Shangri-La Group has collaborated with Diversey and local NGO’ to provide over half a million masks to local communities across seven countries in Southeast Asia and Sri Lanka as part of Diversey Linens for Life Face Masks (L4LFM) programm.e
Shangri-La at the Fort, Manila, Makati Shangri-La, Edsa Shangri-La Manila, and Hotel Jen Manila will join Shangri-La hotels in Cebu, Colombo, Hambantota, Johor Bahru, Kota Kinabalu, Penang, Surabaya, Jakarta, Singapore, Bangkok, and Yangon to collectively donate 12,500kg of used, clean besheets, duvet covers and pillowcases to local communities to be repurposed into reusable fabric face masks. In some cities such as Yangon, Johor Bahru and Bangkok, the upcycling of masks will also generate employment opportunities for members in low socio-economic community groups.
In Manila, the four hotels are looking to contribture up to 100,000 reusable face masks for communities in need during this period, with the support of NGOs such as Holy Family School of Indang Cavite where teachers and parents of the barangay and The Holy Family School have volunteered to kick start the programme and make thousands of the face masks. The masks will then be distributed to residents of Barangay Harasan and Carasuchi in Indang, Cavite.
The upcycling of clean, used linen into face masks also provides Shangri-La a meaningful way to help reduce environmental wastage. If new linen was produced to manufacture half a million fabric face masks, it would have incurred 60 million litres of water (the equivalent of 23 Olympic-size swimming pools) and a carbon footprint of 150 tons of carbon dioxide, equivalent to 63, ooo liters of petrol being combusted.
John Rice, Vice-President for Opetaions in the Philippines said: “We’re deeply committed to helping our local communities in as many ways as we can. The pandemic has affected each and every one of us and this initiative not only offers some protection from COVID-19 to those most vulnerable.”
Teri Betito, Country Business Director of Diversey Philippines also imparted that the Linens for Life Face Masks programme is a great example of how Diversey, together with customer hotels and partner NGO’s is providing simple hygiene items to those who really need them and helping prevent the spread of the infection.
Shangri-La’s partnership with Diversey on the L4LFM programme builds on the successful Soap for Hope collaboration between the two entities globally.
