Help Us Grow This is a three part story of a remarkable friendship and partnership between an Australian woman and her family, a Ugandan man and his, and two communities on two continents. It proves beyond doubt what people can achieve when they are inspired to help, they act on it, they chip away, they […]
The neonates lie perfect, but just a fraction of their preferred birth weight; their near-naked bodies taped to medical paraphernalia and kept at womb-warmth by their incubators. Nurses glide between them, feeding their minute charges mother’s milk through noodle thin, nasal-gastro tubes. They change nappies the size of a child’s mitten and coo soothing words […]
We are bombarded with disturbing and deeply sad stories about a staggering number of suffering children everywhere, none more so than in South Africa and Zimbabwe. I’m Sandy McDonald, founder and CEO of CreateCare Global, and co-founder of the program Knit-a-square. My family and I were born in Zimbabwe, or Rhodesia as it was at […]
Wafa Fahour wanted to make a difference, but she wasn’t sure how. I met Wafa at the Islamic Museum of Melbourne, a hidden gem of Muslim Australian history, where she is a volunteer. The museum has beautiful artwork, artefacts, and delicious coffee. An incomplete orphanage for boys Recently, Wafa came across a story about an orphanage […]
Tragically, there is a growing incidence in South Africa and worldwide of childhood motherhood. Anna’s story A yarn from my aunt Anna* was a delightful little girl who was brought to live on our property at the age of three under the care of our domestic worker, Matilda,* eleven years ago. Matilda had only one […]
You once held down a respectable job in the commercial world. Then, as happens all too frequently in our world today, you’re retrenched – now 12 years ago. Since then, life has got harder and harder and today you live in the open, under a bridge. For the last four years, you and three other women […]
Ronda is a wonderful story teller. Her words evoke the place and the people almost as if we had been there with her on this truly African-style blanket distribution. Here is an edited, but particularly special, Knit-a-square distribution written in her words: “I loved the way this particular morning’s work quite unexpectedly turned into one of our […]
Blanket talk Just recently, I have had the enormous pleasure of sharing 10 days, here in Australia, with my aunt, Ronda Lowrie, co-founder of Knit-a-square and founder of KAS SA. As we sat together in our family home and shared stories of the last six years, Ronda told me many heart-warming anecdotes of the extraordinary work […]
The therapy of knitting Isn’t it amazing how an unexpected call can result in a chain of connections, coincidences and good turns. Although, perhaps this is the real human condition at work— creativity, responsiveness, connectivity and a willingness to act. This call was from Wendy Leopold. She lives in the small town of Robe, South Australia. Wendy […]
Let’s think for a moment about these millions of children, made orphaned and vulnerable through losing their parents to HIV AIDS. What exactly does it mean to be orphaned? The likelihood is that few of us know children who have been orphaned. Most of us may know adults whose parents have died. Many of us may […]