Our new craftivism project is the ‘Don’t Blow it’ campaign encouraging you to take a positive and creative approach to lobbying your local MP.

We are encouraging all craftivists to hand embroider a personal messages to your MP in handkerchiefs you have been given, have found or have made this summer. We hope you can then deliver your hanky to your local MP at their regional office or Westminster (preferably in person) when they arrive back to work September 6th from their break. This is our summer project. We want the message to be timeless so you can keep referring to it in your correspondence with your MP to talk about current issues you care about such as the widening gap in inequality, bankers bonuses, asking them to support the Robin Hood Tax  or Oxfam’s new campaign on Food Justice and check if they are doing what you are asking for. Here is one example of what you can write on your hanky:

You might not think that this is going to have any impact but we asked experienced campaigners and MPs and they all seemed really positive. Tristan Humphreys is a Political Campaigner for Oxfam and said about our project:

“Get your political campaigning right and you can be on the fast track to change. Its for this reason I’m delighted that ‘Don’t Blow it’ campaign is encouraging people to take a positive and creative approach to lobbying their local MPs. Not only does it offer an exciting and enjoyable way to get involved in political campaigning but it also provides an effective and sustainable model for engaging with politicians in the future.”

We hope that they keep their handmade hanky to help motivate them to show their love for our global neighbours and environment.

If you are in London on Wednesday 15th June 7pm, come join us at Royal Festival Hall cafe on the Southbank (Facebook event here). Please bring your own hanky and £3 to cover the cost of needles, thread and other resources. We hope to have more ‘Don’t Blow It’ summer sessions so keep an eye out on our events page

If you cannot attend you can still deliver this project throughout the summer wherever you are as an individual or group. If you are outside of UK please make a hanky for your local politician or another influential person. Don’t forget to email us a photograph and blog on your hanky for us to add to the website and Flickr, twitter etc! x

Instructions Video: 

Don’t Blow It! from Craftivist Collective on Vimeo.

Coming Soon to help with this project:

• press release template
• More examples of people’s hankies