Mask making at Porirua English Language Partners – hands-on literacy and numeracy learning as students measure and cut fabric ready for sewing, providing new masks for the community!

A few weeks ago, Teresa Moore from United Way New Zealand called our Porirua centre manager Jacqs, asking ‘What’s on top?’ for us at the moment.  A rapid-fire response was ‘Masks for learners’, as new rules were coming into play requiring the wearing of masks on public transport and there has also been encouragement by the Ministry of Education for mask-wearing in class…and we had been asked by Metlink to help them promote the wearing of masks, which resulted in images of the team wearing masks flooding our Facebook page.

United Way NZ provided us $1500 towards masks, and it was decided that it would be far better to use this to engage learners than to simply purchase masks.  As such, fabric, cotton, elastic, pins and scissors were purchased and taken out to our Mums n Tots class where a very hands-on literacy and numeracy lesson occurred as students measured and cut the fabric ready and measured and folded the cut fabric ready for sewing.

The prepared fabrics, along with cotton, elastic and machine needles, were then given to learners and former learners who have well-developed sewing skills and they finished the masks in exchange for a koha per mask.  The result is that we have had 200 masks made and handed out to our learners so that they are now able to wear and wash them for use in class and on public transport, keeping everyone safe and within the new guidelines.

A huge thanks to United Way for their support and generous contributions.