Knit-a-Square

It's so much more than just knitting :)

As an off-spring from our fundraising projects, we started a couple of students knitting squares for Aids orphans in Africa, as part of the global Knit-a-Square project. We found some needles in a charity shop and people donated wool. I started off a large number of squares so people could just pick them up. I took them with me to PLT, and left a basket-full in the staffroom. Within a week not only did we have a large group of students knitting, but also more than half the staff. Some of the staff members had not knitted before, or had not done so since they were children. 

My favourite moments:

• having one boy who had achieved very little to date, and was regularly in trouble, sitting quietly chatting with me while he knitted his square - nobody else was allowed to do this one!
• the girls who took theirs home and brought them in each day for their form teacher to help them fix mistakes
• the quiet staff member who seldom comes to morning tea, now joining us and learning to knit
• and last, but not least . . . watching the boss attempting to crochet.

Details the original response to do something positive and take direct action to help the vulnerable and deprived children of South Africa.
Posted by Knit-a-square on Tuesday, 29 April 2014

Knit-a-square Song 

Participating and Contributing

Participating and Contributing was the overarching theme for this round of projects. Our keen group of 'scratch' programmers / electronic whizzes carried on with their previous projects, plus incorporated the design of a model designed to withstand an earthquake.  

Several groups focused on ways to help in their local, or national, community with projects such as:

• raising money to buy colouring books and pencils for the children's ward at our local hospital
• rejuvenating our vegetable garden at school
• organising suitable games to include our supported learning students in some special PE sessions

My group was keen to raise money to send to Nepal. We made a valiant effort selling hotdogs and garlic bread (out of the leftover hotdog buns), and a "lolly-lottery", and tried desperately to get donations of goods. We were pleased with the positive responses from the businesses we approached - although they did not work out well in terms of helping with our fund-raising, in almost all cases they explained that they choose to support one charity themselves. It is good to know that so many people are doing something. 

As a school where many families are struggling financially themselves, it was very difficult to sell our goods and we decided that the amount of effort required for a minimal return was probably not worth it. We then thought about other ways we could help. We heard about another school who have been knitting for knit-a-square.com and decided we could have a go. Although it wasn't for Nepal, we decided that the most important thing is that we all do something to help those less fortunate. This project appealed to the students as it directly assists orphaned children. More about this soon.