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Tailor Langenkämper in her workshop
Photo: Ina Fassbender
Since the start of the second shutdown, Manuela Langenkämper has been working up to 14 hours a day.
She continues to sew baby clothes, although there are hardly any customer inquiries.
Although the income is no longer enough to live on.
Although without the savings of her 80-year-old mother, she could no longer pay the mortgage on the house.
She doesn't fight for her shop;
she fights for her lifelong dream.
When she was almost a child herself, her parents gave her a sewing machine.
Later, the desire grew in her to be self-employed as a tailor.
It took her years to overcome her fear of the unknown.
In May 2019 she gave herself a jolt, spent all her savings on further sewing machines and high-quality fabrics and opened a small shop in a half-timbered house in Unna.
Your business was only just beginning to flourish when the pandemic hit Germany.
She cried through for three nights, says Langenkämper on the phone.
Then she began to fight, first energetically, then in panic, finally more and more worn down, with a growing sense of guilt.
"I took care of myself all my life," says Langenkämper.
“Well, in my mid-50s, I'm hanging on my mother's skirt again.
It would actually be my turn to support them. "
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