HELP for HAITI and the DRC
(reposted from earlier this month)

The Campanula and Hibiscus Sock patterns have been re-issued as HIBISCUS FOR HAITI and CAMPANULA FOR THE CONGO

In 2007 & 2008 the Campanula for the Cure and Hibiscus for Hope sock patterns, together with some very sore muscles, blistered feet and 60 km (twice) helped me raise some $13,500.00 for The Weekend to End Breast Cancer. As there continues to be interest in these patterns, I have reformatted the patterns and I'm offering them as incentives to knitters to donate to these two other worthy causes.

I have re-purposed Hibiscus to raise funds and support for Médecins Sans Frontières, whose efforts in Haiti have been in demand both before the catastrophic earthquake on January 12, 2010 and even more so since then.To obtain the HIBISCUS FOR HAITI pattern, simply make a donation in any amount to MSF at Donate to MSF's Emergency Relief Fund. Then notify me here or on Ravelry and I will send you the pattern.

MSF’s devotion to this calling, despite personal risk and losses, is truly heroic. MSF trauma centres were seriously damaged by the quake. Latest announcements confirm the quake killed 4 Haitian MSF staff; 4 others who’d recently worked with them also died; 6 are still missing. They just rolled up their sleeves and moved their treatment clinics to tents and mobile centres in the open. Their staff has a good sense of what’s going to be needed in the short term as well as how much the rehabilitation of emergency and other healthcare in the country will cost in the long term. As the worldwide generosity continues, donations to their Emergency Relief Fund give MSF the maximum flexibility to respond directly where it’s most needed in Haiti, while ensuring they can still act rapidly should another disaster strike.

Meanwhile the world is distracted from so many other areas where lives continue to be ravaged by unbelievable cruelty. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo it is more dangerous to be a woman or a child than a combatant, as women and girls remain targets for violence. Despite the supposed formal cease of hostilities, several armed groups still use sexual violence as a weapon of war. Physical and economic insecurity still characterize the lives of women and girls and the threat of and the use of violence are constants. Discrimination against women and girls underlies the violence perpetrated against them, and the current climate of impunity allows the many forms of gender-based violence, including sexual violence, to flourish. For more information, please see: MSF Top Ten Humanitarian Crises of 2009: DRC and V-DAY: Sexual Violence In the DRC

I have re-purposed Campanula to raise funds and support for the ongoing crisis of women and children in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
To obtain the CAMPANULA FOR THE CONGO pattern, simply make a donation in any amount to V-day at Donate to V-Day. Then notify me here or on Ravelry and I will send you the pattern.