Because of the N-Covid 19 pandemic, most, if not all, countries around the world have gone into a lockdown or quarantine.

Most people are now staying and working or studying from home.

One of these people is Ashley Lawrence, a senior Eastern Kentucky University student studying education for the deaf and hard of hearing.

She is not letting the quarantine and stay-at-home order stop her from fulfilling her obligations and responsibilities and continues to teach from home.

She also noticed something else while she was quarantined at home.

Because of the shortage of medical supplies, a lot of people have opted to make their own masks. And true enough, when you do a search on YouTube, you will hundreds of tutorials on how to do it.

But Ashley noticed a missing tutorial.

“I just saw that people were making masks on Facebook for everyone to have instead of the throwaway masks, and I was like, what about the deaf and hard of hearing population?” Ashley Lawrence thought.

No one was making masks for the deaf and hard-of-hearing community.

“I felt like there was a huge population that was being looked over,” Ashley added. “We’re all panicking right now and so a lot of people are just not being thought of. So, I felt like it was very important that, even at a time like this, people need to have that communication.”

Members of the deaf and hard-of-hearing community use lip-reading to be able to communicate with other people.

And when their lips are covered with the mask, the dead and hard-of-hearing don’t understand what was said. It’s even worse if the other person doesn’t know how to use ASL.

“For anyone who uses speech reading, lip reading, anybody like that,” Ashley explained. “And people who are profoundly deaf who use ASL as their primary mode of communication. ASL is very big on facial expressions and it is part of the grammar.”

Luckily, her mother is a very crafty woman, who knew her way around a sewing machine. So they decided to work together to create face masks for the community.

Ashley and her mother started designing and producing masks using their bedsheets and plastic fabric. The mouth area will be visible because of the plastic and the deaf and hard-of-hearing can see and read the lips of the other person.

The plastic fabric also allows them to see the facial expressions of the one wearing the mask.

Ashley and her mom also decided they wanted to extend their project another step.

“We’re trying different things too for people with cochlear implants and hearing aids if they can’t wrap around the ears,” Ashley said. “We’re making some that have around the head and around the neck.”

The plastic window on the mask though is mainly the reason why she started the project.

“I don’t know if you have seen Virginia Moore on Andy Beshear’s things at five o’clock, but she’s very emotive, and if half of that is gone because you’re wearing a mask then half of what you’re saying is being missed, so even if it’s not physically talking and just using ASL, then you need to have that kind of access,” Ashley explained.

Ever since she launched her project, she has received orders from six states.

She wanted the people who need to have the mask the most to have easier access to the special masks. So she started an online fundraiser to shoulder the cost of materials and shipping within the US.

Would you like to find out more about Ashley’s initiative? Watch the video below.

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Source: LEX18 News, LEX 18 News, Refinery29, CBS News