Air, water, food and freedom of fear – those are one of the necessities standing in the core of a human’s needs. We, as a humanity have been striving for providing those essentials to every living person on the Earth. Days, ages, centuries – for how long have we been opening shelters, changing constitutions, fighting for rights? And yet there is something decaying the very bottom of this intention – war.
War destroys, ruins and kills people, nations and lands. The zeal for worldwide peace is what has been kept in our hearts for the longest time. To raise awareness of the topics and represent it we created ornaments for a Christmas tree. A symbol of peace, diversity and equality.
How was the process going? Firstly, we created woolsheets.
To obtain this goal we had to brush wool so it gets thinner and easier to stretch and after that put a net on the layers and rubbed hot water, soap and then cold water into it for quite a long time. In addition we turned the sheet around and repeated the steps until we had a thick, tight woolsheet out of which we could cut a variety of symbols that represent our countries and peace in general.
Diversity could’ve been seen not only in the result but also during the process. Every volunteer is a unique vessel and representative of his country and culture. Hence the turned out ornaments are to be as different as we are – Matryoshka for Russia, seagull for Estonia, bull for Spain and many more. Already made robust and sturdy woolsheets became a perfect base for us to cut it and unleash our creative selves. Moreover, we also formed a symbol for every continent, the ocean, and for peace in general.
To finish the signs nicely we embroidered them with yarn that we loosened out of old wool sweater s. A bunch of one euro items became a vital part of the function. It’s hard to overestimate the significance of it since it was also used to crochet a garland for every colour of the peace flag, which are violet, dark blue, light blue, green, yellow, orange and red. Entertaining and enjoyable, this activity became one of our favourites!
Forming wool balls that could be hung on the branches was another key experience. There were three sizes: small, medium and big – and plenty of colours adjusted to the mentioned earlier flag of peace. It was a miracle itself to see how a pile of unprocessed wool was becoming more and more like a real Christmas toy.
Last but not least, a true discovery for us was bending the wire in the intention of forming the rest of symbols, for example a dreamcatcher, which represents South America. It was not just a wire itself but wrapped with sweater’s yarn and decorated with feathers. The conclusion comes naturally: every item formed by us within the activity was eco-friendly, recycled and made no harm to the environment – a motto that we as volunteers of ACARBIO stick to.
Serenity – this word can be used to describe our feelings after we saw the results. Long talks, lots of laughter, hours of persistent work and sometimes much needed seriousness on the task were a good price for the results. We believe that what we did was more than creating the ornaments but also making a change in the world itself.
The Tree of Peace is located in the ancient cloister of the Anantara Convento di Amalfi Grand Hotel.
Credits: Alina and Nadezhda