Monthly Reflections Rug has already made a difference

I suggested hooking a Monthly Reflections Rug in order to see whether rug hooking, besides being creative, could also be spiritually transforming, like contemplation or meditation. What I didn't realize is how it would turn me to become more socially aware and active, not just introspective. Or maybe the introspection turned social at some point?

Whatever is the case, in October, in response to much soul searching about the theme 'serving', I decided to sign the dotted line and sponsor a woman victim of war through Women for Women International.

Photo: from Women for Women International website; picturing an unnamed woman in Afghanistan crafting a rug

I requested that I be matched with a woman in Afghanistan. For years I have been thinking about women in Afghanistan living under the Taliban and ravished further by an ongoing war, especially after viewing Kandahar, a movie (2001) that left me chilled when I saw it years ago.

Today my sponsorship packet arrived. The woman I am sponsoring is only a year younger than myself. She lives in Afghanistan where the life expectancy of men and women is 44 years old. I am 46. The woman I am sponsoring is 45. Unemployment is 40%. Per capita income is $1000. Literacy for females is 12.6%. Literacy for males is 43.1%. Access to safe drinking water? 13% of the population. The language of Afghanistan is a form of Persian known as Dari. "Hello" is "Salam". "Thank you" is "Tashakur". And "Goodbye" is "Khuda Hafiz".

What does my sponsorship do? For a year, the woman will be part of a group of 25 women who will become her support network as they go through an intensive training program. Each of these women will learn about women's rights, which will allow her to take greater control over the decisions that govern her life and that of her children. She will learn technical and business sills that will allow her to sustain an income. Upon graduation, she will receive direct cash and access to jobs or tools to start a business. Women who are enrolled in this program have become successful medicinal herb cultivators, livestock rearers, textile producers, jewelry artisans, shop owners and entrepreneurs.

I am excited to write my first letter to her and share with her that I hook rugs, a craft that crosses cultures and isn't limited by the boundaries of language or country. It transcends life's circumstances and allows for us to meet where otherwise we might not.

Rugs4Peace

This post is a continuation of my previous post about social awareness rug hooking.

This month I have been moved to become more and more aware of what is happening in our world. Normally my days go by with little thought of what is happening beyond my home and job. Because I do not live in poverty or a war zone, because I'm not homeless or facing torture or genocide, I'm not immediately attentive to the fact that there are too many people in our world who are living in hell because they have been ravished by war or are, even now, facing it daily.

I have been inspired this week too by President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize award. I know that the media is having a heyday trying to make his award a farce, but I'm not listening to them. I am listening to those other people in our world who felt it expedient to make this award at a time when it appears that Iran may have the capability for nuclear weapons, Iraq and Afghanistan are ravished with war and anarchy, Israel and Palestine have been exploding rockets across the wall that cuts through their neighborhoods, terrorists have brought down the twin towers, African countries have been facing genocide, etc. I can't imagine what it must be like trying to feed, cloth and educate my son Alexander and protect him if I were a woman living in Baghdad or a village in Afghanistan.

All these thoughts have converged on an idea. Rugs4Peace. I am inspired by the quilting community that came together and created the Aids Quilt which helped raise awareness for Aids during a troubled time. When I saw that quilt in a gymnasium years ago, I could not stop crying. It was one of the most moving pieces of art I have ever seen and it definitely gave the disease a human face.

Might we create a communal rug from individual rugs laid side-by-side and dedicated to world peace? Might we hook rugs to raise awareness about the victims of war and terrorism, and the terrible cost of war and terrorism in human lives? Might we hook rugs to inspire non-violent peaceful co-existence and tolerance of each other in our world?

Rugs4Peace only has a name right now. It is only a seed. If anyone in the rug hooking community would be interested in becoming involved in organizing such a communal project, please contact me either in the comments or by email (adeconick@rice.edu). If there is enough interest expressed, together we can get organized and put out a call for rugs.

How can rug hookers "serve"?

This week as I have been thinking about "serving" - October's monthly reflection rug theme - I keep going back to the fact that we are rug hookers. How does hooking rugs lend itself to service? I haven't felt that there is (yet?) a strong sense in our rug community of social action hooking, although there are a few rug artists who have begun pointing us in this direction.

As I mentioned last week, Donna Hrkman was moved a few years ago to create a social awareness rug to draw attention to the plight of women victims of war in the Congo after watching Oprah's feature on the organization Women for Women International.

Phyllis drew our attention to the work of Rug Aid, a non-profit organization put together by Heather Ritchie. According to Heather's website,

The aim of Rug Aid is to provide opportunities for women and children in some of the poorest communities in Africa. They will make rugs, wall hangings and decorative items for sale locally, nationally and, maybe later, through fair trade organisations world wide. By providing opportunities for women and children, the aim of Rug Aid is to bring about change 'from the bottom up'.

Saturday, November 21, Heather has put together Rug Aid Rug Rave. Heather is asking us to use that day to try to hook blindfolded for 30 minutes in order to know what it is like to hook blind like some of the women in Gambia. Heather has designed a special rug for the day. The pattern can be purchased in North America at Rug Art and Supply. The pattern costs $25 and all the proceeds will go to directly to support African citizens in the Gambia by teaching them rug hooking as a sustainable income-generating craft. She encourages our guilds to dedicate that Saturday to this event and make it an international awareness day for African women and children who are living in poverty.

Photo: from Rug Aid website, designed and hooked by Heather Ritchie, pattern available for Rug Rave day

'Serving' and the story of Zainab Salbi

The October meditation theme for the Monthly Reflection rug is "serving." This brings to mind "awareness rugs" - rugs hooked to raise awareness for social causes.

In 2006, the Celebration Magazine featured a rug "Women of the Congo" hooked by Donna Hrkman (follow this link to her own website and photo of the rug). She describes her rug as a "social commentary" which she hooked in response to an episode she saw of the Oprah Winfrey show when the organization Women for Women International was featured. She wrote about her rug, "I saw women who were survivors of genocide in the Congo and their horrific stories moved me to create this rug. It was designed to raise public awareness of their plight" (Celebration XVI, 2006, pp. 42-43).

PHOTO: From Donna Hrkman's website Blue Ribbon Rugs

Women for Women International is the organization that was featured on the show. Women for Women International provides women survivors of war, civil strife and other conflicts with the tools and resources to move from crisis and poverty to stability and self-sufficiency, thereby promoting viable civil societies. Women for Women International believes in the power of "changing the world one woman at a time." Thus the organization operates largely by matching individual sponsors and their financial support with individual women in countries ravaged by war.

The organization was started by a young woman Zainab Salbi who is the most dynamic speaker I have ever heard. She was chosen to be the main speaker by the students of Rice University for the 2009 graduation. Imagine my surprise as she stepped forward on the platform in front of me (the faculty sit behind the stage) and I put two and two together, realizing that she was one of the women who had inspired Hrkman's rug.

As I listened to her speak last spring, I was so moved, so touched, so inspired, that tears were streaming down my face. Her courage was unbelievable. She told us about her horrific life as a young women caught in war, raped, and then sent off by her family into an abusive arranged marriage. So horrible was her life, so terrifying, that she decided she had to rip herself out of it, to start it over. It was this moment that she began, without a penny, an organization to help women victims of war called Women for Women International.

Photo: from Rice University News and Media HERE

During her commencement speech, she told us stories about the women victims she had met and the impact that they had had on her life. She emphasized again and again that each of us must "live our own truth," a message she learned from a woman who had been so brutally beaten and raped that she was unable to tell her story to anyone until Zainab came along. The woman told her, "I've never told anybody but you my story. If I could tell the world my story, I would. But I cannot. You can. You go ahead and tell the story -- just not to the neighbors." Zainab went on to say, "Without her, I would never have the courage to write my own journey. Without her, I would not understand that to break my own silence and speak my own truth is part of my responsibility to the whole world."

At the end of the speech, she said, "I learned last but not least that we must enjoy the ride," she said. "Often we take ourselves too seriously in whatever we are doing. There are a lot of horrible things in this world, but there are a lot of wonderful things too. If we don't enjoy the ride, shame on us. The women I work with start every gathering with singing and dancing, and who are we not to sing and dance every day? Who are we not to enjoy life every single day?"

She shared the words the 13th century Islamic mystic and poet Rumi:

Dance, when you're broken open
Dance, if you've torn the bandage off
Dance, in the middle of the fighting
Dance, in your blood
Dance, when you're perfectly free

"Today you are perfectly free," she said. "Go for it. Live your truth. Speak your truth. Be your truth. Don't wait. There is no better time. May you dance -- dance until the end, and may you enjoy the ride."

For a webcast of Zainab's speech, go HERE. For a written report of her speech, go HERE. For her published memoirs, go HERE. To become a sponsor for a woman victim of war or contribute financially to Women for Women International, go HERE.