WATCH: Brescia works woolen miracles for Madiba Day

In honouring the school’s motto of Servium (‘to serve’), Brescia House celebrated Nelson Mandela Day in traditional fashion – yarn-bombing their school into a wonderland of adventure.

The school’s head of marketing and admissions, Helga Bishop, said that a lot of the items become donated to the Nelson Mandela Children’s Hospital, which the school holds a long-standing relationship with through the Nelson Mandela Fund.

“We’ve set up a trail, almost like a treasure hunt that starts at our hub and ends at our Brescia Bears Preschool – where they can have a cup of coffee, and 25% of those proceeds also go to our outreach programme,” Bishop said.

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“Our girls, parents, teachers and grandparents, everyone has been knitting, and crocheting up a storm across our Brescia House community: from blankets to scarves, beanies, and toys.”

Bishop said that even though many of the school’s learners do not know how to knit or crochet when they first come to the school, they are soon taught this life skill.

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“It’s actually a wonderful life skill for them, and while they’re knitting, they get to reflect on whom these might be for knowing that the scarf will eventually go onto somebody’s neck.
“We actually start knitting and creating things the year before. As soon as this is finished, we’ll start for next year’s.”

Brescia House head of outreach Liz Norman elaborated on the process behind the scenes that prepares the girls to be able to celebrate Nelson Mandela in this fashion on July 18, annually.

“A great deal of what you see, especially the scarves, are made by our pupils,” Norman said.
“We have a group called Woolworks Group that’s run by Brescia grannies. They take the knitted or crocheted squares that pupils, staff and other parents have made, and they join them into blankets for us.”

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