From lockdown hobbies
Did you take up a new hobby during lockdown? Maybe you perfected your carrot cake recipe, toiled over sourdough bread, or became a fitness devotee. For 15-year-old Syrian refugee Muath, it was knitting!
Along with his parents and five siblings, Muath fled Syria in 2016 when violence erupted in his home town of Raqqa. During their escape, the family were lost for days in the desert of Homs, finally finding safety at the Azraq refugee camp in neighbouring Jordan, where life began again. Helped by World Vision, here Muath and children like him are given help to heal from the horrors of war.
And life was getting better, until the COVID-19 lockdown. Muath didn’t understand what was going on, why he couldn’t go out and like many children around the world, became depressed, angry and frustrated. That was until he discovered a new passion...knitting!
To showing community kindness
Knitting takes Muath’s mind off the memories of the Syrian war that still haunt him. He already knits better than his mum who taught him the basics. And the hats and scarfs he knits for others make him feel good, motivating him to improve his skills.
“My favourite things to make are winter hats. When I give them to someone I care about, it shows them that I thought of them.”
Not only does knitting make Muath happier but showing kindness to others is making his community stronger and more hope-filled. And he knows what he would do if someone put him in charge of running the world for a day:
“10 years have passed since the conflict in Syria began, I would not want the war to continue any longer. I want Syria to return to the way it was before.”
But until Muath is world president, and until there is peace in Syria, he will continue weaving his community together through his love of knitting.
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.”
- Isaiah 55: 8 (NIV)
We’ve come this far together, but we must go further. Bringing hope, no matter what.
