People who are deaf and hard of hearing will be able to wear face masks soon in Morocco, exclusively designed to meet their needs during the coronavirus pandemic.
Les Sourdoués à Tanger is the association behind this project which aims to better the integration of the deaf community, by facilitating communication between them amid the health crisis. To this end, the manufacture of these masks includes transparent protection on the mouth, to facilitate communication in sign language.
The initiative was launched two weeks after the implementation of the state of health emergency in Morocco Nadia El Alami, president of the association told Yabiladi. When they wanted to find out about the dates for the resumption of classes within the association, they had to wear masks, and the deaf teacher too; this made it difficult to exchange during our meetings, she explained, indicating that it was hard to communicate with masks on for the community.
In May, the factory designed a prototype of these masks, sent to a specialized laboratory in Casablanca, to check the quality of the fabric and its adequacy with health safety requirements, then it was sent to the Imanor Institute for certification. The validation of the model, however, is still pending, says El Alami.
“These are washable masks that can be used seven times. But they can only be used when needed. For example, deaf people can wear a conventional mask when they don’t need to communicate, so they can keep transparent ones in their possession for as long as possible.”
