I had an idea last night that I would like to get some feedback on.

I would like to organize a fundraising effort for Stepping Stones Nigeria and the Child Rights and Rehabilitation Network (CRARN). These two groups that work directly with sheltering, feeding, and educating street children in Nigeria who have been accused of witchcraft and beaten, tortured, killed, and/or abandoned by their families and neighbors.

Child ‘witches’ in Africa
African Crucible: Cast as Witches, Then Cast Out
Children are targets of Nigerian witch-hunt

What I would like to do is call upon the knitters in the neo-Pagan community (starting locally and with my on-line circles) to knit stuffed bears and/or children’s clothes for the children. Each person doing the knitting would get other people to pledge to sponsor them at either $5, $10, or $20 per bear/item of clothing. The knitters would also be working a spell of love and healing into the hand-made items.

For example: I get five people to pledge $10 per bear that I knit, and then I make 5 bears. That’s a toy of love and healing for 5 kids, plus 5 sponsors times $10 times 5 bears equalling $250. If I can find 10 knitters to do the same thing, that would be 50 bears and $2500.

I have sent an email of inquiry to Stepping Stones Nigeria (which has a 1% overhead, so most of the money goes directly to the children’s shelter) about the logistics and legality of collecting the money centrally here and sending it in one lump sum to them. Obviously there would be logistics to work out as well.

So, what do you think? If you knit, sew, crochet, whatever, would you be willing to make some bears/items of clothing and get sponsors? If you don’t do hand-crafts, would you be willing to be a sponsor for something like this?

I know this is a band-aid compared to the poverty and health crises in Africa, but this issue has touched my heart and I can’t just do nothing. This is something I think I can do.