PRAYAGRAJ: Their schools might be closed during the lockdown, but for class VI students Shriti and Reyansh there’s a lot to keep them busy. The teens who live in Naini area of the city are a part of a eight-member group of school students who are pitching in with the fight against novel coronavirus by making face masks of cloth and distributing them in nearby villages.The group is a part of ‘Project Arpan’, an initiative funded by their school Lala Ram Kumar Agarwal School. “When schools were closed during the lockdown, my colleagues and I started discussing how they can get children to do something as constructive as making face masks in their spare time,” said Pratiksha Agarwal, who teaches at Lala Ram Kumar Agarwal School and is also its manager.The Naini residents said that one of the students’ mother showed them how easily one could make a mask at home.The students are aged between 11 and 15 years and the other members of the group are — Sidharth (class XII), Saumya, Saniya, Roshini, Shristi (all class X), Shikha (class IX), Tanu (class VIII). The group is making around 500 masks every day since the project was launched a week ago.“We can make around 10-12 masks from a metre of cloth. If we include the cost of elastic, a single mask costs us around Rs 5. We have managed to distribute around 5,000 masks till now in different villages like Cheoki, Dadri, Dubrajpur, Naini Goan, Samugara and Vishnupur,” Agarwal added.The school management is providing the group with cloth, sewing machines and other raw materials. The students start making masks at home after attending online classes. While the younger ones in the group cut the cloth and elastic, the older ones sew the masks.The masks are later collected and then distributed in villages.The students also accompany their school principal Kaushal Singh in touring villages and spread word about the importance of wearing masks in wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.“I haven’t yet seen these kids getting tired. As most of the members of the group are girls, they get easy access to houses in villages. They meet the women folk and explain how they should use these masks. The volunteers also tell them about the precautions they should observe to shield themselves from the virus,” said Singh.However, the group’s efforts are not bereft of challenges. “We are running out of green and blue colour cotton cloth that’s usually used for making face masks, elastic and thread. We are trying to contact wholesale traders to procure the raw material, but have had no luck till now,” said Agarwal.