Monkey business help for Vanuatu

Otago Polytechnic occupational therapy students Danielle Lippitt (25, left) and Francie Kemp (20)...
Otago Polytechnic occupational therapy students Danielle Lippitt (25, left) and Francie Kemp (20) display some of the 50 sock monkeys sold yesterday to raise funds for the Vanuatu cyclone relief. Photo by Gregor Richardson.

More than $500 has been raised to help relief efforts in cyclone-damaged Vanuatu, thanks to some creative monkey business at Otago Polytechnic yesterday.

A group of first-year occupational therapy students at the polytechnic had earlier joined forces with friends and family in a monkey toy-making workshop session on Thursday night.

And the 50 brightly-coloured toys, made from socks, were snapped up by buyers only minutes after the students began selling them on the polytechnic campus, at noon yesterday.

One of the first-year students, Danielle Lippitt, said ''so much has been lost already'' in Vanuatu, and added that the students had wanted to raise as much money as they could.

''By getting together and working as a group, we can achieve a lot.''

The toy-makers had had ''a lot of fun''working together to raise funds for ''an extremely worthy cause'', she said.

All earnings would be donated to Save the Children, including some extra donations.

All this monkey business had started with a course requirement, within an occupational therapy paper, to hold a ''public participation workshop''.

A remark by a student in an 11-strong group had led to the fundraising initiative, and the buyer response had been ''pretty positive''.

''It's pretty amazing what a wee community group can do,'' she said.

john.gibb@odt.co.nz

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