Fish & Chips and Babies

I went to church today, as I do every Sunday and at the beginning of this morning's Primary someone on the Primary Presidency made an announcement. They said that for a service at a place they worked some of the staff were working on a project called 'Fish and Chip Babies'.

They were asking for all avid knitters to try and make jumpers/ hats and clothing to send to children in Africa. The jumpers had to be in dark or bright colours and the jumpers weren't to be pale or striped. I don't know the reasoning for no stripes but I shall explain soon why no pale coloured jumpers were required.

These jumpers would then be sent to children who were born as said in Africa in hospitals where HIV and AIDS were a common and sad occurance. The children were known as the 'Fish and Chip Babies' because when they are born and allowed to go home they are sent home and wrapped up in no more than newspaper. The group were asking for no pale colours to be used in the jumpers because some of the jumpers will never get washed and so bright and bold colours will be best to use.

There were shocks all around the room at this announcement. Living in a country where I know for a fact my child will go home in a beautifully home made blanket, strapped up to it's (her) eyeballs in a comfy car seat and going to a place where they will always be kept safe, warm and fed made me realise how thankful I should be for such a small blessing as a blanket.

Annoyingly enough, my baby brain prevailed in retaining the knitting pattern for this jumpers, and I left it at church. But I read the pattern and it looked very straight forward to me so for any avid knitted who is more than capable of doing a beginner's pattern it should be simple enough to do. Now, if you can't knit then it is obviously fine that you don't find the pattern but, please, ask your family members or anyone you know if they can help you out in knitting even one jumper. If you know 5 people that can knit, that's still 5 beautiful babies born in to hard circumstances going home with more than the mothers could give them.

Please Google the pattern if you are interested, as I left my sheet at church, BUT if you wait until next week I shall have all the details of the patterns and where the jumpers need to be sent to.

See more here:-

Tiny knitted goods flown out to poor African 'Fish & Chip' Babies (Daily Gazette)

Knit for Africa - This website has patterns on it too!

Helping Fish & Chip Babies in Uganda - Patterns included too!