A Treasury of New Zealand Craft Resources sends congratulations to all those wonderful quilters. A truly amazing effort.
This is a story which should be on prime time TV. It iws a story of empathy. Quilters all over our land who were able to relate to and empathize with the people of Kosovo.
This powerful response mainifest itself in over 1200 quilts being created to take comfort and warmth (physcological and practical) to hundreds of homeless.
I am pleased to report that the Kosovo Quilt Project has finally come to an end. It has been great being involved with this effort, and in the process getting to know so many new people all over the country. What a sterling effort it was by New Zealanders, I think I lost count of the number of quilts when it got past the 1200 mark. I can remember thinking, that 1999 Easter weekend, when I sent that first appeal email out "wouldn't it be nice to get 1 00 quilts together to send to the refugees in the camps". It looked so cold and bleak over there in the news footage, and warm quilts seemed just what they needed. Not just for the physical warmth they would provide, but for the emotional warmth as well, knowing that people on the other side of the planet cared about their situation and wanted to reach out. I did not imagine that R would be more than a year before the last lot of quilts was delivered to the last lot of Kosovars that came to New Zealand, and that there would be times when just about every thing that didn't move in my house would be covered with quilts.
Guild member Beryl Elliot and I went together to deliver some twenty quilts to the homes of the last few. It was lovely for us to be able to meet and speak to some of the actual recipients, as mostly all the contact we had had before was putting quilts on beds at the refugee centre the day before the refugees arrived. We left each home bearing gifts of fresh bread, grapefruit and silverbeet from their gardens. We even got to sample some turkish coffee. We couldn't understand what was being offered to us, so were really surprised to be presented with tiny cups of thick black aromatic coffee that you could practically stand a teaspoon in and which has probably made the poor wee baby in my tummy an addict for life (I felt very guifty)!!
There were a few quilts left over which I have distributed as follows:- 24 children's quilts to the East Auckland Womens refuge (they had not received any for about three years I was told), 21 cot size and childrens / lap quilts to the neonatal unit in New Plymouth and abused children via the police. Fourteen childrens quilts have also been given to Cathy Baal for the APQG community quilts, most of which will be given to the St Mary's Family Centre for children 'at risk". The excess quilts were mostly childrens and cot size, and there were simply not enough Kosovar children that came to New Zealand to give them to. It was not possible, in terms of both cost and logistics to send them to Kosovo, as we had already sent four shipments at the start of the project and used up all our shipping sponsorship favours.
Thank you again all you wonderful quilters throughout New Zealand for your amazing effort. I understand pictures of some of the quilts and stories have been printed in magazines as far away as Japan!
Yours in quilting
If you'd like any more information, or if you have any ideas, suggestions or donations, I can be contacted on 534 6096, fax 533 9445 or by emailkosovo@designscape.co.nz.
www.nzquilter.org.nz
Karen Lee Johnson, NZ Project Coordinator
