Knit to warm orphans in 2014 – Edinburgh craft activists encourage more donations.
Earlier today Edinburgh craftivists held a rally to encourage knitters and crocheters in the Capital to help to warm African orphans at Greyfriars Bobby statue.
Local craft group Granny Greens knitted 500 blanket squares by hand – the height of the Greyfriars Bobby statue, which they displayed. The squares after displaying will be posted to Johannesburg in South Africa where the charity Knit-a-Square will get local volunteers to sew knitted squares into blankets for orphans.
Many of the orphans are also infected with HIV AIDS. As this is an auto immune disease, keeping warm helps their ability to stay well. Knit-a-Square has been working for over five years to get squares from crafters around the world to contribute to blankets.
Knit-a-Square asked crafters to knit piles of squares to the height of landmarks and this inspired Granny Greener Mary Gordon to get the group to knit the height of Greyfriars Bobby.
Mary Gordon commented:- “As Bobby was an orphaned dog it’s an appropriate way to get people inspired to help out. I’ve made Bobby a small blanket – a minature of the ones the orphans wear so he can stand in solidarity with them.”
The Granny Greeners are asking crafty members of the public to join the cause to help African orphans by getting out their knitting needles in 2014 and send 8 inch squares to www.knit-a-square.com.
Each day 500 children are orphaned by the AIDS crisis in Southern Africa. In South Africa there are now 1,900,000 AIDS orphans. The AIDS orphans in Southern Africa belong to one of the fastest growing, but least desirable groups of children in need, on earth.
All of these lovely photos are courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/pathlost/
Founding Editor of The Edinburgh Reporter.
Edinburgh-born multimedia journalist and iPhoneographer.
