Posted by When the Philippines went into lockdown to manage the pandemic, many people like Gabbi (@wibwab) had to work from home. Luckily for the 22-year-old who makes chatbot scripts for work, life in the new normal was not a sharp adjustment. As she counted her blessings each day, she started noticing the various people who made it possible.
“Specifically, seeing all the cheerful Kuya (older brother in Tagalog) couriers lined up at checkpoints with tons of little packages showed me that so much of our everyday joys and privileges are made possible by daily wage earners and small businesses—Ates (older sister in Tagalog) and Kuyas who keep us safe and well-fed during this long time at home. But so many of them have lost their jobs or closed down because of this pandemic,” shared Gabbi.
When she found out about Carousell’s Jumpstart your June campaign, which promotes participating listings, she thought of selling her extra clothes and donating the proceeds. “I wanted to help daily wage earners and local businesses,” said Gabbi. “To put it realistically, you can’t donate to everyone, so I made sure to choose a local business that was transparent with all donation breakdowns. Tara Baraha! usually makes travel playing cards that promote the beauty of the Philippines—we all know how hard the tourism sector was hit by this pandemic—so I think it’s inspiring that they’re using their voice to help others who were affected by COVID-19 too.”
Gabbi plans to continue to keep her 19 listings up until they are sold, and donate the proceeds. One of her popular listings, currently reserved, is a burnt orange long coat that was her go-to piece during her senior year of college. “Buying and selling on Carousell is a very personal experience—it’s rewarding when you get to find something of really high quality, taken care of by someone else just to find its way to you,” said Gabbi.
“Carousell got me into buying preloved clothes—I would find really unique and high quality pieces online for half the price of big brands in malls. For me, Carousell broke the stigma of secondhand items (not too long ago, people would say “ew” to ukay; now ukay is a Cool Kids thing); so that eventually I was able to curate my wardrobe to build my own secondhand style.”
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