As the winter season catches up with South Africans under this exhausting lockdown, the women at MES Johannesburg’s Impilo Hospice have committed to keeping themselves warm by knitting and crocheting, thereby taking advantage of talents they have not used in a long time.
The large-scale project follows a large donation of wool to the organisation. The donation was made in kind after MES asked its friends and supporters for items to help those living in the shelters to keep busy whilst under lockdown.
The knitting benefits the ladies at the shelter because they are knitting items for themselves, especially for the coming winter. The ladies also knitted a number of items for two pregnant members of the knitting party. So successful was the project that the knitting group soon finished the large supply of donated wool, leaving it to the MES team to buy more material to keep their hands and minds busy.
MES will sell these home-made hats, scarves, gloves, bags and jerseys to earn an income as soon as the lockdown regulations are lifted, with the proceeds going to the participating ladies at Impilo Hospice. MES Johannesburg has shared its insights with other branches as part of its challenge to them, and other shelters, to create similar initiatives that both motivate and financially support the participants, providing a way of reinstating their confidence and dignity.
