………………….where Australia lost over 12.6 million hectares due to extensive fires. (the size of the UK) and over 1 Billion Animals.

My idea for this journey started with a deep desire to help out others who are experiencing something that you hope to never happen to anyone and a way of working out, with those feelings of “what can I do?” and acting on it.

In the North of New South Wales late in 2019 we had also experienced massive fires but there was something about the timing, the intensity and the devastation, that such news just left us all in deep shock and we were 1000’s of kms from what was actually going on and as I do not watch the News it was difficult to know exactly where was effected most, but the need to help never left me.

When I found myself back in Australia unexpectedly due to the Coronavirus, I had the perfect reason to investigate more and started to create in my mind Hand Made Product from my Stock Room that I could donate to these individuals and families, after working with Latin America in all kinds of forms over the last 2 decades and knowing how much joy goes into every single piece, it was fun creating an area in my stockroom that just seemed to get bigger and bigger.

“What can I do without?”

“That others would appreciate if they had lost everything?”

In a few weeks I had a plan and many thanks to http://www.jodyvassallo.com and her work with the https://www.rfs.nsw.gov.au and an extensive local knowledge, I was able to leave with a firm plan and a destination. Jodys work with the Rural Fire Brigade and Emergency Service allowed me to create packages for individuals with names and stories.

It was an overwhelming experience and a few times I lost track of the names and number of individuals coming to receive their gifts from Las Ninas Textiles but the faces and the manner of those that came I will never forget, there was always a fine veil between myself and the recipient, one that was based on the boundaries that one needs to place in situations when someone you encounter is in crisis.

I had driven down through the intense cleaning up of the “Eastern Front” (at the end of July) that had lashed the coast line of Australia a few days before I arrived and there were teams on the roadsides assessing masses of fallen trees, perhaps distressed from the fires already, now on the road over the barriers that keep us safe as we travel from North to the South of Eastern Australia. The National Parks and surrounding lands charred skeletons and the mountains sides in the distance just black bare trees that stood ghoulishly on the horizon, taking two nights to reach my destination in the https://byronvans.com.au Camper made my journey comfortable and adventurous as I prepared myself for a kind of weekend that will stay with me forever.

Having been a part of various rural communities all over the world since I was 16 years of age, allowed me the ability to appreciate all the places my recipients were coming from, farmers that had been on the land for their whole lives, to escapees from the city (like myself), all with one thing in common 6 weeks of fear and instability as Mother Nature wracked the very essence of their existence.

“Black Summer” as it has been coined is still so present in each of the survivors minds, whether it was that they still do not have homes, cars, and the basics, that we all take for granted in our day to day life, to the hope that this “Winter and Spring” will bring sufficient rain to fill the dams and reservoirs and keep the grass green enough to stop the level of fear from building in there fragile environments again.

I visited Town Halls following this weekend, and one individuals ‘Donga” (as they are known in Australia) a temporary home created from a 40 foot shipping container that the generous https://www.forrestresearch.org.au/portfolio-item/andrew-forrest/ has leant to few, who qualified for this pod, with a water tank, pump, bathroom, kitchen and 4 bunk beds, my new friend was off the ground with a roof over her head and had the nicest place to contemplate and begin to rebuild her life which as she explained to me was somedays good and others not so good.

I am very grateful for Ruth to opening her home to me and allowing me to see the actual devastation of her own land and dream that she had built over 7 years expecting it would last her until her last days. On this afternoon we unpacked some of the donations and I used my experience as a Stylist to make the Donga come to life a little more with the beautiful Artisan pieces she had received and a few gathered flowers and foliage to warm her home for a while.

Just the few things that I delivered in the end, may not make an incredible difference to the lives of those who have lost everything, but as I explained to one of the recipients, if the Cloth that I have given them one day catches the light, or receives a compliment which in turn makes them feel joy at that moment then my journey was thoroughly worthwhile.

XZara