(Source: China Daily)
More than 30 volunteers organized by the village Party committee are participating in a group effort to manufacture gauze masks, ethanol and sterilizing powder at a factory in Southwest China's Yunnan province to help arm the fight against the novel coronavirus.
Some villagers also have donated their sewing machines for the production work at Yunnan Xiangshan Medical Material Co in Mingyihe village, Anning city.
Volunteers mobilized to address the labor shortage during the Spring Festival holiday at the factory, which resumed production on Friday.
They received body temperature checks and training before work started, with volunteers capable of using the sewing machines being more than 50 years old, on average.
Seventy-nine-year-old Chu Shudong, who had 30 years of tailoring experience, volunteered to repair the sewing machines.
"I've not done tailoring for 20 years. I'm old and my eyes are weak. I hope to do my best here and make more masks so that people are protected," he said.
The youngest volunteer, 22-year-old Bi Qiling, joined the team. She's available because the new semester at her university in Beijing was delayed because of the novel coronavirus outbreak.
"With the volunteers, our production capacity is higher. We have 65 people and work on two shifts," said Zhang Kaijin, head of the factory.
The factory is capable of producing two tons of ethanol and 200 kilometers of sterilizing powder every day.
It sends its production information to the city government on a daily basis, and the products are all allocated by the government.