Can you make a yellow heart?
A message from Unison West West Regional Women’s Committee
UNISON North West Women’s Committee is calling on all members who can knit, crochet or sew yellow hearts like the one attached – or who know of others who can.
We hope to have enough Yellow Hearts to be able to organise a special tribute to all our North West members who have lost their lives to Covid. They hope to organise this on Workers Memorial Day on 28th April.
The idea for the Committee to get involved came from a conversation with a next of kin who mentioned the international movement #LovefortheLost and how she had started knitting yellow hearts to channel her anger. She said she’s keen to see a North West memorial so the bereaved don’t have to travel to London to add the names of loved ones to the national Covid memorial wall.
The original idea for the Yellow Hearts movement is believed to have come from a granddad who felt isolated in his grief after losing his wife to Covid in a care home. He remembered hearing that in the past, families had tied yellow ribbons around trees and door handles in remembrance of men who had left for war and he wanted to do something similar during Lockdown. He wanted families who had lost someone, not necessarily from Covid, to have a symbol of remembrance and a way of letting others know they are grieving. If you research #Loveforthelost you’ll see how the idea has really taken off and has been adapted in so many ways.
If you can’t knit, perhaps you could make a yellow heart out of fabric or come up with other ideas that could be incorporated into a colourful, commemorative event? It would be helpful if you could attach some wool or ribbon to the hearts so they can be hung from things.
All ideas – and hearts – welcome.
Please post them before 28th April to:
Jennifer Walley
Yellow Hearts
UNISON North West
Arena Point
1 Hunt’s Bank
Manchester
M3 1UN
