GHANA
Since lockdown and social distancing was imposed on 15th March in Northern Ghana, women who participated in our Street Business School have seen their thriving businesses cease to trade and all their income disappear.
We have adapted our UK Aid Match CASE project, delivered with our partner RAINS, to respond to the needs of the communities by funding these women to start work on the huge task of sewing 5000 face masks to keep up with the Ghanaian government's legal requirement that everyone must wear one in public places or they could risk receiving a fine. Some of them had sewing businesses already so they have been sharing their skills with the other women.
We needed to find a pattern that didn’t use either video or text instructions, and this proved so difficult that we made two patterns ourselves! One is a shaped mask that is the best fit for most adults. The other is a folded one that is quicker to make and can be easily sized down for children.
We’ve made the patterns available to share in case anyone else is experiencing the same challenges. Help yourself from the links below, and let us know if you use them!
The CASE project, supported by match funding from the UK government, is also enabling them to acquire the materials to produce 1000 bottles of soap and 1000 bottles of hand cream by paying for materials and supplying a workwomanship fee.