Women of the World is so happy to have participated in its second year of quilting with the Quilters Without Borders group. Each time we sit with these wonderful ladies, we learn a lot about quilting, life, and English. They are loving, giving, and accepting and take the extra time to explain quilting slowly and work to befriend the refugee women — all while working on a project they love and love to give away.
The most important thing that the community can do for any new immigrant is to befriend them, to show them that they are accepted, to help them with the small things. By helping refugee women with a quilt and talking with them in English about their families and their neighborhoods, the Quilters Without Borders ladies are helping in the healing of the women refugees and development of a more diverse, stronger community.Each quilt is the gift of warmth — the obvious outer warmth and the inner warmth of togetherness, a connection. The work of putting something together with hands and understanding is not lost on the refugee women of Utah, this is the way that their lives are connected — a patchwork of understanding basic cooking over a fire, sewing with a saved needle and thread, midwifing the birth of their nieces and granddaughters.In the smiles of the women in the pictures is magical. There frustrations melt as they express themselves in English to a new friend and reconnect with belonging to a community of women.https://picasaweb.google.com/s/c/bin/slideshow.swf