Jamila Mayanja, a philanthropist and fashion designer with Smart Girls Uganda, partnered with another fashion house called Tenge collections to provide the much-needed protective masks for women vendors in the crowded market places, in the “Masks 4 All” project. When the project began, they specifically trained and employed youth and women among whom are former sex workers and survivors of Gender-Based Violence.

Tenge Afrocentric Fashion House Founder and CEO, Daniel Mickoh said the Masks 4 All project would be looking to scale up to make protective gear to be distributed all over the country with a target of reaching one million people. The distribution process includes awareness sessions using community radios and public media on how to use the masks and other safety measures when the lockdown is lifted.

Together they designed a reusable threelayer mask and distributed them along with a bottle of hand sanitizer at no cost. While this was distributed free among the vulnerable populations such as women in markets, young people in slums, boarders, barracks and refugee centres at no cost, they made masks for sale to the general public at subsidised rates. Given the stringent safety measures set by World Health organisation for all governments to implement for the safety of populations, Uganda needed help in securing safety masks for the populace, and for the crowded market vendors who continued selling food even in Lockdown level 1.

With market being very congested places and women the majority of the vendors, population, Jamila decided that this project would be crucial to prevent the contracting of the virus as they went about their day-to-day interaction with suppliers, customers, and family members.