As a child I grew up with my aunt (mum’s sister) and her family and since I was 8 when I lost my parents she was mom and always will be. Mum used to have a knitting machine; I remember quite vividly that she made lots of income through knitting. During her knitting days, she taught me and my other two sisters how to knit using the knitting machine and later on we used to help her and the business grew quite well. Although she was the knitter, trust me she made us knit our own jerseys from primary all the way to high school. Thus knitting has always been a part of me growing up and I really enjoyed learning new patterns, and seeing a product coming together knowing I did my part to help. Later on mum left the knitting business and, I was off to college, but my knitting passion didn’t die though I just didn’t knit as often.
I then started a knitting initiative two years ago which I named ‘Knit a Hat’. With this, my goal was to knit hats for the less privileged for winter but this time using my hands, no machine. One would ask me, why not get donations and just buy the hats and my answer to that would always be, ‘God gave me the gift and placed that beautiful idea in my spirit and since the first time I knitted , I never stopped. It is an amazing feeling to do something from the bottom of your heart, using the gifts that God gave you to help others.
The first year I started knitting that was 2016; I managed to knit the hats alone and gave them away to a charity organization named Called for a Purpose. Winter of 2017, I approached a very good friend of mine Lisa, very passionate about knitting as well and she has been helping me for the past two winters. In 2017, we had an amazing group of ladies we put together and we knitted thrice the hats I had knitted in the first year and these were donated to an orphanage with disabled children called Kudakwashe.
For this year’s winter, we started knitting last year in December and chose to donate to Harare Children’s Hospital. We designed our donation flier and posted it on social media networks and the cash donations to buy the wool came from countless people around our social groups and they supported us for the months we were knitting.
We managed to give away about 35 hats to the children at the Hospital and it was a very overwhelming experience getting to distribute and getting to know some of them. Giving should not be about expecting something in return but it should be about the love we have for the people of God who need our help.
Deuteronomy 15:11 (NIV), ‘There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be open-handed toward your fellow Israelites who are poor and needy in your land.’
On behalf of Knit a Hat, I would like to thank all those who supported us in this year’s initiative; it might have been through donations, prayer or even knitting. May God bless you all and may the work of your hands be blessed. We don't stop now but continue knitting for next winter.
For more details about the Knit a Hat initiative please email us on alicenyampinga@gmail.com
