I have a passion for connecting with my local community and in particular my neighbors and street. After moving into my street with my husband at the beginning of 2005 and organizing a few street BBQ’s I noticed that our street was made up of a large number of mature-aged people. Although my experience up till this point has been with young people I still desired to connect with my neighbors and community even if they were out of my immediate experience. I love knitting and would take it along to the BBQ’s and meetings with my neighbors. As a result a lot of the women at the BBQ’s came up and asked me what I was knitting and then proceeded to tell me about some of the things they were knitting/crocheting. The idea just came to me one day about starting a project involving crocheting and local mature-aged ladies in Redcliffe and two and a half years later came Biddy Bags.
I am a human service worker who likes making stuff. I have worked as a youth worker for the past 6 years up until last year when I starting working as a community cultural development worker part-time and doing Biddy Bags with my other time.
Biddy Bags for me has been about believing that locally I/people can make a difference and can do something a bit sexy, fun and successful without having to move to Melbourne or major city centres.
I also believe that no matter who we are or what our skill level we always have something to contribute of value and my experience, living among lots of retired folk, is that the vibe in society is once you hit a certain age you don’t really have anything that valuable to contribute. It is about bringing sexy back to growing old.
Biddy Bags has also been about establishing a model for ethical business. We are a social enterprise based on profit-share principals with no shareholders. This means the women are the priority not dividends for the shareholders. My aim is to get Biddy Bags to be a profitable self-sustaining business to show that ethical successful business is possible.
Biddy Bags has also been about bridging some of the generational gap. Being a youth worker for 6 years I realize that adults are very significant in young people’s lives however there seems to be less and less adult contact for young people for a variety of different reasons. Biddy Bags is about trying to bring some of these relationships back together.
Too many times have I gone to local markets and seen tables full of handmade crocheted stuff by women who used whatever wool/cotton they had spare in their cupboard. Mostly hideous and not very accessible stuff being sold for $5. What if we were to take the design ideas of young women and the skills and abilities of older women to create incredibly irresistible, unique, one off, handmade, beautiful products that sold for prices worthy of the effort put in?????
And this idea has now become a reality…………..yey………..you can check it out at http://www.biddybags.com.au/
I am a human service worker who likes making stuff. I have worked as a youth worker for the past 6 years up until last year when I starting working as a community cultural development worker part-time and doing Biddy Bags with my other time.
Biddy Bags for me has been about believing that locally I/people can make a difference and can do something a bit sexy, fun and successful without having to move to Melbourne or major city centres.
I also believe that no matter who we are or what our skill level we always have something to contribute of value and my experience, living among lots of retired folk, is that the vibe in society is once you hit a certain age you don’t really have anything that valuable to contribute. It is about bringing sexy back to growing old.
Biddy Bags has also been about establishing a model for ethical business. We are a social enterprise based on profit-share principals with no shareholders. This means the women are the priority not dividends for the shareholders. My aim is to get Biddy Bags to be a profitable self-sustaining business to show that ethical successful business is possible.
Biddy Bags has also been about bridging some of the generational gap. Being a youth worker for 6 years I realize that adults are very significant in young people’s lives however there seems to be less and less adult contact for young people for a variety of different reasons. Biddy Bags is about trying to bring some of these relationships back together.
Too many times have I gone to local markets and seen tables full of handmade crocheted stuff by women who used whatever wool/cotton they had spare in their cupboard. Mostly hideous and not very accessible stuff being sold for $5. What if we were to take the design ideas of young women and the skills and abilities of older women to create incredibly irresistible, unique, one off, handmade, beautiful products that sold for prices worthy of the effort put in?????
And this idea has now become a reality…………..yey………..you can check it out at http://www.biddybags.com.au/
Samantha Jockel
Images: Biddy Bags, 2008, Samantha Jockel
1 comment:
what a fabulous and inspiring project!
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