Ella Mask, a product of Ella Pad, an award-winning social enterprise, is helping women in rural areas of Bangladesh earn livelihoods by making reusable and biodegradable face masks from garment scraps.
According to media reports, the social enterprise links women in rural areas of Bangladesh with different buyers, UN agencies and institutions to purchase their masks, creating a scope for each of them to earn at least Taka 400/day.
So even as the rate of unemployment continues to rise in Bangladesh owing to the fallouts of the COVID-19 pandemic, hundreds of women involved with the project are being able earn a living in these trying times.
Speaking to the media, founder of Ella Pad, Mamunur Rahman, reportedly, maintained that US Embassy and the different UN bodies and some other institutions have already bought the Ella Masks and went on to underline that the masks are standardised as per the guidelines of the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO).
Mamunur further stated that through creating a new supply chain, the organisation has been trying to help the rural women who produce masks, connecting them with micro female entrepreneurs.
It may be mentioned here that Ella Pad (green sanitary napkins made reusing scraps) is a social initiative run by poor working women with the vision to ensure health and wellbeing of marginal women with a mission of zero waste textile.