By: Sahana Athreya and Edha Singh
All their lives Edha and Sahana have defined themselves as old souls in young bodies, whether that be due to their music tastes, their lack of pop culture knowledge, or their love for knitting and crocheting.
Share a Square began on a lazy afternoon when two teenage girls on a video call found themselves knitting and crocheting while watching The Bachelor. They complained to each other about their quandaries- should they be productive and work towards something that would bring about a substantial change, or should they put their feet up and relax because they wouldn't get the time for that once grade twelve began?
Every day, they would have the same conversation. "When I study, I feel guilty for not knitting the scarves I've been yearning to knit for months," Edha would say. "And when I crochet, I feel guilty for not doing something more useful with my time," Sahana would reply.
It was the beginning of the novel coronavirus, and economies around the world were predicted to hit recessions worse than those of 2007-2009.
One day, an idea came to Sahana: what if they could do both? What if they could be productive and bring about a change while doing something they loved?
"Baby blankets for the homeless," she said to Edha that day on the phone, eliciting an instinctive "yes!" from her best friend.
It has always been a tough life that the homeless have led, but with the virus and recession it can be easily understood that their needs would soon be overlooked. After all, even the kind-hearted are going to be facing financial troubles, and the government has to put all their resources into saving lives from the virus.
However, their goal wasn't just to give to the less fortunate; what they wanted was to rekindle a dying spark, and to revive a dying art. They wanted their project to inspire the youth of India to pick up a needle and thread and carry forward these wool arts to the future generations.
Just like the squares that would come from near and far to be stitched together as one blanket, they wanted the people of India to come together as one for a good cause.
And that's how the idea was born.
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