Monday, August 23, 2010

Huge thank you and a request to slow down

Hey all Hotheads Knitters,
First off, thank you SO MUCH for all of your amazing contributions. Currently we are more than meeting our goal of putting beanies on the head of every baby born at Butaro Hospital. In fact, the response to this request has been so great, that we are having trouble storing and then shipping all the beanies to Africa!
I can't tell you how much it means to see people band together from thousands of miles away and chip in to take care of our patients. The needs of the communities we serve are enormous on every level, and it is heartwarming and inspiring to see such a tremendous effort come from you all.
That said, at the moment I've been asked to have you slow down the knitting efforts while we catch up - we are running out of space to store them in Boston and Rwanda, and, more problematically, the means to ship them over. As you can imagine, our shipment costs are tremendous. So for the moment let's slow down the knitting. If anyone would like to make contributions toward the shipment costs or toward any number of other important and vital efforts going into building the new hospital in Butaro, please do let us know! As you know, every little bit makes a difference.
Thank you so much for all of your help!
In solidarity,
Emily

Sunday, March 14, 2010

A few comments on size

We get a lot of questions about sizes for the beanies - the short answer is that all sizes are typically helpful. Aiming for large premie sizes or small newborn sizes is probably a good guideline. The nurses in maternity recently gave me these photos as a guide. The pen is there for scale - the hats in the first photo are a bit too small for the average baby, and the pink hat in the second photo is a good estimate for the size of the average newborn at Butaro Hospital. But that's just an estimate for the average - all the sizes we are receiving are being used!

An update

Hello from Burera! I've been in Rwanda for the past few months, where a parade of warm and happy babies are emerging from the maternity ward! This project is successfully outfitting every newborn at Butaro Hospital with a homemade beanie... over 100 per month! In fact, we've begun sending some of the beanies out to the health centers. With 400,000 inhabitants and 13 health centers, the district of Burera is one of the biggest (and coldest!) in Rwanda. We are right in the thick of the cold and rainy season right now, so your efforts are invaluable in keeping these little guys warm. Here's a few photos of your work in action.