- Cécile Carciani and Abellina Saint Juste created the Facebook group "Les Couturières du coeur".
- Around 700 seamstresses coordinate there to make protective masks for professionals exposed to the coronavirus.
- Since confinement, the supply of raw materials (threads, fabrics and elastic) and distribution have become complicated.
“That people subject to the decree and forced to work cannot wear masks, it is criminal! By phone, the lawyer from Nice Abellina Saint Juste does not mince words when thinking of the daily lives of these professionals. With a friend, she decided to convert her anger into concrete action.
More than 10,000 masks produced in three days
On March 16, Cécile Carciani and Abellina Saint Juste created the Facebook group "Les Couturières du coeur". The latter connects professionals in need of protective masks (medical or paramedical staff, firefighters, postal workers, cashiers, garbage collectors, etc.) with volunteers who can make them.
"It started on a corner of the table but we were quickly overwhelmed by the number of volunteers and the requests of the beneficiaries," says the co-founder of the project. In three days, more than 10,000 fabric masks were produced by nearly 600 seamstresses throughout France.
Collaboration is organized online
Today, more than 700 seamstresses contribute to the platform and 170 are awaiting approval. "These are really the ones that must be highlighted," says Abellina Saint Juste.
On average, between six and ten masks are made each day per person. The fastest professional seamstresses can reach between 30 and 50 units daily.
To frame the production, a memo was set up based on the recommendations of Professor Daniel Garin and a textile engineer. Two video tutorials were also created to assist beginners.
An online dispatching platform will also be launched "in two, three days" by the two project IT specialists.
Containment complicates logistics
Since the establishment of containment, the "seamstresses of the heart" have faced two logistical problems: supply and delivery. In an attempt to remove these obstacles, Abellina Saint Juste sent a letter to Christian Estrosi, president of the metropolis and mayor of Nice, as well as to the association of mayors of France and the Association of French departments. “Our seamstresses lack the supplies they have graciously offered so far (fabrics, elastic, sewing thread). We need a call for donations for actors in the “sewing sector” with distribution, for example, by the municipal police to the dressmakers identified ”, explains the administrator.
If necessary, she requests "the assistance of local actors (municipal police) and the help of the State services to requisition, by the law of March 5, 2004, the necessary materials, for lack of collection".
The lawyer also believes "to need that the municipal police can recover the production of each seamstress. The masks will be in envelopes (to be provided to us) so that recipients who have ordered can serenely collect them at the police station by producing their identity card (and thus avoid trafficking). "
Contacted by 20 Minutes , the city of Nice indicates "not yet having read this letter" and that it "will study it upon receipt to see how (it) can help them". The municipality recalls that "100,000 surgical masks and 40,000 FFP2 will be received this Wednesday, March 25". They will be distributed "to the liberal health professions (doctors, nurses, pharmacists and dentists) and to municipal and metropolitan staff mobilized on a daily basis (municipal police, cleaning and collection agents, civil status, transport, etc.)"
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- Containment
- Covid 19
- Coronavirus
- Nice