Knitting their way through glory, these two young girls win the IB Global Youth Action Fund

Students of Dhirubhai Ambani International School and Oberoi International JVLR in Mumbai, the duo recently won a grant of over $3000 (approximately ₹2,50,000) for their NGO 'TheKnitfit.co'

Aryana and Bianca set up a pop-up show for TheKnitfit.co. (Source: Aryana Barai)

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Who said you need to have a degree or be certain age to become a social entrepreneur? All you need is an idea and the vision to succeed. Leading by example, two teenagers who prove that “if you can dream it, you can do it” are Aryana Barai and Bianca Buhariwalla, 14 and 15, respectively.

Students of Dhirubhai Ambani International School and Oberoi International JVLR in Mumbai, the duo recently won a grant of over $3000 (approximately ₹2,50,000) for their NGO ‘TheKnitfit.co’. The International Baccalaureate’s Global Youth Action Fund rewarded the girls for their efforts to address pressing global challenges.

TheKnitfit.co sells everything from hand-knitted headbands to scrunchies to cute collectible in different colours. (Source: Aryana Barai)

“After having a harrowing experience with Covid-19 in 2020, me and Bianca, my friend, noticed the plight of millions of Indians, and the thought of people dying just broke our hearts. So, we decided to use our passion, empathy and entrepreneurship to build an environmentally sustainable organisation which we named TheKnitfit.co,” says Aryana.

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The duo decided to do something for Covid-19 patients who need hospitalisation and are far away from the comfort of their family and homes.

At the same time, both being passionate advocates of sustainability, wanted to take action against fast fashion. “It is absurd how fast fashion is replacing skilled labour with machines which mass produce cheap-quality goods. This is causing skilled artisans to lose their jobs, which shows a slow demise of fine arts itself. So, we wanted to promote knitting and crocheting as an art form that is against the principles of fast fashion,” Bianca says.

Their aim is to revive the art of knitting and crocheting manually to enable young unskilled women to adopt the craft and thereby revive the fading art form, which does not require heavy training and investment.

TheKnitfit.co sells everything from hand-knitted headbands to scrunchies to cute collectibles in different colours. With the money they earn by selling their products, they donate the amount to different charities. The young teenagers have donated to various organisations such as the Hemkunt foundation, Helping Hands India Foundation, and Kaarwan Foundation.

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A post shared by TheKnitFit.Co (@theknitfit.co)

With the grant received, they hope to continue the operations of their organisation and build it even bigger.

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“We also hope to train and teach 80 unskilled youth how to knit and crochet, while we provide them a percentage of our funds for each good produced. Secondly, we hope to donate a grand total of $2,000 through our income. Thirdly, we hope to fund the education of 50 students from grades 1 to 10th. Additionally, we wish to fund 100 households to have access to clean drinking water, 10 schools with access to an overhead tank of water, and 10 schools to have 4 hand washing points each. Lastly, we hope to fund cataract camps, and help pediatric patients,” Aryana says.

The two might have big dreams, but they say that the initiative would not have been possible without their ‘didis’ –Shanti and Jyoti– the women who work in their house. “We are immensely grateful for them. They have helped us throughout the entire process. We sit with them every day and they taught us how to knit and crochet,” Aryana noted.

Their advice to the youth is that age is no bar to create positive change. “We shared such a profound interest in knitting, and this allowed us to convert our passion into a project where we could actually make a difference and play a role in society by helping others. And the smallest of differences can count and truly impact someone’s life drastically. You’re never too young to start something and I think Covid-19 really taught us that,” Bianca says.

The two girls undertake knitting and crocheting at their homes. (Source: Aryana Barai)

Despite having their Board examinations soon, they both promise to dedicate more time to their NGO and promote traditional crafts that are slowly disappearing from India.

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Apart from knitting, the girls share other hobbies, Aryana participates in artistic roller-skating competitions, while Bianca enjoys ballet dancing which she has been learning since the age of 5.

ALSO READ | Crocheting and knitting: How these age-old hobbies helped many youngsters overcome stress, anxiety amid pandemic

With the pandemic coming to an end but global health challenges still persisting, TheKnitfit.co addresses the lack of sufficient initiatives towards the health and well-being of those in the rural community. The two girls’ pandemic project epitomises the saying that ‘every cloud has a silver lining’.

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