Help Genesis & Luis make more crochet for a better life.

Luis (24) and Genesis (21) fled Venezuela and are trying to avoid falling into abject poverty. Genesis knits truly delightful crochet animals, scarves, and keychains for Luis to sell on the streets of Cartagena, Colombia. He mostly comes home empty-handed, and he recently fell ill from a recurring infection in his badly damaged leg.

My goal in telling their true story is to inspire small contributions that could help lift them out of a desperate situation and keep them economically stable long enough (24 months) to have a fighting chance at a better life.

The Story of Genesis, Luis (and baby Geleen).

When I met Luis in Cartagena, Colombia in 2023 it was a blazing hot and humid afternoon in the centuries old colonial district. The narrow streets were teeming with vendors, many aggressively chasing down tourists. Luis was not like them. I almost walked right past him.

He was sitting near the shade of a tree in what felt like 90% humidity, next to a rickety display of dangling crochet keychains. I noticed the bright colors out of the corner of my eye. He saw me looking at them and asked, almost timidly, if there was anything I liked. He said his wife, Genesis, made them. He was tall and gaunt, with slightly sunken eyes, and a stiff left leg extending outwards. The little keychains were adorable! I asked him if Genesis could knit me a seahorse.

The next day, I returned to where Luis was sitting and Genesis had made my seahorse!

They shared one phone between them, an older model with a broken screen. Luis had no way to stay in touch with her during hours spent apart each day.

The night before my trip back to Jersey City, I spent a few hours with Luis in the Plaza de la Proclamación. The night air was heavy but the plaza was alive with dancers and vendors. Genesis came out to meet us. She was 19, and pushing a little baby girl in a battered old stroller. She sat down on the curb and introduced herself and baby Geleen. She was shy at first but as the hours wore on she opened up. She was knitting a yellow lion keychain.

As she worked, I asked about her craft. Her grandmother had taught her how to knit. Recently, she was teaching herself to make amigurumis. She held up her cracked phone screen showing me photos of adorable knitted creatures. She showed me her detailed knitting patterns written out on paper. She mentioned she loved Excel.

"Excel?" I asked? Like the software? She nodded and said she had used it years ago in school, on old shared computers. She was too poor in her childhood to ever own one, but she loved them.

Luis ambled around the busy plaza holding onto little baby Geleen's arms. He clearly loved this child. I noticed him limping as he moved.

Luis sat down next to Genesis while a nearby Afro-Colombian dance troupe shook the humid night air. I asked him about his leg and he explained that a few years earlier, in Venezuela, he was in a motorcycle accident with severe injuries. The surgeons botched his recovery operations, leaving him with horrific scarring and unable to bend his left knee.

Genesis suddenly asked if I had ever been to Ireland. I said no, but asked I why she mentioned Ireland in particular. She sighed. "Because it's cold and rainy," she said wistfully. "Quiero vivir en Irlanda," she said in Spanish ("I want to live in Ireland"), her voice trailed off. She continued to knit and asked me if I had ever heard the music of Amy Winehouse and LP. I knew who Amy Winehouse was but not LP. "Laura Pergolizzi," she said. "Amo LP" ("I love LP") she exclaimed, while reciting a number of memorized lyrics.

A crochet Rabbit, one of Genesis' later creations that was so adorable I had to wire them some money to own it.

I made a mental note about looking up LP's music. She and Luis talked a little about how they ended up in Colombia. Before the baby was born, while the pandemic raged, they had hitchhiked across the border. Their simple goal, a better future. For brief periods on their journey, they were homeless.

I bought them some water and pastries. In a matter of hours, Genesis was putting the finishing touches on the lion and I offered to buy it on the spot for a friend. She mentioned it was hard for her to see clearly at a distance. Her eyesight, even at 19, was in need of care and correction. I gifted them my remaining Colombian pesos, $75 worth. It was enough to buy food for the baby and a pair of prescription glasses for Genesis. I thought about their one broken phone and about how it was their only means of communication and valuable online information.

Back in the States, I kept in touch and encouraged friends visiting Cartagena to look for Luis. Those that traveled there were always able to find him and pick up a knitted item or two.

In Whats App calls with them, they shared more stories about their lives and each detail was shockingly more bleak and tragic than the last. They hadn't left Venezuela just because of the economic, social, and political problems there. Genesis had fled with Luis to escape an abusive mother who beat her as a child and forced her to care for 5 younger siblings. They had met in the same hospital where he was recovering from his motorcycle accident and where her beloved stepfather was dying of cancer. Her biological father, she admitted matter of factly, was a drug addict.

When baby Geleen arrived, she told me, they were making a meager living selling candy on the streets of Pereira, Colombia. Her pregnancy almost ended in death as a result of eclampsia, with a two month stay in a hospital. Doctors said she would never have another child. She spoke of the experience as if reciting medical text from a book. She memorized medical information, stories in books, song lyrics, anything that made it into her mind.

Their time in Pereira was cut short as work dried up. In yet another horrifying admission, Genesis told of how an aunt, who also lived there, had attempted to force her into prostitution at a local bar. She refused when she realized what the job was really about. In desperation, they accepted an uncle's dubious promise of work in the hot, tropical city of Cartagena. They sold all their belongings, got on a bus, and almost immediately found themselves in a hellish predicament living in a room with intermittent blackouts and water running only once a day. The uncle had cruelly lied and they were practically his prisoners.

It was during these grim first days in Cartagena that Genesis began to sew small crochet items for Luis to try to sell. By the time I met Luis, they had managed to escape the terrible conditions forced on them by her former uncle and were renting a cement floor room for $3 a day. Blackouts were constant, as was daily 90 degree heat with no AC. Relief (if one could call it that) came from a barely functioning floor fan that Genesis humorously called Robocup. A rare breeze outside was their only true luxury. They had not a single appliance to their name, not even a refrigerator to keep food cold for the baby. Hardly anyone was buying her crochet. I had to do something.

Geleen playing under the sink.

I wired some money to them, a $100 for a new phone so they could finally text each other, $200 for a portable washing machine, a new set of floor fans, and, crucially, a small refrigerator to keep food from going bad. If only I had a dollar for the number of times they said thank you, I'd wire it all back to them to invest in their art.

Luis with an early crochet cat. Her skills have blossomed over time.

Over the course of many months, I continued to help whenever I could, sometimes sending money for extra rolls of yarn or new crochet hooks. They were so happy with the uplifting home gifts. Genesis churned out more and more keychains and ever more creative pieces, a turtle coaster, a silly bee, rabbits, monkeys, chickens.

A crochet turtle coaster made by Genesis.

I brainstormed with them about what we thought people would buy. Luis dutifully kept the display stocked, but tourists were not buying enough. Genesis knew Luis was feeling down about it but he never complained. "Las ventas estan suaves hoy," he'd say ("Not too good, today."), after sitting in the heat for six hours. As far as I could tell, he skipped meals on those shifts, drinking only water.

A crochet "palenquera" by Genesis.

To boost their morale, I offered to buy many of her pieces to sell to friends and family. I received a suitcase full of crochet thanks to my traveling friends.

Luis, though unable to knit by hand like Genesis, was eager to learn and contribute. I sent them a circular knitting machine and within hours of receiving it, he had produced a hat! It was a moment of real hope for them as Luis could now produce, relatively quickly, simple circular shapes like hats and socks.

Luis, busy spinning out a yarn hat. He sold a few of his tricolor winter yarn hats.

Genesis has continued to experiment and has expanded into scarves and dolls. A Coraline doll is one of her crowning achievements in crochet art.

A photograph Genesis once created with just her baby and her phone.

Sometimes, WhatsApp would ring and it would be Genesis and Luis, calling to say hello. Genesis talked far more than Luis, about books she read years earlier, about mythology, and youtube videos about painters. She name drops Greek gods and talks about painters like Francisco de Goya and Vincent van Gogh, all from information seen online. I believe she may have a talent for painting and photography based on what I have seen of her drawings and shared pictures.

In her daily visits to the hospital, Genesis has done more than visit Luis. She has revealed her true compassion and heart in her interactions with other patients. She gifted a crochet piece to an elderly patient in the same ward, instantly cheering him up. (Sadly, the keychain was stolen a day later). In an even greater act of generosity, she (with Luis’ knowledge and consent) agreed to take the 10-year-old daughter of a nearby patient home for two nights while the child’s father and mother remained in the hospital. Hospital rules did not allow more than one overnight visitor and the parents were desperate. Genesis cared for the girl as if she were her own and she played with the baby and was in trusted hands.

Genesis is a deeply compassionate, intelligent, and talented young artist who wants so much more out of life but was dealt such a very difficult hand. Together with Luis, they have the potential to create and spread so much art. I have wired, to date, enough to improve their quality of life, but only in the very short term. It is simply not enough. They need a much bigger boost from a bigger crowd of supporters. Meeting the goal of this campaign would position them to make life changing decisions and break through to something potentially so much better.

Thank you for taking the time to read their story. - Robert.