After months of been advised by the Government that facemasks are not essential, it now seems that it is, in fact, essential to wear facemasks in public areas. However, not until the 15th of June – work that one out??
Luckily in the haze of confusing government advice, common sense has prevailed and businesses within the Baltic Community founded SEWcial as a stop-gap caused by the initial surge in demand for masks. The volunteers have now been providing FREE cotton facemasks for over eight weeks, completely designed to specification and delivered to your door.
These volunteers have contributed to Sewcialmask by either making-masks or delivering them via the fantastic Agile Bikes courier service.
So… do we or don’t we need Facemasks?
Sadly, with the confusion around fabric masks, medical masks and face covers, we suspect there isn’t an actual lack in supplies but misinformation surrounding the subject matter.
Recently WHO (World Health Organisation) has added facemasks to their advice if you’re unable to socially distance. The organisation has advised the public that over 60’s with underlying health problems should wear a surgical mask and cotton (three-layer masks) should be worn by others in public areas.
Under pressure from WHO, the UK central government has now taken this advice on-board and instructed that Facemasks should be worn on public transport.
So how are the facemasks made?
Co-founders Verity & Tai explains: We purchase fabric from a local business in Garston (Lush Fabrics Ltd), then we package and deliver to our sewing volunteers who have contributed hundreds of hours to create the masks. We then collect them and add elastic, care instructions and pack.
These are then distributed by volunteers, Agile bikes, Royal Mail or our poor car, depending on quantities and local postage delays/lost.
Verity & Tai also said…
Our mission remains to ensure that anyone who needs a mask will receive one, so we will continue to deliver all requests made on the website directly to individual’s doors, and hope our new collection points will address the increase in the volume of requests we are already seeing from the past couple of days.
Donations & Volunteers
To enable Sewcial to provide FREE masks, the group relies on both donations and volunteers. A small donation of £5 can provide 5 masks to a household. If you would like to donate funds or your time, please visit the website here: https://www.sewcialmask.com/
How do you get a mask?
You can apply on our website www.SEWcialMask.co.uk, here you can specify if you need multiple masks (e.g. for a community group or colleagues) and we will be in touch directly to help you as best we can. We are also introducing community collection points across the city to help us reach everyone in need that we can. So if any local businesses are able to support us with this that would be a great help!
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