in profile / kascare
KasCare
For these Soweto infants, a bed for their afternoon sleep is a scrap of discarded lino on the dirt floor.
How to make a difference, one square at a time.
I’m Roger McDonald, freelance creative director and writer.
As a former employer client of Artisan, I’ve swapped sides, having sold our business while we (my partner Sandy and I) reinvent ourselves. We’re lucky to have a quality outfit like Artisan helping us do just that.
I took the photograph above in mid-April. These children were asleep on a scrap of discarded linoleum on the red mud of a squatter camp creche in Soweto, South Africa.
They numbered 32, clinging to life in a hovel of waste plastic, plywood and scrap iron. They varied in age from three months to four years. Two of the three-month-olds were already ill with AIDS. They were expected to die within weeks. Some of the children were orphans, among an estimated 1.4 million in South Africa alone. That number swells by an estimated 500 every day.
Eighteen months ago, a South African relative described the HIV AIDS disaster unfolding in her country. She hands out blankets and food to homeless children begging on the streets of her home town, Johannesburg. World Vision estimates the number of orphans in sub-Saharan Africa could reach 40 million by 2050.
I’m also a photo-journalist, and Sandy is a senior graphic designer and web infopreneur. She and I worked in Africa and had our family there. Now we need to give back by telling the story to a wider world.
We’ve built a charity, KasCare, which created the Knit-a-square program. It asks knitters and crocheters worldwide to send 8”/20cm squares to South Africa. There our volunteers sew them into blankets for the poorest orphans and abandoned children. The campaign runs online to keep interest high and costs low.
On a visit to South Africa in April, we unpacked square number 75,000. It was among those sent by nearly 4,000 knitters from 35 countries. The squares translate into 2,142 blankets so far, as well as more than 5,000 items of hand-knitted clothing. Our target for the end of 2010 is 105,000 squares.
World awareness of this almost unknown crisis is crucial. Please visit www.kascare.com and spread the word however you can. Even better, you can make a donation at the same site.
And a large thank you to Vicki-Anne Craigan and Spencer Cook of Artisan for making this story possible.
I’m Roger McDonald, freelance creative director and writer.
As a former employer client of Artisan, I’ve swapped sides, having sold our business while we (my partner Sandy and I) reinvent ourselves. We’re lucky to have a quality outfit like Artisan helping us do just that.
I took the photograph above in mid-April. These children were asleep on a scrap of discarded linoleum on the red mud of a squatter camp creche in Soweto, South Africa.
They numbered 32, clinging to life in a hovel of waste plastic, plywood and scrap iron. They varied in age from three months to four years. Two of the three-month-olds were already ill with AIDS. They were expected to die within weeks. Some of the children were orphans, among an estimated 1.4 million in South Africa alone. That number swells by an estimated 500 every day.
Eighteen months ago, a South African relative described the HIV AIDS disaster unfolding in her country. She hands out blankets and food to homeless children begging on the streets of her home town, Johannesburg. World Vision estimates the number of orphans in sub-Saharan Africa could reach 40 million by 2050.
I’m also a photo-journalist, and Sandy is a senior graphic designer and web infopreneur. She and I worked in Africa and had our family there. Now we need to give back by telling the story to a wider world.
We’ve built a charity, KasCare, which created the Knit-a-square program. It asks knitters and crocheters worldwide to send 8”/20cm squares to South Africa. There our volunteers sew them into blankets for the poorest orphans and abandoned children. The campaign runs online to keep interest high and costs low.
On a visit to South Africa in April, we unpacked square number 75,000. It was among those sent by nearly 4,000 knitters from 35 countries. The squares translate into 2,142 blankets so far, as well as more than 5,000 items of hand-knitted clothing. Our target for the end of 2010 is 105,000 squares.
World awareness of this almost unknown crisis is crucial. Please visit www.kascare.com and spread the word however you can. Even better, you can make a donation at the same site.
And a large thank you to Vicki-Anne Craigan and Spencer Cook of Artisan for making this story possible.
watch
VA's listening to ...
Kylie's - 'Chiggy Wiggy' - ft Akshay Kumar
