Teddies for Tragedies Haiti

Do you remember the Teddies for Tragedies project promoted by the English TOS? Well, it is spreading its warmth around the globe. Knitters organised by the Italian TOS have been creating teddies for Tanzania and now a Glasgow TOS member has been gathering together a group of knitters to make teddies for children traumatised by the earthquake in Haiti.

Caroline Doyle-McManus, a member of the Glasgow TOS, gained the support of Glasgow’s Lord Provost and the local papers to invite the city’s knitters to get out their needles and start making teddy bears. She also enlisted the support of the British Red Cross, who agreed to distribute the bears in Haiti.

Poverty-stricken Haiti has the highest birth rate in the Western Hemisphere as well as the highest child death rate before the quake struck.  The island had 17,500 acutely malnourished children prior to the disaster. Now surviving children face respiratory infections, malnutrition and diarrhoea from water-borne diseases.

Doctors on the Caribbean Island of Haiti discovered babies and toddlers recovered more quickly when given their own comforter – a cuddly teddy. Each child gets to keep their teddy when sent home, which increases the need for a steady flow of bears – and Caroline’s knitters have set their goal at over a thousand.

Caroline with, from left, Jo Chan, Ahay Yin Tsang and Yoshiko Hidaka
Glasgow Evening Times, 22 July 2010