Gogo Olive – Rehabilitating In Zimbabwe

Gogo Olive was started about 14 years ago by a young 26 year old old girl, Julie, who was visiting Zimbabwe from the Orkney Islands, when our country was struggling economically and politically.

She combined her knitting skills with her new degree in architecture to design African animals. Julie identified a need in the prisons and set about organising prisoners and their wardens to learn how to knit and follow a pattern. Most of them already knew how to knit, but with FOUR needles? Julie named the project Gogo Olive – Gogo means granny in our local language – in honour of granny Olive, who had taught Julie to knit.

This project is all about rehabilitating female prisoners and giving them a second chance at life, in a society where they would ordinarily be shunned and have to live with the stigma of being an ex-prisoner. Our ladies, however, have been given back their dignity and are well respected in their communities now. To date, we are proud to say we have no re-offenders.

Currently, we have six ladies in prison knitting for us, whilst all our other knitters have either served their sentences or been released on an amnesty. On their release, they are given all the money they've earned whilst knitting in prison, which helps them to find accommodation and start afresh. They then join the other ladies in the project and continue to earn a living, attending workshops three days a week where they are counselled and assisted back into 'normal' life by ladies who have walked the same road.

They are very grateful to organisations such as Frontier Energy, for supporting their work and being interested in them. With Christmas coming up, and then January Fever (a difficult month for all Zimbabweans as school fees need to be paid for the first term of the school year), they are especially grateful for your orders! It enables us to give them a Christmas Bonus and a Christmas Party, which is always well received, and means they are able to continue knitting through the Christmas break. So THANK YOU Frontier Energy! Please feel free to have a look at our website and follow us on Instagram.

As a matter of interest, Julie has designed a wide range of African animals, a small range of English animals (fox, badger, sheep), Scottish animals (Highland Coo, Puffin and Unicorn) and she has just launched a small Aussie range (Kangaroo & her joey, Koala Bear and keep your eyes peeled for a new one, yet to be announced!)

Find out more here www.gogo-olive.com