Category Archives: Empowerment

new teaching resources just in time for the fall semester

If you are thinking about incorporating responsible design into your curricula this upcoming fall semester here are a few resources to get you started.

Nathan Shedroff, author of the book, Design is the Problem: has recently published free curricula under Creative Commons license.

This is a series of free syllabi and teaching materials to help instructors teach students key topics for the future. These courses are studio courses, meant to teach students by making and doing, instead of merely reading and regurgitating. These syllabi are ready-to-use but can easily be customized for different situations. They are primarily created for design and business programs at the graduate and undergraduate level but can be adopted for teaching to most any audience at most any level. (Shedroff, Thoughts)

Design is the Problem: A course in sustainable design 1.0

Experience Studio: Exploring the full dimensions of experience design 1.0

Market Insight Studio: Research for more meaningful offerings 1.0

The curriculum contains syllabi and presentations and even comes complete with evaluation criteria for the Final Project Presentation (coming soon). Each studio course is easily downloadable, as Shedroff has, not surprisingly, made access to the information extremely user-friendly. Shedroff has truly delivered a fantastic resource in these studio courses.

Another must have for fashion design educators is Teaching Sustainable Fashion: An Educators Handbook, so make sure to add these articles to your course syllabus. We have highlighted the importance of this resource before, but with the new fall semester approaching, it is definitely worth another look. Chapters are broken up into different categories: Design, Business, Marketing, Interactive Activities, Cross-Curricular, and Pedagogy and Institutional Approaches.

You can download the entire handbook or each chapter separately on the Fashioning an Ethical Industry website, here.

Here is a look at the article titles and authors in the chapter on design:

On teaching empathy, Sue Thomas

Slow fashion, Kate Fletcher

Designing slow fashion, Kate Fletcher

The elephant in the room: Contextualising the ethical within fashion excellence, Mo Tomaney

Collaborating with fair trade producers: Design and trends, Tony Hicks

Customized denim project with further education students studying BTEC National Diploma Art & Design (Fashion & Clothing), Maria Skoyles

Clothing care calculator: An interactive tool to evaluate environmental impact, Katie Dombek-Keith and Suzanne Loker

Style showdown , Sara B. Marcketti

Introducing the cotton supply chain and sustainability, Südwind Agentur

Ideas for design briefs, Fashioning an Ethical Industry and Abbie Price

Design Revolution

Last, but not least, we posted earlier re: Emily Pilloton’s new book, Design Revolution: 100 Products that Empower People, and are happy report that it is now available for purchase. Here is what Valerie Casey, Global Practice Head, IDEO; founder, The Designers Accord, had to say about Pilloton, and the book:

“Pilloton is a force of nature and Design Revolution is the perfect
storm of inspiration, optimism, and ingenuity. This book should be
on every designer’s shelf — no, in his or her hands.”

Just in time for the fall semester!

Source: Core77, Nathan Shedroff, FEI, and Project H

Social Alterations is now on Ning!

You can use this space to share and upload curricula ideas, lesson plans, visual aids, research and projects, or to just discuss the current happenings in the industry with respect to social issues and environmental concerns, as well as the latest trends in socially responsible design.

“See” you in the Forum! Oh…and don’t forget to pick up your Social Alterations Badge!

Visit Social Alterations

ILO launches book on “Forced labor: Coercion and exploitation in the private economy”

The International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition was August 23rd. To mark the occasion, the ILO (International Labour Organization) has launched a new book on forced labour, titled “Forced labor: Coercion and exploitation in the private economy.”

You can download the book’s Executive Summary in English, Spanish or French, here.

More than 200 years after a slave rebellion in the Caribbean sparked a movement that eventually led to the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade, an estimated 12 million people around the world still work under coercion in forced labour, slavery and slavery-like practices. The ILO Special Action Programme to Combat Forced Labour is marking the annual International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition on August 23 with the release of a new, comprehensive series of case studies and policy recommendations on forced labour and modern slavery in the world today.

The book titled Forced labour: Coercion and exploitation in the private economy¹ is based on more than six years of research and features case studies from Latin America, South Asia, Africa and Europe. It expands on the conclusions of the ILO Global Report on forced labour, entitled “The Cost of Coercion” published in May 2009, offering in-depth knowledge about deceptive recruitment systems, debt bondage and other forms of coercion, as well as fresh perspectives on law, policy and statistics.

¹ISBN 978-92-2-122681-9, a co-publication by the ILO and Lynne Rienner.

Source: ILO

Social Alterations: Forum

How can education foster sustainable change toward socially responsible fashion and apparel design and manufacturing practices?

Social Alterations hopes to foster socially responsible fashion design education through aggregating relevant material that will inspire fashion/textile and apparel instructors, researchers, designers and design enthusiasts to get on board with thinking about consequence in the industry.

Sign up to the Social Alterations Forum if you’re interested in sharing and contributing ideas on curriculum, research, projects, materials, design, etc. with this community.

New NLC Report on Human Rights violations in Jordan

NLC

A new report out of the National Labor Committee today cites multiple human rights violations at the Muse Textile Ltd. garment factory in Al Hassan Industrial City, Irbid, Jordan.

Human Trafficking
Primitive Dorm Conditions
Substandard Food
Forced Overtime and Seven-Day Work Weeks
A Failure to Communicate

Check out the full report, as well as the Ministry of Labor Report from July 19^th. These workers still have 11 months left on their contract. The NLC is calling for the factory to be brought up to international standards and Jordanian law of compliance immediately.

Source: NLC

Oxfam Hong Kong launches new CSR report for the Garment Industry

Oxfam CSR Guidebook

Oxfam Hong Kong has just launched a new guidebook for the garment industry titled Good Fashion: A Guide to Being an Ethical Clothing Company.

Although they encourage the use of the guidebook for educational use, as well as for research, advocacy and campaign purposes, be sure to notify them if you are going to use the guidebook so that they may assess its impact.

“As an active promoter of corporate social responsibility (CSR), Oxfam Hong Kong launches the first corporate social responsibility guidebook: Good Fashion: A Guide to Being an Ethical Clothing Company today. Good Fashion targets to support the garment sector in Hong Kong to further develop and implement CSR policy. In producing Good Fashion, Oxfam aims to raise awareness within the business sector on the importance of CSR and to encourage them to put CSR principles into practice.

The 71-page Good Fashion, which is divided into four sections, is a comprehensive guidebook containing practical tips for implementing CSR throughout the production process, such as merchandising and manufacturing. Good Fashion also includes CSR insights from various stakeholders, including workers, community organisations, union representatives, and other groups. Online resources and a simple checklist are also included for companies’ reference.”

You can download the full report in English (PDF) here.

Also, be sure to check out Oxfam Hong Kong’s previous reports. In 2004 they published Turning the Garment Industry Inside Out – Purchasing Practices and Workers’ Lives. They have also published two transparency reports: Transparency Report – How Hong Kong Garment Companies Can Improve Public Reporting of their Labour Standards (2006) and Transparency Report II: Have Hong Kong Garment Companies Improved Their Reporting on Labour Standards (2009).

Source: CSR Asia

“Defy them”

New short film out of Amnesty International this week. Whether we like to admit it or not, there is a direct correlation between the fashion industry and torture. Social issues facing the industry today include: forced labour, child labour, harassment or abuse, nondiscrimination, health and safety, freedom of association and collective bargaining, wages and benefits, hours of work, overtime compensation (Workplace Code of Conduct, FLA).

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09m798EcJxI]

Source: Amnesty UK

Women Exploiting Women

The National Labor Committee released a report last week citing sweatshop conditions in a Guatemalan factory manufacturing clothing for Briggs New York (80%) and Lane Bryant (remaining 20%) clothing.

If you don’t want to read the full article, here is the abstract:

“Young Mayan women sew Briggs New York and Lane Bryant clothing under abusive and illegal sweatshop conditions at the Nicotex factory outside Guatemala City. Women in the U.S. are unknowingly purchasing clothing made by other women who are being exploited.

All overtime at the Nicotex factory is mandatory, and 14 2/3-hour shifts, from 7:00 a.m. to 9:40 p.m. including six hours of overtime, are uncommon. The women are routinely at the factory up to 72 hours, forced to toil 20 to 25 hours of overtime. Women unable to remain for overtime work, even if they have family emergencies, are fired. The workers are allowed just 10.2 minutes to sew each Briggs New York blouse for which they are paid 19 ½ cents. The women and their families are trapped in extreme poverty, earning just 76 cents to $1.15 an hour, which comes nowhere close to meeting even their most basic subsistence level needs.

Workers and their children are cheated of health and maternity care, including paid maternity leave, which they paid for and is supposed to be guaranteed under Guatemalan law. Workers are also robbed of their vacation and severance pay and are shortchanged of their legal bonuses.

The Nicotex garment workers have no rights. U.S. company audits are a sham, and the workers have never even heard of a “corporate code of conduct.”

At least some officials of the government-run Social Security Institute appear to be involved in a widespread corruption scam, along with factories such as Nicotex, to defraud the workers and their children of the healthcare they pay for. This scam is an open secret in Guatemala, and it has devastating consequences for the workers.

The Nicotex sweatshop is just another example of how the U.S.-Central America Free Trade Agreement has badly failed to enforce even Guatemala’s most minimal labor laws. US-CAFTA has certainly not empowered workers through respect for their legal rights, nor has it helped raise them out of extreme poverty.”

Source: NLC

For those of you who don’t know who Charles Kernaghan is, he is “The Man Who Made Kathy Lee Cry”. He also heads the National Labor Committee. He discusses what he calls ‘the science of exploitation’ and his work with the NLC from the film The Corporation. You can view the trailler for the documentary in the videos section of this site (on the left hand side).

slogan t-shirts: what do you think?

Katharine Hamnett, Slogan T-Shirt "No More Fashion Victims"

I have been obsessed with U.K. designer Katharine Hamnett for a long time. In fact, it was her slogan t-shirts that first showed me that there was opportunity to transform this industry; she is the quintessential example of a pissed off designer who refuses to stand for the high human cost of fashion. She is dedicated to the promotion of organic cotton, and runs a strong campaign against the conventional ‘white gold’:

“Conventional cotton represents 10% of world agriculture and uses 25% of the world’s pesticides.

100 million conventional cotton farmers, from Russia to South Africa, are living in conditions of abject poverty and near starvation.

Conventional cotton subsidies funded by American taxpayers are causing poverty in the developing world as they lower the world price for cotton. (Americans are the only ones that can change this by writing to their Congress people and telling them they insist on organic cotton clothing.)

20,000 people die every year from accidental pesticide poisoning in conventional cotton agriculture (World Health Organisation). Death by starvation is alarmingly prevalent and 200,000 cotton farmers commit suicide annually due to spiralling debts incurred from buying pesticides. A further 1,000,000 people a year suffer from long-term pesticide poisoning (Pesticide Action Network).

However, if farmers grow cotton organically and can sell it as such, this dire situation is reversed.

By growing organically, farmers get a 50% increase in their income – due to a 40% reduction in costs – and the 20% premium they receive for producing organic cotton allows them to feed, clothe, educate and provide healthcare for their children.

Organic cotton helps farmers trade their way out of poverty. It’s the only formula for survival in the cotton sector in the developing world.”

(Katharine Hamnett, Campaigns: Organic Cotton)

Another company that offers slogan t-shirts is American Apparel. I have been familiar with their ‘Legalize L.A.’ campaign shirt, but only recently came across their ‘Legalize Gay’ slogan t-shirt. The American Apparel slogan t-shirt wants you to promote and support the repeal of prop 8.

It got me thinking. For me, these slogan shirts represent the convergence of fashion and politics in a clear and positive way; they offer the consumer a sense of empowerment, and send a clear message of support. But what do you think?

Two very different questions….

FIBERcast tweet along

The first FIBERcast, featuring Dr. Marsha Dickson and Mr. Doug Cahn, took place today, February 23, 2008. The broadcast was hosted by Dr. Hye-Shin Kim, of the University of Delaware, and focused on “Social Responsibility in the Apparel Industry”.

For those not following on Twitter, here are my live tweets of the event: searchable under #fibercast, #csr and #sr

· Dr. Marsha Dickson # fibercast: monitoring become the standard, but often does not provide solutions. new book http://tinyurl.com/aqb85w about 2 hours ago

· #fibercast problems are complex and widespread/freedom of association/forced labour/discrimination/child labour about 2 hours ago

· Environmental responsibility does not just have to do with fiber choice. remember the whole life cycle analysis/ #fibercast about 2 hours ago

· CSR to Mr. Doug Cahn# fibercast is about looking at the impact, to mitigate the negative, and augment the possitive about 2 hours ago

· Doug Cahn #fibercast http://thecahngroup.com/ about 2 hours ago

· #csr is not an add-on, its a core issue, supplychain for an apparel company..pay your workers the legal limit, at least make up short fall about 2 hours ago

· disctinction between compliant and non-compliant/the industry is aflling short. yes there is cost, but also have a business case (save$)#csr about 2 hours ago

· #csr #fibercast Dr. Marsha Dickson Answers Q. on WRAP factory certification is important but not the answer http://tinyurl.com/bjckwu about 1 hour ago

· limitations of factory monitoring asks “what?” not “why?” and quality of auditing can be lacking…provides only ‘snapshop’ #csr #fibercast about 1 hour ago

· # fibercast #csr #recession: Cahn finds opportunity in downturn for better integration/restructuring interdepartmental thinking opportunity about 1 hour ago

· #csr #fibercast Dickson: consumer difference perceptions from behaviour. no real ‘no sweat’ label, cannot ensure compliance about 1 hour ago

· #csr #fibercast Dickson believes to look for honest companies working toward real change #nike #adidas (ex) about 1 hour ago

· # fibercast #csr Cahn: government can play a voluntary role, also use trade agreement..ensure internationally approved standards on imports about 1 hour ago

· # fibercast #csr Cahn check out fairlabor.org for opperations and http://www.sa-intl.org/ about 1 hour ago

· # fibercast #csr Cahn, small/med. company: ask questions again and again, collaboration fairfactories.org about 1 hour ago

· #csr #fibercast Dickson stresses importance of multi-stakeholder initiatives and also ngo’s light the fire under companies about 1 hour ago

· #csr #fibercast Dickson to students: we need to educate students on #sr in graduate program, but also integrated into undergrad class about 1 hour ago

· #csr #fibercast #sr Dickson http://tinyurl.com/b3ep9u about 1 hour ago