Karnataka: Stitching masks, she helped keep fires burning in homes of 45 other women

Sangamesh Menasinakai | TNN | Updated: Jun 4, 2020, 10:45 IST

Raziya Meeranayak started making masks soon after the lockdown was imposed, and enlisted the assistance of 45 others to meet the demand

Raziya Meeranayak started making masks soon after the lockdown was imposed, and enlisted the assistance of 45 ...Read More

HUBBALLI: The lockdown came into force across the country in the last week of March, and in the ensuing nine weeks, reports of hordes of people losing jobs have been grabbing headlines. However, Raziya Meeranayak, a tailor in Dharwad has been doing her bit to soften the blow of the crisis by providing jobs to 45 women since the clamping of the lockdown.
The lockdown keeping her regular customers away and faced with the prospect of swiftly depleting resources, Raziya decided to put her talents to use by making masks, and purchased a cloth cutting machine worth Rs 6,000 for this purpose. She marketed her product on social media, and she was soon flooded with offers from various organisations, including gram panchayats. The workload she distributed among 45 other women, each of whom was able to earn anywhere between Rs 200 to Rs 300 a day – a princely sum at a time when all hope seemed lost.
Raziya, 35, credited her husband Sikandar Meeranayak’s support for the success of her endeavour. “He runs an NGO. Almost immediately after we marketed our masks on social media, Deshpande Foundation’s Navodyami programme, placed an order for 20,000 of them, Raziya told TOI.
The women she has distributed the work among are paid in proportion to the number of masks they stitch. Raziya said that each of them earned Rs 2 for every mask made. “Each tailor makes around 100 to 200 masks every day, and I sell them for Rs 10 each, making a profit of Re 1 per mask. But it is being a part of the battle against Covid-19, and providing employment to these women that I am most proud of,” she added.
Executive director of Vanasiri Rural Development Society in Ranebennur, Haveri district SD Baligar procured 3,000 masks from Raziya for MGNREGS labourers, and was pleased with the quality of the product.
Saraswati Kurubar and Biyama Kambar are among the women who were enlisted by Raziya, and they were effusive in expressing their gratitude to her. Their husbands having been rendered unemployed during the lockdown, work they got from Raziya helped tide over the crisis.