Blankets for Madiba
SANDTON - The 67 Blankets organisation smashed the record for the largest knitted blanket at Nelson Mandela Square.
The 67 Blankets for Nelson Mandela Day initiative beat the city of Abu Dhabi by smashing the record for the Largest Knitted Blanket in the World at Nelson Mandela Square in Sandton on 9 July.
This is the third world record win for 67 Blankets in its short two-year history.
The first was set on 21 April last year at the Union Buildings in Pretoria where the KnitWits for Madiba, the knitting team behind the 67 Blankets cause, sewed together the Largest Crochet Blanket in the World measuring 3 377m². This record was beaten by India several months ago with their blanket measuring just over 11 000m². Not to be outdone, 67 Blankets for Nelson Mandela Day rallied schools, women, men and even prisoners to create blankets to try and beat the record set by India.
“On April 22 this year, to mark 22 years of our democracy, we set out our blankets at Drakenstein – where Nelson Mandela finally took his first steps to freedom – by sewing together approximately 13 000 blankets to create one large blanket measuring over 17 000m². By hook or by crook we were determined to get back into that Guinness Book.” said Carolyn Steyn, founder of 67 Blankets.
Steyn added that as a result, many more thousands of people will be kept warm this winter. “Currently, we are in the midst of distributing all these thousands of blankets to impoverished communities around our beautiful country. We started our distributions as soon as the cold arrived and in so doing, we are attempting to make every day a Mandela Day.”
About 1 000 knitted blankets were laid out at the statue of Nelson Mandela at the square in Sandton showing the world what KnitWits for Madiba were doing to keep the legacy of Madiba alive.
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