 17 women who make up the cooperative had never worked together, nor did they know each other very well. The idea for forming the cooperative came from Jill Birnbaum, a social worker at the Center for Family Life in Sunset Park.

“Many of them were very poorly paid, and others could not count on secure jobs,” said Birnbaum, who serves as a mentor to the women. “We went about recruiting these women when they came to the center, whether it was for English classes or looking for jobs.”

To get the business started, Birnbaum contacted her friends in Manhattan and Brooklyn to offer the cooperative's services. “It worked! Ten months after we started it, most of them have at least two steady clients each week,” claimed the social worker. “The clients who call the center are assigned in rotation so that all of them can have work.”

Teresa Pérez, 40, from Toscano, Mexico, says that for the moment the Center for Family Life serves as the cooperative's center of operations. “We plan to have our own office soon, with a secretary who will take the calls from clients,” added Pérez, the mother of three children.

Mónica Valerio Santiago, 43, contends that the cleaning fees are very competitive compared to the market. “We don't charge by the hour, but instead we clean houses for an estimated price. If you want us to clean your refrigerator too, it will cost you about $15 extra,” said Valerio Santiago, who was a nutritionist in her country of origin.

Unfortunately, the cooperative is not accepting new members, because they want to concentrate on strengthening their enterprise. But Birnbaum maintains that perhaps something similar can be replicated in the future.