Armed with a phenomenal talent, a
mother-and-daughter duo has been spreading peace, one beanie at a time. Julia
and Pascale Geha are the brains behind Peace And Love Beanies, an initiative
that we are proud to be partners with. Here is their story, in Julia Geha’s
voice.
Peace
and Love Beanies manifested as the direct result of a fondness for Zen Knitting.
My daughter, Pascale, and I decided to utilize this age old art form to create
a simple consumer good which could be used as a vehicle for positive change in
the world. Our desire is to spread the
message of Peace and Love in much the same way as the I Declare World Peace
project promotes the affirmation #IDWP – in order to raise global peace
consciousness. We also believe in
altruism, and for every beanie purchased, we donate an identical vibe infused
beanie to a homeless soul.
Peace
activism is a natural progression for us, since this venture began with the
desire to raise global peace consciousness. As our business evolved, we began
to realize that social media facilitates wide public dialogues, and instantly
connects the world’s citizens as easily as if they were next door neighbours. We would like peace to go viral, and if
activism is the term used to describe consistent focused energy to that end,
then yes, we are activists. We arrived at this place, honestly, with pure
intention.
Advocacy
through fashion, in our opinion, is a viable opportunity to raise awareness to
respective
causes/issues. We believe that now, more than ever, the
cultural paradigm should be one of altruism and compassion. In terms of
efficacy, existing companies such as Tom’s Shoes indicate that “products with a
conscience” can be profitable, successful and fulfilling. We aim to follow in
their footsteps.
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| Beanie Love and Lots of Peace! |
From
the very beginning, the idea was to keep the design of the beanie incredibly
simple. The reason for this is that we have a vision to teach the Zen beanie
crafting technique to impoverished women and girls in third world countries, so
that they may learn the skills to support themselves and their families. We
offer one simple iconic Peace and Love beanie, in 28 colours, infused with a
colossal amount of positive energy. Later we have plans to include a children’s
line, with also patterns stripes and textures. We also have prototypes for
infinity scarves, wrist-warmers and boot-warmers.
The
biggest challenges we have encountered in our activism are the financial
hurdles which prevent product expansion and potential growth. Being 100% self
funded, we are currently unable to increase our outreach to larger entities,
due to an inability to provide a large enough inventory to meet potential
orders. We are in the process of researching/applying for grants/contests any
available financial resource in order to increase our ability to deliver larger
quantities of goods, and hire interns to develop our marketing strategy.
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| The word of Peace that goes with every Beanie! |
With
every beanie sale we spread the word of peace! Each beanie has an artisanal
wooden burnished Peace and Love tag, and is accompanied with a postcard
describing the IDWP project and a link to their website. Recently, however, we
were also incorporated into a student project at the University of Groningen
Netherlands as part of an endeavour to promote peace and altruism.
We
have been designated as “World Peace Beanie” by the peace group World Peace Pakistan,
and have sent 3 beanies there this week.
Peace
and Love sent a beanie to the Founder of Light School in Uriri Kenya, Jack
Bambo, who works tirelessly for rural children in the belief that education is
the answer to peace. We are now happily sponsoring a child at the school!