Proyekto Gantsilyo helps protect medical frontliners through earsavers

There have been countless employees who have felt the brunt of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic while some small business owners have to close shop.

A group, composed mostly of women, decided to be unfazed by adversity that they choose to pick up a ball of yarn, a crochet hook and help protect frontliners.

Isa Alcazaren-Pangilinan, a retired employee, told GMA News Online that she used to be a food stall concessionaire inside UP Campus.

"When the pandemic started and classes were suspended, I had to stop operations. Then I also realized that even with the "new normal" it would no longer be financially viable for me to continue my business. So I ended my lease with UP," she added.

She related that the crochet project started with a personal request from a doctor-friend who requested her 13-year-old daughter Izy to crochet some earsavers.

Izy has been doing some crochet items and selling these to her classmates to augment her allowance.

Earsavers, Isa explained, are attachments to the garter loops of medical face masks.

How to use one button crochet earsavers. CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

"It relieves the ears from the irritation caused by the garter loop because of wearing the masks for long hours," she added.

The mother-daughter team -- Isa and Izy -- crocheted some earsavers and posted their work on Facebook.

Then they received a request for 350 earsavers for personnel from the Philippine General Hospital that led to their involvement in a Facebook community called "Earsavers for Lifesavers."

The members of this group, Isa said, include crocheters/crafters, medical frontliners and delivery/material donors.

"Frontliners will request how many they need in their hospital. A crafter will pledge and fill that request," she said.

Isa related that she made earsavers and then donated her finished items. Later, she realized that the same project could be a source of income too.

"Then I thought of asking my former employees if they knew how to crochet. Two of them did and the two had relatives and neighbors who knew the craft. So, I got donors for materials and sponsors to "buy" the earsavers which I then donated to medical frontliners.  So this gave them a little income."

The group has ballooned to 14 crocheters that included relatives of UP employees, relatives of food stall employees or operators.

"But, I realized, that this cannot be sustained if I rely on sponsors. So I started this business enterprise Proyekto Gantsilyo so that we can sell crocheted products," she said.

The group's first projects was the "Kalayaan Earsaver," which was launched a few days before Independence Day.

Today, the group also sells earsavers to non-medical customers while steadily contributing items to the Facebook community.

"So far we have sold around 100 special edition earsavers but we have donated over 3,000 to medical frontliners all over the Philippines. The farthest I’ve sent is to Misamis Oriental," she said. 

"My plan for Proyekto Gantsilyo is to hopefully come up with more products that people will buy so that I can continue to provide some income for the crocheters," she added. -- BAP, GMA News