World’s largest jute bag created in Coimbatore by group of visually impaired people

Nine visually impaired members of Coimbatore based Yuva Foundation, along with the help of transgender persons, made the world’s largest jute bag last Friday. The 33ft wide and 66ft tall bag was completed in a record time of just five hours. Makers are all set to enter the Guinness World Record.

One of the biggest threats faced by the environment today is plastic. In fact, it has been fuelling pollution and in turn playing a crucial role in global warming. Realising its drastic effects on the environment, people are now stepping up to cut off plastic. Yuva Foundation in Coimbatore shows how this can be done rightly. Last week, nine visually impaired people made world’s largest jute bag to enter the Guinness Book of World Records.

All the nine visually impaired members of Yuva, along with the help of a few transgender persons who are also part of the organisation worked for five hours to make this huge jute bag which is 33ft wide and 66 ft tall.

Shashi Kala, Chairman, Yuva Foundation says that the entire team was inspired by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speech on Independence Day pointing out relevance of cutting out plastic completely.

Modi ji’s speech definitely inspired us all. We have been thinking on how to do our bit for the environment. That is when this idea popped up. Our team of visually impaired people along with transgender persons worked together to create the world’s largest jute bag. This is our way of spreading the message of harmful effects of plastic on our earth. We hope more people can switch over to eco-friendly ways-Shashi Kala, Chairman, Yuva Foundation.

According to Shashi Kala, team work is what made the making of this jute bag successful. “Yuva Foundation empowers both people with disabilities and transgender persons as well. So they worked together to ensure that they finish the bag in just five hours. Society thinks that person with a disability cannot do anything. We want to prove them wrong and show how community members can do unique things with the right guidance”, says Shashi Kala.

Motor operated machine was used to create bags. So users could easily put thread into needle without any external help. This helped in making of the bag faster and easier. Yuva Foundation is planning to take up more such unique initiatives in days to come. They hope to spread the message of environmental protection through their many initiatives.

Chithra Pushpam, who is visually impaired, was a part of the team. She says, “It was a great experience for us. Everybody in the team was helpful and we all worked together to ensure that we finish the bag in record time. Since we are all blind, we had the help of our transgender friends who made sure that everything was available at our fingertip. This was truly a learning experience for us and we are looking forward for more such initiatives through which we can spread messages”.

ALSO READ: Inclusive Stem is out to make hands-on science learning accessible to blind & low vision Indians