Doing Good

Last week I heard an inspiring story . Christian Kongawi, who lives in my hometown of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, was putting together a fundraiser including a dinner, concert, and silent auction to help him in his quest to build a school in the Congo. His personal stake in this endeavour? His family is Congolese and his parents sent him to Canada as a ten-year-old boy to spare their son the strife of that very conflict-ridden area of the world. After his move to Canada, Christian's village, Gemena, was attacked and the school there was damaged. Christian is now 25 years old, and his plan is to return to Gemena and rebuild his school and help the community.

This is a huge undertaking, and one he has been planning for a long time. I can't really even imagine the determination and guts required to pull an idea like this together, and I was really inspired by his dedication. I wondered if there was something, however small, that I could do to help out. The words "silent auction" popped out at me, and there was my idea. I would make a necklace and donate it to the cause. I had a few days to do it, but I knew my motivation could drive me to get it done.



Ta-da! Now I can only cross my fingers and hope that some kind soul likes it enough to place a generous bid for the kids of Gemena!

I bow to the motivation and determination of people like Christian, who have a clear idea of what it would take to make something in this world better, and who find the energy to make a plan and carry it through. I understood a little bit about the source of this motivation when I sat down to make this piece of jewellery. Normally when I'm working on a commissioned piece, my motivation comes from my joy of crafting, but it's tempered by time constraints and by knowing that, above all else, I'm crafting for money. I'm lucky to do what I love, and it's wrong to complain about it. But when I was making this necklace, I felt a much purer motivation, one that was seemingly inexhaustible. I sat at my bench with joy, just knowing I was going to give a small piece of myself to a much larger and more important cause than "me".

Good luck, Christian!!