INTERVIEW
How to live in a country where everyone wears a mask, when we need to read the lips of our interlocutors because of deafness? Four days after the deconfinement, and of an announced galley, Anissa Mekrabech decided to market in France a mask for protection against the coronavirus specially designed for deaf and hard of hearing people. Guest of the Europe 1 morning show on Thursday, she tells how she came to sell this partly transparent mask allowing lip reading.
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Difficulty understanding with a classic mask
It was by going to the pharmacy in early April, in full confinement, that the 30-year-old Toulousaine realized the difficulty of communicating with a person who wears this type of protection. Between "the masked staff, the plexiglass window and the distance of one meter", Anissa Mekrabech, suffering from "average deafness", "does not understand and hear nothing". Despite the goodwill of the pharmacist, it was impossible to establish a dialogue without being able to read the lips of her interlocutor.
When she gets home, she remembers a special mask for the deaf and hard of hearing, with a transparent part at the level of the mouth, which she had heard of two years earlier "by being interested in American sign language" . Neither one nor two, she gets to work, makes a prototype, and decides to market it.
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An online kitty for marketing
So she is setting up her website, but also an online kitty to put her prototype "in the spotlight". A crowdfunding project which has so far attracted 421 people, who have donated a total of 16,550 euros, well above the 10,000 euros that the Toulousaine needed to start production. "It's huge and unexpected," she comments at the microphone of Europe 1. "It touches beyond deafness: these masks are useful for staff in early childhood, restaurateurs ... It is for everyone. "