Two Western University graduate students are doing their part to help those impacted by the coronavirus pandemic — in particular, those with hearing impairments.
For the last several weeks, Taylor Bardell and Matthew Urichuk have been sewing dozens of homemade, reusable masks fitted with a transparent section — “smile panels” — that allows those who are deaf or hard of hearing to read the lips of the wearer.
“I went grocery shopping for the first time when we had to wear masks, and we were just realizing how difficult it was and how strange it was to communicate like that,” Bardell said in an interview Tuesday alongside Urichuk.
“We just started talking about how much harder it would be if you relied on lip reading,” she told 980 CFPL’s Devon Peacock.
According to the Canadian Association for the Deaf, a 2015 estimate pegged there were 357,000 Canadians who were deaf and 3.2 who were considered hard of hearing.
The rise of the use of opaque masks to curb the coronavirus has exacerbated pre-existing barriers and added new ones to the everyday lives of those with hearing impairments.
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Bardell said that after some online research, the pair, who both study at Western’s School of Communications Sciences and Disorders, came across patterns people had shared showing different ideas for a transparent patch.
“We just tried to make a couple and went through some trial and error and made some adjustments, and then we were just really amazed at how well they worked.”
In mid-June, their initiative, the Smile Masks Project, was launched with the aim of donating the masks for free to local businesses, primarily in London and Belleville, Ont., that wanted them.
Within a matter of days, Bardell and Urichuk had received more than 200 requests for masks and soon found themselves getting ready to ship some masks out across the country.
A GoFundMe has been set up to help cover the cost of materials and shipping and had raised just over $1,000 as of Wednesday.
With the help of family, the pair have made more than 100 masks so far — they’ve got it down to about 15 to 20 minutes per mask, they say — and earlier this week uploaded a video tutorial showing how people can make their own.
They’re also in the midst of establishing a partnership with the Oakville-based organization VOICE for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children.
“They really thought it was great what we were doing and they wanted to see if they could offer us support in any way,” Bardell said.
“We’re just still talking with them, with their board, to see about different ways to potentially get some more volunteers making some more masks for us.”
The Smile Masks Project isn’t alone in its quest for transparent face coverings.
Similar initiatives have popped up elsewhere in Canada, as well as in the U.S. and the U.K.
More information on Bardell and Urichuk’s project can be found on its Facebook page.
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