Deep passion for Maths and desire to simplify it for kids, who dread Maths has been the motivation for Maths2Art since its inception (July 20115). At the start of this year (2019), few of my senior students shared the story of their friends who were going through a difficult phase of life.The society calls it depression.
I have seen my mother going through severe depression in my childhood. She had her first encounter with depression when I was 6 months old and she left us 12 years ago. I have seen depression quite closely for around 20 years and its various phases. I could feel the pain of families when their child is going through this silent disease.
I was not able to overlook this situation and started reading more about teenage depression, the shocking number of rising cases just put my normal life at a halt.Upon further research, I encountered a wider section of our society suffering from depression and dementia. Mindless scrolling over our smartphones has been unknowingly playing a huge role in this rising number of teenage depression cases. I had no clue what should be done but I seriously wanted to be able to do something to improve this situation. There is a very thin line between thinking and worrying and without any concrete action to take towards this situation, I was at the verge of just start worrying.
I connect with these lines from the book " Million Dollar Habits"
Author Brian Tracy asks a potent question in his book "What is the opposite of worry?"
And answers it as "taking action". Taking action may not guarantee that your problem will be solved. But when you take action, you get busy and stop worrying.
I was not able to focus on my Maths writing with this open problem in my mind; So, to involve myself and stop worrying I started crocheting more ( I normally used to crochet during my travel , holidays etc). While I was crocheting more and more, I observed few beautiful side effects of this simple hobby. I started reading few research papers related to Knitting/Crochet vs Mental health and found quite promising research results.I was pleased to discover this medium to be a known cure for depression and prevention. Now,
I was out of worry mode and I was getting ready for action mode.
I started talking about this correlation between crochet and better mental health to people around me and few of my friends could sense my honest intentions. They came forward to help enthusiastically to conceptualize this thought. During the collective brainstorming sessions, we found out that this art form can be useful in multiple avenues. And, with everyone's efforts together we have shaped up this project beautifully in multiple dimensions.
We have observed a good amount of awareness around us for physical fitness. People are trying to pick up at least one activity from the available pool of Gym, cycling, swimming, yoga, dance etc. However, unfortunately, we do not see the similar level of awareness for mental fitness. I do not see enough people engaged in any activity which stimulates their mind. We would like to suggest Crochet/weaving as one of those activities. Rather, We call it "Activity based meditation".
At weaving happiness, we are trying to raise awareness about this simple, portable, economical and useful hobby which helps reduce stress and improve cognitive skills. It can be learnt irrespective of age, gender, physical or mental abilities. We aim to use this hobby for the better mental health of the society around us.
We aim to run our Weaving workshops for
1. Special Ability Individuals
2. Chronically ill patients
3. Senior Citizens
4. Children/Teenagers
5. Creative Adults
6. Foreign Domestic Worker
You can find more details about these dimensions here - https://www.weaving-happiness.com/our-initiatives
Looking forward to build a creative community around us weaving happiness : one stitch at a time!