QUILTS FOR KIDS NEPAL EXHIBIT

FIRST FRIDAY, JULY 1 | 5:30PM – 8:00PM

Quilts for Kids Nepal will open on First Friday, July 1st in the G9 Conference Room at Riverviews Artspace. Twenty-one quilts will be exhibited and available for purchase. Crafted with vibrantly colored, lightweight fabrics, the artisan quilts work perfectly on a bed or as a wall hanging.

Quilts for Kids Nepal is a charitable organization based in Kathmandu, Nepal. The organization provides work for economically-challenged women and finances education for underprivileged children. Founded in 2006, the project employs women who create hand-sewn quilts incorporating found and recycled fabrics. Grassroots humanitarian organizations like Quilts for Kids Nepal have been critical to Nepal’s recovery process since the magnitude 7.8 earthquake that occurred in the region last year. This project is especially important, because the sale of just one quilt covers all educational costs for a child of the begging camp for one year. Sold internationally, the purchase price of each quilt funds school tuition, school uniforms, shoes, pencils, books and backpacks for the children of the quilt makers.

The Artists: The women of Quilts for Kids Nepal live in a traditional community, with two or three generations helping to support each other.  Many women in the community are excellent quilt-makers, with skillful and imaginative ability to describe their world with needle and thread. The Q4K project seeks to empower these women by giving them an opportunity to turn their traditional skills into income for their families, to teach young women a marketable craft, and to enhance the overall standing of women in the community through the sale of quilts.  It takes one woman approximately 3 weeks to hand-stitch a quilt.

The Children: Children from the community where Quilts for Kids Nepal operates have traditionally been street beggars.  From the age of 6, the children are usually forced to work on the main road of the Boudhanath neighborhood if Kathmandu, to beg money from tourists to contribute to the family’s sustenance. Over the years, Quilts for Kids Nepal has successfully removed almost all of the begging children in the neighborhood and has enrolled them in school.  Currently, there are 57 children from the begging camp attending a nearby elementary school.

To learn more, visit QuiltsNepal.org