The students of Lala Ram Kumar Agarwal Intermediate College, Naini, are keeping them occupied for a noble cause during the continuing lockdown. With the help of their mothers, they are making wash-and-reuse face masks at home to help protect rural Prayagraj from the threat of Covid-19.
Shrishti and Reyansh are part of a nine-member student group of the same school dedicated in this mission named ‘Project Arpan’ that is being conducted with the support of their school.
School students including Siddharth, (class 12), Saumya, Saniya, Roshini, Srishti (class 10), Shikha (class 9), Tanu (class 8) have been making as many as 350 masks every day for the last two weeks.
“These facemasks are then provided free of cost to the residents of different villages of trans-Yamuna area of Prayagraj to keep them protected from coronavirus with the help of our officials,” shared Shristi, class 10 student.
Their inspirational efforts have till now helped over 5000 individuals including villagers, customers of the petrol pump, policemen, newspaper hawkers, vegetable vendors and others.
“After the school was closed down following the pandemic, we discussed the idea with the teachers and some students in utilising the time in making the facemasks for the needy. Mother of one of the students showed the prototype and we instantly decided to go ahead with the initiative,” said Anuj Agarwal, owner of Lala Ram Kumar Agarwal Intermediate College and a resident of Naini.
He said, “Around 10-12 masks are made from one meter of cloth and including the expense of elastic, each mask costs us around Rs 5. Under ‘Project Arpan’ we have distributed over 5000 masks in different villages including Cheoki, Dadri, Dubrajpur, Naini Goan, Samugara, Vishnupur and others.”
The school management is providing the cloth. After attending their online daily classes to keep pace with their studies, the students stitch the face masks with the help of their mothers. The ready masks are then collected and distributed by the kids in the selected village. Moreover, the students also make the residents aware of the precautions that they need to take to prevent coronavirus from spreading, said Kaushal Singh, principal of the college.
Project Arpan also got support from KP Singh, IG, Prayagraj zone who contributed 200 meters of cloth for the facemasks.
