Dressed With Legacy is a unique initiative founded by Atishca Makan in 2018.
Atishca is a 35-years-old who runs the inspiring initiative from her home in Roodekrans. After losing her father in 2016, her eyes were opened to the hardships of no longer having an extremely important person by your side all the time. Her father, Roy Sonna, tragically died after a tough, 20-year battle with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). In the most severe cases of RA, as in Roy’s case, the body’s immune system doesn’t only attack the person’s tissues and joints, but their internal organs as well. Roy went from being physically fit and healthy after serving in the South African Navy for 21 years, to needing constant care and several operations.
His death has had a huge impact on his family; after all the love and care he had given and received from them, he was no longer with them. Two years on, Atishca still experienced anger and depression because it felt to her that her beloved father was being erased. “He wasn’t famous, and yet he didn’t deserve to be forgotten.”
This prompted her to start Dressed With Legacy. This initiative is dedicated to remembrance and charity through storytelling. “When someone who we care about passes, and it is time to let go of their possessions (such as clothing), we aren’t giving their clothing to charity because it no longer fits or is out of style, it is because the person who wore them is no longer here. Dressed With Legacy is aimed at commemorating the lives of the fallen by making clothing tags with their legacy on them,” she said.
Memories are printed on the back of the clothing tags and they are attached to the donated items. This way, the person receiving the clothes knows the legacy left behind by someone who has been loved so dearly. Atishca spoke from personal experience saying that doing this is therapeutic for the person grieving because sharing memories of their loved ones is a reminder that their existence mattered. “Sometimes you just need to remember, to heal.” Their legacy is passed on to the next person and their existence is kept alive. “To me, it is the final resting place of memories that matter.”
Dressed With Legacy isn’t an NPO (non-profit organisation), but there is no fee for collecting and donating the clothes. All Atishca wants is to share and grow this concept.
Another amazing concept that stemmed from this initiative was the Legacy Bears. These teddy bears are ordered and then dressed in the clothes of the loved ones who have passed away. Seamstresses tailor the clothes into a perfect fit for the adorable bears, making them a keepsake for family members and friends. The Legacy Bears are a beautiful reminder of the impact the lost loved ones had on people’s lives. People either buy the Legacy Bears for themselves, or they buy them for friends and family. Atishca shared a heartfelt memory of a bear that a young man had bought for his sisters wedding, so that a part of their father would be there when she walked down the aisle.
The Legacy Bears are charged for, but the amount of love put into each creation (that takes two to three weeks) is well worth it. The profits from the bears are used to pay for petrol when collecting and handing out the donated clothes, for the seamstress who resizes the clothes for the bears, and for making the tags that are attached to the donated clothes.
Once a month, Atishca co-facilitates grief counselling sessions in Fourways, and she is also a Bereavement Guide at the Wings and Me Healing Centre in Randburg. She uses these counselling opportunities to help people adjust to their new ‘normal.’ She hopes to bring counselling sessions like this closer to home in the near future.
The Dressed With Legacy initiative has set plans in motion for new additions to their initiative, including a retreat for widows and widowers (inspired by Atishca’s mother), a blog, and a photoshoot. The blog will act as a time capsule and will comprise written, video, and audio memories of the loved ones who have passed on. It will be a therapeutic place to share the best memories and find support in a community that knows what a grieving person is going through.
The photo-shoot project is going to be called ‘The Smile Within’, and its purpose is to help spouses, family and friends rediscover their happiness and work through their grief. Another project already being put into action, is the donation of clothes (with the Legacy Tags) to pop-up clothing stores. The pop-up ‘stores’ are set up in informal settlements and people ‘buy’ the clothes with cans, plastic and recyclable materials.
Atishca hopes to help people work through their grief and create a platform where everyone’s legacies can be shared, and while she never saw herself doing this, she said she has found her passion and purpose.
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