Dateline Dehradun: “Our household income had taken a hit owing to the lockdown but this is a great opportunity to generate some income while working from home,” says a happy Kusum Devi, from Jardhar village in Tehri district, one of the many women of over a hundred Self Help Group members from JICA-funded Uttarakhand Forest Resource Management Project who have embarked upon the task of preparing around 2 lakh face masks.
Scattered all over Almora, Bageshwar, Chamoli, Champawat, Nainital, Pauri, Pithoragarh and Tehri Garhwal, these women have begun preparing face masks using cotton cloth in order to cater to the shortage of home stitched and reusable masks in the light of COVID-19.
The brainchild of Chief Project Director of UFRMP, Shri Anup Malik (IFS), who thought of an initiative like stitching face masks not only being socially significant but also economically and environmentally crucial. He tells us,“Considering the demand for good quality reusable masks in large numbers we decided to support our SHGs members to manufacture face masks that are low cost, reusable, washable and also biodegradable,” adding that the initiative reflected project’s sensitivity towards the society, during Covid 19 lockdown as well. “This activity would engage the SHGs and their members during the lockdown thereby generating additional income for them. It is expected that these women can earn anything between Rs. 200 to Rs. 300 per day working for around 6 to 8 hours a day.”
The cloth used is being provided to the women through their district level Federation. In the days to come, UFRMP expects to manufacture close to 2 lakh masks within a month that will then be marketed within as well as outside Uttarakhand.
UFRMP is being implemented across 750 villages across 13 forest divisions in Uttarakhand. Under this project till date 1,379 Self Help Groups have been formed with 13,914 members. At the cluster level 18 Federations have been constituted.
