from crisis to community
Image shows rolls of fabric in a square box
by Mazhar Rehman
What I noticed most during the start of the pandemic was the how most thought it wouldn’t affect us as it was so far away. However, having taken too easy to the myth that it wouldn’t affect us exploded – lockdowns, job losses, we were in crisis mode.
However, this is really about how after a long while, I witnessed people from all walks of life coming together. We all had a common enemy: Corona and we needed to defeat it.
During lockdown my small fabric business was suffering as I couldn’t see customers and shops were closing and so forth. My wife also was still undergoing cancer treatment so we were extra careful, had to shield and isolate. I too was also managing my own concerns as a disproportionate number of people dying from COVID 19 were from black and minority ethnic communities and had huge concern for myself and my families wellbeing.
When I started hearing about PPE shortages, NHS in trouble etc out of the blue of my customers Rule 42 called and asked if I had any cotton fabric to donate as they were making scrubs. Thinking nothing of it I was happy to donate the fabric. After our conversation I came to realise that various machinists, alterations shops had shared to make NHS scrubs scrub bags, gowns, masks under various names Julies alterations, Angelic Threads, Nifty Home Sewers, for the love of scrub bags, Dawn interiors and various independent machinists.
One by one I donated fabrics to each company and am currently still donating. We found a common bond between people, a community spirit. Machinists from all backgrounds/persuasions were showing for free and the fabric was sourced and distributed for free. A whole supply chain working as things developed, they could work as the supply increased. I made a decision to offer fabric cheaper as I did not want to profit from the lockdown. The machinist groups I supported got some funding to scale up and to help them I sourced and supplied them with fabric for free and also cheaper than anyone else.
I did and will do whatever I can, thousands of masks were bought, hundreds of scrubs, bags and masks were made. It showed what can be done when people and communities came together in adversity to help. One thing I did which I was pleased with was getting groups to work together, rather than by themselves, this meant that resources were shared and very little wasted.
As my company was mentioned in forums and groups I was asked to supply individual machinists with fabric, delivering to their home whilst observing social distancing and wearing PPE with heavily subsidised prices. Even now in November Angelic Threads are still making masks for free and I’m still supplying them with masks and fabric for free. I worked with a Kilt maker in Glasgow, dropping fabric off to them and they would use their machines to cut them off into masks or scrub bags. We are still all working together, I'm still putting posters up in Asian shops to raise awareness, I'm still donating fabric as much as I can for free. I wasn't really aware of it until a customer asked for it.
I found for the first time people forgot their labels ..Catholic , Protestant , Muslim, English, Scottish , Pakistani etc and became one multi-cultural community to support each other during the fight to reduce the transmission of the Coronavirus. People helped each other making masks, scrubs, delivering them ...
What we can learn; all the communities have special skills and when we combine them together we can help. Sewing and using old pillowcases and duvets to make scrubs and bags, driving across the country to drop off cut fabrics for machinists in Dundee, Aberdeen, Inverness, Edinburgh, Glasgow and some parts of England to make various PPE. We provided the fabrics and elastic, threads to make various items, and in doing so, people came together from all walks of life, trying to help in whatever way they, and we, could.