February 7, 2011:
North Stonington, Conn. In southeastern New England, a group of knitters and crocheters is contributing handiwork to 2000 mid-wife kits for Kenyan mothers. Included in the packages will be handmade hats. Hundreds of infant and children’s caps are being prepared for hand-delivery in July when several members of the American Friends of Kenya (AFK) will travel to Nairobi and its outlying slums. Hats are also needed for older siblings.
Because their aren’t enough hospitals and clinics in Kenya, most women deliver their babies at home, where conditions are dire, to say the least. A rusty tin can is often used to cut the umbilical cord.
“Being in a slum shack assisting in a birth is not something you often want to see,” Emelina Silver, Exec. Dir., AFK.
The Norwich, Conn. organization will include a towel, salve, medical tape for cords, new razor blades, soap and the knitted hats in the kits.
As a former military nurse in Vietnam, Ms. Silver heads up the community health endeavors of AFK, which also include donations of antibiotics, diabetes meds and testing kits, anti-malarial drugs, defibrillators, and the teaching of Kenyans about better community health at crowded daily clinics in remote areas.
North Stonington residents, including the Wheeler Middle/High School faculty and alumni, are eagerly contributing with knowledge that their free time spent knitting is going to a worthy charitable cause. Donations are also being accepted for school supplies, flip-flops, and children’s vitamins. For more information, please visit afkinc.org.
Silver said, “In Kenya, three children share one pencil.”
Rhode Islanders can drop off donations just over the border in N. Stonington at Otis Library by March 5.
Find an infant hat pattern. Knit and crochet for our troops in Afghanistan. Knit and crochet for HIV/AIDS children.
A list of Rhode Island charities provided by Ocean State Knitters on Ravelry and Lion Brand is here.
Outside R. I. contact Knits for Needs, who does so much good work organizing charitable knitting and crochet for needy organizations everywhere, like Women in Need, assisting homeless women and children on the streets of New York.
Sharon Watterson Subscribe to these knitting and crochet articles. Click subscribe at the top of the page and get free patterns right in your email box. Watterson also writes about Newport Home and Living, Sailing, and Landmark Travel. Visit here for more free knit and crochet patterns. You’ll find her blogging at knit_n_scribble.
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