Covid Care Diary: Mask Makers as Covid Care Warriors

MSJ Bangalore: 20th May 2020

During this fight with the Covid pandemic, face masks have made a significant contribution in saving the lives of people. By wearing face masks one could avoid getting infected with Corona virus. Corona bug spreads through the breath of the person. Before the spread of Corona infection ordinary people wore masks in order to avoid pollution either on roads or dust in work places, especially in Bangalore. Usually masks were sold in the medical shops with particular kind of brands and unusually they were all surgical masks. Unfortunately, they were all imported from China. With the government imposing strict rules on the use of face masks since the lockdown, all the medical shops in our vicinity went empty. Even if there were instead of five rupees per mask, the price short up to Rupees 35 per one piece.

Since Covid care kit relief team needed very urgently these face masks we asked those people who knew tailoring skills. Unfortunately, we could not get them at the earliest. Because all the fabric shops were closed indefinitely. For our bad luck we did not know anyone who had cloth shops and who could give us behind the doors. Therefore we asked those people whom we knew in our vicinity to help us in our venture of getting the face masks quickly. For our surprise one of the covid care kit relief receivers near Arekere, a lady by name Vanitha (name is changed) said to us please give me the groceries and I will make you face masks. She didn't want any money. She was in such dire need of groceries for her family's survival. She made for us 120 face masks for which we duly paid Rs 1200/-  (Rs 12 per piece) and also gave her two kits of ration; an extra incentive. Labourer deserves her wages, indeed (Lk 10:7).


It was easier to procure groceries for our distribution than getting the face masks. Even though government shouted from its roof top that everyone should wear face masks, it did very little either to open the fabric/cloth shops to make available the raw material for tailors or distribute face masks from its stock. Sadly, the government didn't make use of its factories in getting the required face masks at people's disposal. Therefore we had to look for people who could help us procuring face masks. Incidentally many of our city well wishers gave us masks and organised in getting them to us. We should call them angels of masks! Finally we could distribute around 3000 masks in villages and other locations where our relief work was carried out.

In another instance, we asked our neighbour prepare for us another 200 masks. Woefully, we had to get it done by used fabric. In this time of dire need of masks for our Covid care kit volunteers we needed a lot of masks and we got them for free from good souls. We would like to place on record some of our benefactors. The Holy Spirit Nuns stitched for us 130 face masks, Alverna Bhavan Nuns 50, Nirmal Jyothi Salesian Nuns 30, another donor gave us 30 face masks and 100 hand gloves. We also purchased 2200 face masks at a cost of Rs 8/- per piece. Finally, the face mania saved us from Covid!

- Reported by Olvin Veigas, SJ

20 May 2020