Project seeks to help refugees
Senior organizes group to knit hats for people in Turkey
Senior Freja Olsen teaches members how to knit at the first meeting. Their next meeting will take place once she checks in with all the members’ availability.
November 9, 2016
When senior Freja Olsen heard about Syrian refugees, she felt moved to help by gathering a group of students to knit hats.
AP psychology teacher Sarah Lindenberg said all IB diploma candidates are required to do a Creativity, Action and Service (CAS) project.
“(Students) have to partake in creative activities, which could be anything from art to math team and debate,” Lindenberg said.
Olsen said for her project she wanted to use her knitting skills to help refugees in Turkey.
“I wanted to help (refugees) as best I could and it would be easy to join in and make hats,” Olsen said.
Olsen said ensuring everyone’s basic human rights is one reason that she wanted to make a project to help the refugees.
“That includes a right to safety and then warmth as well if the location that they are in is not safe,” Olsen said.
Lindenberg said she thinks knitting for refugees is a great service project because Olsen found something that she enjoyed and incorporated it into her work.
“(Olsen) likes to knit and enjoys it and was able to pair that with a big need in the worldwide community. She is getting other people involved in the high school and a lot of students are having a lot of fun doing that,” Lindenberg said.
Olsen said she hopes her project will raise awareness about Syrian refugees in Park.
“If more people can help and we could possibly get more (refugees) over here and they will definitely need hats. It helps so the camps can keep functioning and get as many people out of that situation as possible.” Olsen said.
According to senior Ellie Cook, she wanted to participate to help refugees get what necessities they need to live a better life.
“We can knit a lot of hats. I want to do something to help other people,” Cook said.
Olsen said her goal for the project is to knit 75 hats and she hopes to ship the knitted hats to Turkey refugees sometime in December.
“Then I’m going to send them off to Turkey where a lot of the refugees are,” Olsen said.
According to Olsen, she does not have a next meeting planned but will check in with the other members in the group to see when the next time they can meet.
