Volunteers in Novi Vinodolski sewing protective masks
- by croatiaweek
- in Business
(Photo: HINA/ Edvard ŠUŠAK/)
ZAGREB, March 20 (Hina) – Red Cross volunteers in the northern Adriatic town of Novi Vinodolski are helping reduce the shortage of protective masks, and had sewn about 500 re-usable masks by Friday.
Women in Novi Vinodolski are conducting the sewing bees in the premises of the local Red Cross while women in nearby Bribir are sewing masks on their own machines at home.
Many of them sew for a hobby, however, Ankica Jovanovic is known because for years she has been sewing local folk costumes.
The masks are washable at 95°C. The first people to be equipped with the masks will be officials and activists working in the field and other locals who are required to be at their workplace.
The local Red Cross thanked local residents for their food and other donations that will be dealt out to those most in need.
Furniture makers in Sirac switch to sewing protective masks
The Suvenir Arbor institution for professional rehabilitation and employment of persons with disabilities has switched its production from furniture making to sewing much-sought-after protective masks amid the coronavirus epidemic.
The institution, based in Sirac, about 130 kilometres east of Zagreb, delivered its first batch of masks to the county hospital in Bjelovar on Friday.
Bjelovar-Bilogora County is buying all protective masks produced by Suvenir Arbor and is donating them to the county’s health institutions, police and nursing homes.
Workers at Suvenir Arbor have set up a sewing area within the factory after they were forced by the coronavirus pandemic to suspend their core business of furniture making. Because of increased demand for masks, they are now working in two shifts, producing about 500 masks daily.
“Masks coming from Sirac will not solve our problem completely but will largely reduce it. As the founder of this institution, the county has decided to buy the entire output and we will distribute them as needed,” county prefect Damir Bajs said.
No cases of coronavirus infection have been reported in Bjelovar-Bilogora County so far.
