A lockdown crochet hook, and over 50 kids taught since

During the COVID-19 lockdown, on a visit to her grandmother, Kirti Dharmender Matai picked up an old crochet hook and a ball of yarn. She had an abundance of free time, she says, and was searching for something meaningful to do. That was the beginning. "It functioned as an escape and a stress relieving activity," she says.

When schools reopened she did not want crochet to remain a personal pastime. Through her school's Service as Action program she began Crocheted for a Cause, CFAC, and started teaching crochet to younger students.

“Crocheted for a Cause showed me how something as simple as crocheting can bring people together and create a meaningful impact.”

Kirti Dharmender Matai

CFAC is a student led initiative. She handmakes crochet products, sells them at school and in her community through her website and Instagram page, and uses the proceeds to support charitable causes. The project has been ongoing since 2022. Starting in 2023 she has run crocheting sessions with a batch of over 50 kids, teaching them the handicraft.

Her teaching and promotion of crochet was recognised with the Service as Action Award on two occasions, on the basis of "Entrepreneurship". She partnered with Crafts for a Cause, and through CFAC helped organise the "Karigar Mela", or Artisan Carnival, where skilled local craftspeople were invited to set up stalls at a carnival hosted at her school. At an Earth Day festival hosted by KalaGram, in a showcase called "Kabaad Se Jugaad", Trash to Treasure, she showed "plarn", plastic yarn made by repurposing discarded plastic bags into crochet material.

"I care about this because it showed me that creating social impact can be about using a skill that you have and using it to help someone else," she says. She is in high school at DPS International.

What excites her most, she says, is where CFAC can go next. "I want to grow it beyond my individual efforts and into a community-driven initiative," she says. Across many rural communities in India, as she sees it, women have the talent and determination to contribute financially to their families but often lack access to flexible livelihood opportunities, skills training, and markets where they can sell what they create.

"My goal is for Crocheted for a Cause to evolve from a fundraising initiative into one that creates sustainable livelihoods through the use of handicraft," she says.