After the Buenos Aires government decreed the mandatory use of masks in the province of Buenos Aires to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, different initiatives have emerged that combine Argentina’s passion for football and protection against the virus.
Several families are making masks with football-club designs in order to deal with the COVID-19 crisis.
This is the case with Vanesa del Barros’ family, a designer of clothes with her own brand, who lives in the area of Mataderos in the city of Buenos Aires and is out of work due to the COVID crisis. Vanesa has taken advantage of her experience and together with her son Tomas Balmoria and his girlfriend Julieta Calvo, they have taken action in designing and making masks with the emblems of the world’s most famous football clubs. The initiative employs seamstresses in quarantine and most of the profits from the sales are donated to the Nuestra Senoras de las Nieves parish, which distributes food in the most vulnerable areas of the country.
“And what we do is with a large part of the money we buy food for the people who need it most and we distribute it,” explained Tomas Balmoria.
Another case is that of Matias Antonio Perruchena, who has repurposed his football shirt business to produce masks with football designs, explaining that even though Argentina is in quarantine “the passion continues.”
Perruchena says that the most-requested designs are those of the Argentine teams River Plate and Boca Juniors, although masks of international clubs like Real Madrid and FC Barcelona are also in demand.
The work is done as a team; there are those who design, others who cut and those who sew the masks.
According to Perruchena, 10 families are being assisted through the manufacture and sale of the masks. According to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, Argentina has 3,031 cases of coronavirus and 145 deaths.
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