New Year's Revolutions!

Revolution = A dramatic and wide reaching change in conditions, attitudes or operation (Oxford Dictionary)

It’s the start of a new year again, many of us will have made resolutions, usually to give something up like smoking! Or to loose something like some weight! Or to do more of something like spending quality time with family and friends. How about directing that positive energy into making the world a better and fairer place for everyone?  Quite a tall order you may think - where would you begin?

“If you think you are too small to make a difference try sleeping in a closed room with a mosquito” - African Proverb

As a designer maker I have held the belief that craft and design has an amazing potential in creating social and environmental change. It was a real inspiration to meet the like minded Sarah Corbett, founder of the Craftivist Collective 3 years ago and I have subsequently been participating in and supporting a number of the Craftivist Collective’s projects in exposing and tackling injustice and poverty through provocative, non-violent action.

As your 2013 resolution, I would love all you fellow crafters to get involved in the Craftivist Collective’s current project #iamapiece in conjunction with Save the Children’s ‘Race against hunger campaign’.

Sarah Corbett says: "Life is like a puzzle, it all seems a mess but when it gets finished it looks brilliant. There are some amazing small-scale successful projects happening all over the world that are tackling hunger and showing that the world doesn’t have to have malnourished children whose potential is stunted. There is no one solution to the problem of injustice but we can all play a part in a movement for change. The G8 coming back to the UK is too big an opportunity to miss so why not have your New Year’s Resolution to be part of eradicating hunger through your love of craft? That would be a pretty cool resolution right?!”

How can you get involved? You can stitch messages onto material jigsaw pieces which will be put together to make a HUGE creative, crafty installation alternative to a petition that Save the Children will show off to our Government, the public and World Leaders showing that hundreds, even thousands of us, want, with world leaders, to be a part of the solution to hunger, not the problem. You can also give a jigsaw piece to your local MP to remind them to be a part of the solution too or at least tell them about the piece you made for the installation. If you have never approached your local MP in this way before Fran Swaine has written a really good post on her Skulls and Ponies blog about how easy and useful it was to approach her local MP Caroline Lucas. You can also host your own ‘stitch-in’ event and get others inspired and involved in the project , sign the Save the Children petition here, and spread the word online through Twitter, Facebook, blogs etc using the hashtag #imapiece. The deadline to receive the jigsaw pieces is 28 February, so let's get stitching!

As with all their projects, the Craftivist Collective have created really excellent tools to help and support you to get involved! Download the jigsaw piece pattern and instructions here, see some of the stitched jigsaw pieces created by fellow crafters here and a collection of Vlogs, posts and online streaming about #imapiece here

“What we think, or what we know, or what we believe is in the end of little consequence; the only consequence is what we do.” John Ruskin