Women Entrepreneurs, Craftswomen Play Role in Fight Against COVID-19

Women entrepreneurs and craftswomen nationwide have put themselves into the fight against the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) since the onset of the outbreak and now are actively resuming work, making their own efforts in contributing to economic and social development.

The National Women's Hand-knitting Association under the All-China Women's Federation took up its social responsibility in assisting local enterprises to look for projects of processing epidemic-prevention articles.

The association helped a company in Central China's Hunan Province to find a plant that has raw materials and experts to provide professional support, making the company have the ability to produce facial masks. By the end of this month, the company will be ready to make masks and is expected to manufacture 300,000 per day.

The association also coordinated resources for a clothing company in North China's Hebei Province, bringing it an order for 20,000 suits of protective clothing and ensuring that its workers will return to work on time.

Xia Hua, President of Eve Group, a well-known clothing company in Beijing, led her company to reconstruct six protective clothing production lines and establish a sterile purification workshop within 10 days.

Her company used an Internet industrial platform to allocate resources and purchased equipment and materials, putting nearly 100 enterprises that provide raw materials or relevant equipment and machines into operation. The company not only provided protective materials for the fight against the epidemic, but also promoted employment.

In a poverty-alleviation workshop of Songshu Village in Hezheng County of Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture in Northwest China's Gansu Province, women work overtime to manufacture masks.

So far, the workshop has manufactured 80,000 masks that were distributed to the counties and cities of Linxia for free. It also donated 2,000 masks to Xihe and Zhangxian counties in Gansu.

The Sichuan Women's Hand-knitting Association organized its member units to manufacture protective masks, which were given to local workers for free.

In a poverty-alleviation workshop of a village in Shiping County, Southwest China's Yunnan Province, women are busy making aprons. At the same time, it organized some other women to make embroidery at home, gaining income that way.

In addition, Zhou Yaxian, part-time Vice-president of the Women's Federation of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and secretary of the Party committee of Shenguan Group, a well-known manufacturer focusing on collagen products in China, led the workers of the company to work overtime to produce materials for the fight against the virus.  

Women's Federation of Gansu Province called on craftswomen in Gansu, to teach people how to make crafts online, and the Women's Federation of Sichuan Province, the Chengdu Women's Federation and the Chengdu E-commerce Association motivated women to sell their crafts through an online platform.

(Source: China Women's News/Translated and edited by Women of China)