50,000 handmade face masks to support COVID-19 prevention in NE Nigeria

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Al corriente mayo 21, 2020 .
Por Evelyn Rupert .
3 lectura mínima.
A pile of cloth face masks
Cloth face masks wait to be packaged and delivered to government officials in Borno State. Fotos de Aniebiet Bassey Akpanudoh.

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A group of women in Northeast Nigeria are pooling their tailoring skills and setting their sewing machines to work to produce tens of thousands of face masks that can help to slow the spread of COVID-19.

Their effort will help protect residents of Borno state, particularly those whose work prevents them from staying at home or maintaining strict physical distance from others. And with the economy under additional strain from the pandemic, the work is also a source of income for the 40 women — each of them widowed or otherwise affected by the conflict with Boko Haram in the region.

The mask production was organized by the Nigeria Lake Chad Basin (NLCB) programa in partnership with the Borno State Ministry of Women Affairs. el programa, which is known in Nigeria as the North East Regional Initiative (NERI), está financiado por los EE.UU.. Oficina de Iniciativas de Transición de la Agencia para el Desarrollo Internacional.

“I wish to commend NERI for this remarkable work because a lot of people have benefited from the face mask production,” says Hajjiya Zuwaira Gambo, Borno state’s Commissioner of Women Affairs and Social Development. “As time goes on, quality face masks like the ones NERI is supporting will be scarce, so this is a great initiative.”

Two Nigerian women work on sewing face masks.
Tailors were trained in small group workshops on how to sew the masks, and then continued the production from their homes.

As of the first week of June, más que 51,000 non-medical cloth masks had been delivered and distributed by state officials to high-risk residents, including people with disabilities, transit workers and market vendors.

“This is a great opportunity for women of Borno state as a whole, because these face masks will not only benefit commercial transportation drivers, market vendors and the public, but it is also an income generating activity for us,” says Bintu, a tailor who helped train the other members of the group on making masks. “I praise NERI for all that they have been doing for women in the state.”

Bintu and the other tailors had all previously received livelihoods skills training through NLCB under various activities aimed at supporting vulnerable women to generate income. Los entrenamientos anteriores se han centrado en cómo hacer bolsas, zapatos y otros artículos, y ahora se aplica el mismo proceso a la producción de máscaras. El entrenamiento de fabricación de máscaras ocurrió en entornos de grupos pequeños, y luego las mujeres recibieron materiales e instrucciones para continuar el trabajo desde casa..

Una mujer nigeriana cose una mascarilla.
El sastre promedio puede producir 60 Máscaras en un día.

Las máscaras, tamaño para niños y adultos, están hechos de 100 porcentaje de algodón y use múltiples capas de una tela estampada tradicional llamada Ankara. Las máscaras fueron revisadas y aprobadas por las autoridades de salud del estado de Borno, Confirmando su alta calidad.

Los coordinadores se detienen regularmente en las casas de los sastres para recolectar máscaras terminadas y luego donarlas a los funcionarios estatales, que luego los distribuyen a los mercados, mezquitas, parques automovilísticos y otras áreas de alto tráfico.

En el futuro, NLCB está trabajando para establecer un colectivo para los sastres, para que puedan continuar colaborando para producir y vender máscaras a granel.

“Espero que esta iniciativa de máscara de las sastres de mujeres en Maiduguri provoca la contribución de otros actores que trabajan en el noreste-ONG internacionales, cimientos, actores del sector privado,", dice el jefe del partido, Olivier Girard.. "Esperamos que replicen lo que hicimos, o mejor, y ordene mayores cantidades de máscaras de este grupo de sastres bien entrenados ".

Con informes de una Doctrina Jibrin.