The therapeutic benefits of working with wool are very well known and documented. At the Zywiec Development Foundation we have launched a new programme to assist with supporting and providing relief to refugees from the Ukrainian War. This is a "Wool for Ukraine" program which uses the therapeutic benefits of working with wool to offset the effects of the distress and growing spread of Post Traumatic Stress Disorders caused by this conflict.
In Poland alone, we need not remind people that 3 mln refugees are hosted here. However, we also need to be able to support and provide relief to refugees in many other European Countries and also a growing number now moved to other continents. The Foundation has partnered Wool groups involved in knitting, crochet, felting, spinning and weaving from around the World to provide support to refugees in Poland, Ukraine and anywhere else that groups of them have found refuge from this war.
Refugees fled their homes and took very little with them. Providing them with knitting needles and a few balls of wool, for example, may not sound like something significant to many, but we can assure you that in many cases this is difference, for many, between coping with their new reality and for them not to fall into a traumatic dark place difficult to find their way out from.
This project is to be a safe space for the participants where they can meet, work together and create. We hope that for some of them this activity will become a way of professional work over time.
