Knitting the Fabric
of a Brighter Future
Did you take up a new hobby during a COVID-19 lockdown? Maybe you perfected your banana bread recipe, toiled over sourdough starter, or became a yoga devotee. For 15-year-old Syrian refugee Muath, lockdown was when he discovered a surprising new skill for a teenage boy - he loves to knit!
After realising his new passion during COVID-19 lockdowns in his refugee camp, he is already better at knitting and weaving than his mother, who taught him the basics. Knitting things like hats and scarfs for others and seeing their grateful smiles makes him feel good, and motivates him to improve his skills. “My favorite thing to make are winter caps. When I give them to someone I care about, it shows them that I thought of them,” he says.
Knitting takes Muath’s mind off memories of the Syrian war that still haunt him.
Along with his parents and his five siblings, Muath was forced to flee for his life in 2016 when violence erupted in his home town of Raqqa. During their escape, the family got lost in the desert of Homs and it took them three days to reach the Jordanian border.
Starting over in Jordan
After a difficult start at Azraq refugee camp, he began to settle into his new life. He started school, made friends and played football. His mother, Fatima, enrolled Muath and his siblings in World Vision’s psychosocial support programme soon after their arrival. This programme was key to helping the children adapt, heal and learn to be kids again.
Muath loves it and says it’s helped him. “You are taught to depend on yourself and not on others. If you want something, you get it and you don’t order others to get it for you,” he explains.
Things were going well until the first COVID-19 lockdown. Muath didn’t understand what was going on, and why he could not go out and be with others. He became depressed and angry, banging on the door of their home in frustration. So his mother devised what she jokingly calls a “trap” – showing him the tricks of her own trade.
A helpful hobby
And, to Fatima’s delight, he quickly became obsessed with perfecting his new hobby. “If I call him to prayer in the afternoon or evening and he is knitting, he tells me he needs a bit more time, he’ll come soon,” she says with pride.
Now that Muath’s time is filled with remote schooling and his newfound passion for knitting, he is much happier. What he may not realise is the greater impact his knitting is having on the world around him. When he makes a cap or a scarf for his family and friends, he’s really doing more than that: he also knits the fabric of his community, and hones his skill for a solid trade if his dream of becoming a doctor falls through.
Muath has a clear idea of what he would do if someone put him in charge of running the world for a day: “10 years have passed since the conflict in Syria began, I would not want the war to continue any longer. I want Syria to return to the way it was before.”
But until Muath is world president, and until there is peace in Syria, he will continue weaving his community together through his love of knitting.