AMUDE, Syria (North Press) – Electronic embroidery workshops may seem out of place in the mainly agricultural Jazira region of Syria, but the coronavirus pandemic has revitalized them in order to secure sufficient quantities of face masks before the beginning of the academic year to protect children from coronavirus.
Shervan Sef Din, a resident from Amude in northeast Syria, works on electronic embroidery that inscribes drawings and sport logos, turning them into facial masks.
Din, who has been operating the workshop for four years, learned embroidery in Aleppo while he was a university student in the College of Commerce and Economics, which he abandoned due to difficult financial conditions.
”Mask embroidery aims to encourage wearing of face masks by young people and children during the coronavirus outbreak,” Sharvan, who has been embroidering masks for two weeks, said.
Sef Din added that people nowadays are buying cotton face masks that can washed more than disposable face masks.
In an effort to combat the pandemic, the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria imposed the wearing of face masks wear in public, markets and official facilities, while those who violate the decision will pay a 1,000 SYP fine.
After embroidering the fabrics, they are sent to a workshop to be sewed, ironed, and packaged according to the standards of the World Health Organization.
Omar Yonis, manager of a sewing workshop in Amude, said that due to the increasing demand for cotton face masks, they abandoned clothing production.
Yonis added that cotton face masks are usable according to the standards of WHO and cheaper than the disposable masks.
Rond Workshop, which works in embroidering logos on the uniforms of local companies and institutions, has recently stepped up its work embroidering face masks.
Despite the increasing demands of embroidering masks, Shervan wishes that the coronavirus pandemic will end so he can return to normal embroidery.