V-Excel Educational Trust, an NGO for special children in Mandaveli is planning to make cloth masks to be distributed to patients visiting hospitals, pregnant women among others.
The NGO has collaborated with The Square Inch, a Chennai based quilting studio to make the masks.
Says Charumati Sriram of V-Excel, “We are in touch with the quilting studio for a long time. They have been teaching us methods to make coasters with different cloth materials. Now, they have sent us a video explaining the procedure to make the masks.”
She says that their teachers and parents of special children, who have a sewing machine at home have already volunteered to stitch masks. “After deciding on the kind of clothes and stitching procedure, we plan to start making masks.”
However, the team says that these masks are not for protection against COVID-19. “These masks act as a barrier/ first layer of defence against any infection. Many people especially patients visiting hospitals for dialysis and pregnant women, daily wage workers, street vendors can use the cloth masks we make, ” a note from the quilting studio’s Facebook page reads.
