Chiefs in Mlolongo division, Machakos County, have volunteered to sew 4,000 masks for poor children to wear when schools reopen.
The project is a brainchild of area assistant county commissioner Dennis Ongaga, but several chiefs and their assistants have offered to do the tailoring work.
Ongaga said they target only two public primary schools in the division - Ngwata and Mlolongo- both which have more than 4,000 pupils.
“We decided to initiate the masks project due to the global Covid-19 pandemic,” Ongaga said on Sunday.
He addressed the press at Mlolongo chief Peter Ndunda’s office that had been partly turned to textile workshop.
The administrator said the masks will be donated to the children freely once schools re-open.
The government through the Education CS George Magoha announced schools will re-open in October.
Ongaga said chief Ndunda and his assistants Florence Kiio (Mlolongo sub-location) and David Kilonzo (Syokimau) were helping him implement the project.
“As a team, we sat down and agreed to produce the facemasks following the presidential directive on schools’ re-opening. We have middle class families in Mlolongo, hence vulnerable children,” he said.
The administrator added: “We discovered that there will be a challenge for the middle class families to provide facemasks for their school going children for their own safety. As an office, we came together and looked for stakeholder called Mr. Nzag who donated fabric for making the masks.”
He said together with the chiefs, they contributed money to buy other needed items and raw materials like rubber bands, sewing needles and hired three sewing machines for the job at Sh1,000 each per day.
The washable masks, valued at Sh50 each, will be donated to the children and their parents tasked to ensure they are regularly washed.
Ongaga said they will also produce more masks and donate to all police officers from stations and posts within the division.
“Once we are done with the pupils, we will provide our officers in all our police stations and posts with facemasks. We are utilising our casuals in Kazi Mtaani project to make the masks.”
