Two Long Street designers are on a mission to donate 10 000 masks to townships around Cape Town.
Wednesday, Abass ma-Azu from Ghana along with his business partner donated 700 masks to Gugulethu residents.
Abass, of A&TG Ekasi, a bag designing company, brought colour and comfort to Gugs.
“This is where it all started,” he says smiling.
“We were renting one room here before moving to the Cape Town CBD in 2014 and we thought it would be correct to start here with our donation.”
He says this was their second time coming to the area to donate masks to children and adults because many could not afford to buy one.
“We made different sizes for both adults and children because the virus affects everyone. What we want is for people not to choose between food and a mask.
“There are people with only one mask, some none at all.”
His business partner Thuleka Gillian Duze said they have launched a fundraising campaign to get to the 10 000 masks.
“The 10 000 masks will cost around R20 000 to make and as a business which is not operating at the moment, we do not have that kind of money.
“We launched a BackaBuddy fundraiser to support the initiative and we have people who have shown interest in supporting us.”
Like many businesses, they too are badly affected by the pandemic and their shop depends on tourism for its revenue.
“We don’t really know what will happen to our business right now, because most of our clients are tourists,” says Abbas.
Visit their BackaBuddy page at https://www.backabuddy.co.za/champion/project/a-tg-ekasi