On March 4th, 2020, at 2:43 pm, an email arrives from the Human Resources Director at our company. He announced that all non-essential travels were suspended or postponed, and that no employee should travel to countries, territories, or areas with high risk of transmission of COVID-19, which at the time were limited to China, South Korea, Iran, Italy, and Japan. Further guidance was that when on essential travel, one must observe recommended precautionary measures during the duration of the trip (e.g., avoiding large crowds, avoiding public transportation) and, upon return to the duty station, depending on the then recommended protective measures in view of the places of travel, the employee may be required to self-quarantine for two weeks.

That message sparked a series of dramatic transformations in our lives. Meetings started to become mostly virtual, as we are a decentralized team with colleagues located in multiple offices. All business meetings with third parties or partners were systematically shifted to virtual meetings instead of face-to-face meetings. Anyone exhibiting the signs of a common cold (e.g., cough, runny or stuffy nose, sore throat, nasal congestion, mild fever), was encouraged to stay home and, to work from home, until the symptoms disappeared. And those having symptoms such as a headache and slight runny nose, fever, cough and difficulty breathing, were encouraged to immediately go and seek medical help.

That’s when things started to change. We were constantly watching the news and reading the alerts and updating each other. The traditional close greetings were gone, as we all started to avoid close contact with people who showed the slightest signs of being sick; and many strange looks passed when someone did any everyday thing such as sneezing. The mood was a strange balance of concern and humor to keep the stress levels down. We would refer to the coronavirus as simply the virus and generally went about our lives almost as normal.

A week later on March 11th, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 as a pandemic. And what really brought it home for us was the confirmation a day later, by the Ministry of Health of Kenya, of a Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) case in Nairobi. The case was the first one to be reported in Kenya since the beginning of the outbreak in China in December 2019.

It was hard to process, that in the space of a week, we had gone from not being able to go to a handful of countries, to being concerned about a global pandemic, and having to worry about a live case right on our doorstep in Nairobi. Three days later, in his address to the nation, His Excellency President Uhuru Kenyatta confirmed two more cases of the deadly coronavirus in Kenya and declared measures to be taken by the public, schools and universities, in addition to a series of measures to be taken by the government and private companies.

That announcement brought things home very clearly to us. A number of our teammates and their family members had come to Kenya in the last 14 days since March 15th, 2020, and they now needed to self-quarantine for 14 days from the date of their return to Kenya. All meetings were now being handled virtually to comply with the social distancing regulations of the WHO and the country. Hand sanitizers were everywhere. And one of us, was pregnant and had to take special care due to the vulnerable group status pregnancy during a pandemic brings.

Yet in all of this, we were the lucky ones. As we learned that we could work from home, we kept our jobs, and more importantly, we had written confirmation that our insurance company would cover infection from COVID-19 and that they were not applying the epidemic or pandemic exclusion for treatment associated with the novel coronavirus.  We were assured that we had coverage for treatment for coronavirus and coronavirus symptoms just as for any other condition. 

Working from home, we could engage via Zoom or Microsoft Teams, and life took on a somewhat normal rhythm.  Our day-to-day concerns were about how to get unlimited data options to ensure we can work from home seamlessly, how to get cell phones for all those who hadn’t received a work issued phone, and the effort needed to get mobile internet solutions for those who didn’t have a reliable connection at home. Our offices were being cleaned properly and equipment and surfaces were being sanitized.  And nearly all of us could avoid public transport and ride-hailing services.

While we all worried about our own welfare, we were focused on productivity and staying safe. Until one day, it hit us.  The safe practice guidance that we were following didn’t come as easily to the majority of people around us, who had tremendous challenges.  The majority of the people around us, didn’t have access to running water to observe the very basic preventive measures like regularly washing  hands with soap and water or using alcohol- based hand sanitizers.  Avoiding public transport was a kiss of death, as that was the only way to get to work and to the market and to school. Practicing social distancing was impossible given the crowded living conditions in many households and neighborhoods. Maintaining good respiratory hygiene by wearing a mask was not affordable to the majority of the people. And to top it all, some who were working in household help functions as cooks, gardeners, and cleaners, were asked to stay home, or released of their services, as their employers worried about them getting contaminated and infecting their households. 

From the day government announced the first case of COVID-19 in Kenya, the fear of hearing the number growing every day arose in us. The dramatic situation of Italy was obsessing us day and night, thinking that if this is the case in developed countries in Europe and North America, how will Africa cope? It became routine for us to wake up, switch on the TV, watch the global news and follow the press conferences of the Permanent Secretary and Minister of Health announcing the number of people contaminated and numbers of deaths. For one of us, a woman four months pregnant, every risk takes another level, a single worry is multiplied by hundred. The week after we were requested to work from home, our pregnant colleague had a scheduled appointment to do a 3D scan at VitalRay medical Imaging, to know the status of the baby. The excitement of the prospects of seeing her baby in real time  changed to anxiety; as she was forced to miss her appointment due to the COVID-19 guidelines. Her plans for the future were on hold, due to uncertainty.  How are things going to evolve, which hospital would be risk-free for a delivery?  Her plan was to bring her mother in law living in Rwanda to help closer to the delivery as this was her first child. Would she be able to travel? How was the household going to survive without her help?

This situation made us think of all those women in similar situations out there, also struggling to put food on the table for their families. Like Pauline, our colleague the housekeeper, a single mum with 3 children. Before the pandemic all of them were in boarding school, she could survive on her monthly salary being alone at home.  But now she must feed them, pay rent, cover all essentials for the house for her and her three children. It was becoming very  hard to meet the monthly expenses even though our colleague had asked her to stay at her place and she continued to pay her a salary.  The question was how long will this pandemic last?  Such personal experiences sealed  the urgency to think in a sustainable manner of how to support not only Pauline, but other women in similar situations.

So we decided to do something about it.  It started with one then two and then three colourful masks that one of us saw, while alternating from working one week in the office and the following week remotely from home, as the social distancing rules required. The lady serving tea in the office—a mother of one, now home schooling her child and partially working in the office—just peeped in to show us some samples. We were instantly sold, and told her we will buy all that she has and that if she can make more we will take them too.  She beamed with joy. We promised her that we would advertise her products, show them around, by wearing them. The first people to get the mask were the security guards, the cleaners, the drivers, who were each offered 2 to 3 masks including for their children.  They could pick any color or design they wanted. They were very grateful nearly tearing up. The demand was so high that our colleague had to call her housekeeper (whom she had asked to remain home and protect herself and her two children and grandmother) to see if she could join in and make masks.

Our idea had been born.  We would tell her how many masks we needed and send her photos and design criteria and models. And she manufactured them to perfection. Two women had been brought into the project — the woman who served tea in the office and the housekeeper who was working from home.  They learned how to make masks with three layers, a filter layer inside, a polyester later against the face, and textiles with beautiful African motifs (kitenges) on the outward facing side.  The cut, finishing, folding were all so beautifully done with care and quality. These women had a beautiful sense of style, color and pattern. And such creativity.  Everyday they came up with new designs.  They would use fabric remnants and beautifully mix and match the recycled fabrics. They now had the means to make a livelihood during the pandemic which could sustain their income needs after the lockdown was lifted. For marketing, it was via Facebook, to post photos of masks, modeling by wearing them, taking orders from neighbors and co-workers.  Orders started flying in, including from abroad, with people asking where they could get these masks. That’s how Muundo Barakoa, hand-made designer masks, in the traditions of haute couture, was born.

In summary, what evolved from this experience, is a rapid response using local solutions to meet demands for protective equipment and gear against the COVID-19 pandemic.  We reoriented our personal experience into an initiative for African cities, targeted towards disadvantaged women and excluded groups.  We called our initiative Muundo Barakoa, which is Swahili for “design mask”. The main goals of the Muundo Barakoa initiative were to (1) identify promising ongoing local initiatives for manufacturing of masks, gloves and protective gear in Nairobi—or what is commonly known as Personal Protective Equipment (PPE); (2) assemble and leverage existing capacity for mass manufacturing and distribution of PPE and other manufactured products to assist in the protection of disadvantaged populations from COVID-19 infections; and (3) link up and network with local and international stake holders in select segments of the PPE supply chains to enable local and regional responses to the demand for COVID-19 protective gear, with a particular focus on the opportunities provided by the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCTA). 

We relied on our local knowledge, realizing that Africa in general, and Kenya in particular,  has local manufacturing capacity for textiles at three levels of manufacturing to render finished products in the textile and clothing value chain: (1) manufacturing at mass scale in existing factories that can be retrofitted to make PPE for domestic and export purposes; (2) medium level manufacturing using pre-existing design and tailoring capacity and linking up with in-country distribution chains; and (3) informal business-to-client (B-C) manufacturing of made-to-order masks, gowns and gloves responding to individual demands.

We learned from this process, that following the rapid and differentiated COVID-19 responses in Africa, it was imperative to adopt a variety of approaches that respond to local contexts and situations.  We also learned that such approaches could help address the massive loss of jobs that is created by social distancing, and also ensure livelihoods and incomes for a wide range of the population, including daily wage household workers, informal traders, and other non-essential employees who have been furloughed, let go, or asked to stay home with no wages.  The capacity for average members of these groups to afford meeting basic daily needs, not to mention protective gear like masks and gloves, had been severely impacted by the lockdown measures, and there was a need for innovative solutions.

We designed the Muundo Barakoa initiative to match demand and supply chains serving informal demands for PPE. The initiative we built sourced ideas from the variety of solutions already in place to do other things.  We contacted tailors who made dresses for us using local materials and figured how we could network them with women who had lost their jobs and other tailors we could identify and bring into the pool.  The idea was to refocus such capabilities to make PPE at scale to meet specific design standards for safety as guided by the WHO.  We also sought to link them to other women-led distribution channels for other goods that could be reoriented to be supply chains to deliver on production and distribution of PPE. 

We identified a local a nonprofit organisation in Nairobi named Pastoral Heritage Concern (PHC), a human centered organization which designs and implements various development projects, undertaking the capacity building and civic education for youth, women empowerment and persons with disability including albinos. PHC could coordinate production and distribution and also ensure trackability of the products.  We saw this  organization as a great center piece and a bridge to achieve two objectives : (i) to improve lives of the most vulnerable individuals affected financially by losing their jobs in the informal sector due to the pandemic, those are people living with disabilities, vulnerable women (widows, single mothers, unemployed women) and the albino community; (ii) to provide locally manufactured protective gear (masks and gloves) for individuals living in slums.

So here we are today as the founders of this Muundo Barakoa initiative, which we have conceived as a nonprofit project. It is a small contribution compared to the size of the need in the Nairobi and indeed across Africa. We are very conscious that the initiative will not respond to all needs of the most vulnerable people, but we believe that even a small contribution can save lives of many. COVID-19 started with one person contaminated in the city of Wuhan.  A city and a name that most of those at risk or contaminated today had never heard about before the pandemic.  But today, the virus has reached people of all walks,  in their homes, and has dramatically changed their lives (health as well as  incomes).  We worry that our small response may not produce as big an impact as required but we believe in the power of humanity and in solidarity with all our hearts.

We have a long way to go, but we have a clear road map, a proposal with an objective to develop an efficient and scaled up supply chain for production and distribution of PPE that functions at three levels: mass production at factory level, medium scale production from existing capacities in the made-to-order sector; and informal scale from organizing currently unemployed women with skills to make things.  

Our first move was to start with the last level, by organizing a small group of women  we already knew in our daily life whose lives had been turned upside down by the coronavirus lockdown measures.  We organized them and sent them orders to make masks.  We developed  marketing arrangements through colleagues, family and friends and then through a larger distribution network.  This was a pilot to see how we could scale local capacity, skills and adaptability to change. It worked well and reinforced our determination.  We are now ready to link this small circle of women, through multi-stakeholder partnerships and other arrangements, to the broader chain of making PPE in Africa. With Muundo Barakoa, we believe we will bring a sustainable contribution to the global effort of meeting country PPE demands. Yes, together we can!