Lakshmi Menon The Social Entrepreneur

Social entrepreneur Lakshmi Menon has fashioned lightweight, durable, and washable mattresses from PPE scrap material. These can be used in COVID care hospitals.

Lakshmi Menon has been working on designing mattresses from scrap before the COVID situation. As the Honorable Prime Minister once said ''AAPDA KO AVSAR ME BADAL DIYA'', Lakshmi has just shown how to do it. Where everyone faced problems in the pandemic for the survival of their businesses, this Social Servent has come up with a new idea to provide employment to the women by upcycling PPE scrap. 

''As COVID-19 cases spiked in Kerala, the government ordered every panchayat to set up a 50-bed care centre. This brought in huge demand for cots, mattresses, pillows, and other essentials. Since I was updated with every minor thing happening in my neighborhood in Kochi, I asked the panchayat member how I could help. She told me the cost of the mattresses was very high and people did not have enough funds to donate at this time,” Lakshmi explains.

“Level 10, a manufacturing unit based in Kottayam, was kind enough to send me a few samples of PPE kit scrap. This scrap has not been used anywhere else, as it arose after the material was cut for PPE kits. I found it ideal to be made into mattresses as it’s clean, fluffy, and lightweight. Since the scrap has a bit of plastic content in it, it is waterproof, washable, and reusable for a couple of times. Moreover, the scrap that went directly to the landfills had a new use,” she adds.

Generating Employment for Women

Lakshmi has started the small scale operation by converting an area of her house as the workplace and taking in 8 women to work there. She decided to name the concept as SHAYYA (Sanskrit word of Mattress).

“Through Shayya, we can provide jobs that require practically no skill. It will also help boost the local economy as the mattresses available now are not even produced in Kerala,” she adds.

''I am happy Shayya is another first from Kerala, a model of a resurgence, and a story of how we are overcoming the downturn and converting it into an opportunity by being innovative,” she says

As they say, ''Necessity is the mother of invention'' this story inspires everyone not only to work for society but also to be an entrepreneur and generate jobs for many.