Krochet Kids Charity Teaches Third World Women Marketable Craft

Tag : Knitting Cap

Communicating with gestures and the help of a translator, a dozen20-something American men attempt to impress upon a handful ofUgandan women the importance of symmetry. The women agreeablyoblige. After all, when it comes to crocheting, these guys are thepros.
Strange though it may seem, the young men from California andWashington are indeed crochet experts. More surprising, though, isthat they are the creators of an international charity that aims touse needle and yarn to empower impoverished women in Third Worldcountries by providing them with a practical, economicallyrewarding trade.
"It's definitely pretty comical to think about, some college-ageguys crocheting with some crazy idea of changing the world," saidKohl Crecelius, 21-year-old co-founder of the Krochet KidsInternational nonprofit. "But maybe it's so unique and different,it actually works."
Crocheting involves using a single hooked needle to stitch yarninto a variety of functional goods, and is not to be confused withknitting, which uses two identical needles to pull yarn throughloops and is generally considered the more difficult of the twocrafts.
Crecelius and his friends spent part of the summer in the Ugandantown of Gulu, about 175 miles north of the capital, Kampala,teaching impoverished women to crochet.
"I would definitely tell you that it's been an experience," saidCrecelius, a senior at the University of Washington in Seattlemajoring in international business.
Comfortable with their craft
"It's obviously a huge surprise for people that there's a bunch ofguys crocheting," said Tyler Ready, a fellow participant and arecent UW graduate. "We're confident and comfortable enough thoughto say, 'Hey, we're going to use this tool to empower the world.'"
The idea behind Krochet Kids, Crecelius said, is to equip women inpoor countries with a functional skill that allows them to make andsell items in their local communities. Krochet Kids supplies thewomen with the raw materials, tools and training, and pays them abase wage for their efforts. Eventually, the organization plans tosell the handmade products in the U.S., raising additional funds tobe sent back to the craftswomen's communities.
"We want to run a business, but at the same time, we want to helpas many people as possible," Crecelius said.
Big fans of snowboarding and surfing, the Krochet Kids volunteersbegan by teaching the Ugandan women to make a product associatedwith slope and beach fashion: a skull-cap hat known as a "beanie."(Long-term, Crecelius said he would like to add purses, shoes andother clothing items to the program's repertoire.)
So how did a group of sports-loving college guys decide thatcrocheting was the way they'd help change the world?
Crecelius' keenness for crocheting began in the winter of 2003,when the then-teenager learned the skill from his older brother,Parc, who had picked up the craft as a freshman in college.
"We got addicted to it," he recalled. "We started making a couplehats a day."
The beanie look spreads
He taught a few of his friends, and soon the beanie look caught on.Before long, his high-school peers and others were buying them.Eventually, the group sold the hats to help raise money for theirsenior prom.
Even when the friends split up to attend colleges in Washington andSouthern California, they continued their craftwork, and introducedit to newfound buddies.
About a year ago, spurred by a volunteerism, increasing businessacumen and a growing awareness of world issues -- as well as atypical young-adult itch to save the world - Crecelius and hisfriends began talking about what they could do to help those inneed.
"We asked, 'How can we really help the best? What can we do?'"Crecelius said. "We wanted to empower a group to empower their ownpeople."
"Finally, we decided we had this tool to do more with," Readyadded. "We decided we wanted to take it to the next level. So, lastsummer we sat around and dreamed of how things could be."
Since its 2006 inception, Krochet Kids has raised more than$20,000, mostly by selling hats and T-shirts bearing the charity'sname and through donations from friends and family, Ready said.
Uganda is proving ground
Last spring, the Krochet Kids decided the time was ripe for aninternational test of their concept. They decided to start out inUganda, since co-founder Stewart Ramsey had previously volunteeredthere and he and other members had connections with othernonprofits working in Uganda, including Invisible Children, Readyexplained.
The need also is great, since the east African country has beentorn apart by an ongoing civil war that has lasted nearly 20 years,disrupting the economy and leaving many Ugandans without work.
"The biggest thing is that they just need jobs, they need a way tobe employed," Ready said. "It is another way out of poverty forthem."
Teaching the women how to crochet was the easy part, Creceliussaid. The tough part, the group found, was being able to carry outtheir vision in a country with different customs and laws.
While Krochet Kids is recognized as a nonprofit in the U.S., it wasnot registered to perform charitable work in Uganda.
"We had everything planned, but once we got there, we just realizedthe pace of the culture and everything that happens is a littleslower than we were expecting," Crecelius said. "It's a process,and we have to figure out how we fit into that."
The bureaucratic roadblock forced members of the Krochet Kids teamto work with other Uganda-sanctioned nonprofits rather thanindependently. (Though most spent a month in the country, some arestaying for an entire year to earn school credit as well ascontinue to oversee Krochet Kids efforts to obtain nonprofit statusthere.)
Working with the local Ugandan nonprofit Kica ber, Krochet Kids'volunteers found nine local Ugandan women interested in learning tocrochet and ended up with six participants for the one-week trialrun.
Can volunteers master it?
"It was important to figure out if they could crochet," Creceliussaid. "We found out that they could. They were actually veryskilled with their hands and almost everyone picked it up quickly.The first day, the woman I was crocheting with - Alice - made,like, a flawless hat. And by the third day, the majority weremaking almost flawless hats, so that was pretty cool. We knew thatour program worked."
The female participants were mostly young, between the ages of 15and 23, and many were "child-mothers," a term used to describeyoung females abducted by rebel forces and impregnated by theircaptors.
"It really brings into perspective why the people are how theyare," Crecelius said. "It's just really humbling to see, and itmade me so patient. (The women) are very quiet, just because oftheir experiences and treatment during their entire lives, butthey're eager to learn. And they came in every day smiling, despiteeverything going on around them."
The women made about 20 hats in total, Crecelius said, all of whichare currently sitting in his Spokane, Wash., bedroom.
Krochet Kids intended to begin selling hats over the Internet thisfall, but the timetable has slipped to winter or next spring.Crecelius said Krochet Kids wants to be sure it can support itselffinancially and that it will have enough quality products beforemaking them available for purchase.
In the meantime, participants in the charity plan to return toUganda soon and are looking to expand the program intoSpanish-speaking countries.
"We'll see how the rest of this year unfolds," Crecelius said. "Weknow that the programs works, now it's just the process of figuringout how to help best."
© 2008 MSNBC Interactive
Reproduced with permission of MSNBC, from No yarn: Young men do good with stitch in time by Sarah Haas, September 20, 2007; permission conveyed throughCopyright Clearance Center, Inc.
You can read this story in its original location and hear an audiointerview at: www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20780105