Garissa County vocational training centres have kicked off mass production of facemasks in the war against Covid-19.
Chief Officer for Education Mohamed Gure said students, trainers and institution managers combined efforts to produce 50,000 facemasks during the past two weeks.
The production is taking place at Garissa main vocational centre.
"With necessary resources and support the team drawn from Bura, Mkono and Garissa main vocational training centres can produce more than 100,000 facemasks within a month. This will greatly help in the fight against Covid-19 Pandemic," said the chief officer.
Speaking to the press after inspecting the ongoing exercise, Gure said the county government will donate the masks to the over 6,000 flood victims in IDP camps, hospitals, prisons and other social places that are considered to be vulnerable.
The chief officer revealed that development partners have expressed willingness to support the on-going county innovative project, urging them to come on board for mass production of facemasks to be used by the greater public which could help stop the spread of the virus.
“We know that the virus is real and it here with us, unfortunately, we are all aware that in the camps issues to do social distancing is a challenge, and therefore we believe with these masks in place, they will be of great help,” he said.
Gure said flood victims who are hosted in the vocational training centre already received the free masks produced by the centre.
He disclosed that the plumbing and wielding teams from the institutions were also working to come up with special hand -wash dispensers.
The director for vocational training Hassan Aress assured the public that the material used were effective and modern in line with the requirements of the Kenya Bureau of standards.
Last week, area Governor Ali Korane appealed to state and non-state actors to supplement his administration's effort of feeding those in need including those in the camps, noting that the county alone can only do much.