Social Justice
In Dey Tmey, Cambodia
I t was in 2012, over a drink at a local café in Dey Tmey, a relocated slum in Cambodia, that Lisa Brown and Erica Gadsby began discussing how they could help keep women out of exploitation. “My heart had been broken by these issues,” says Brown. “As we talked, we began to dream about setting up a company selling good-quality, locally made products to provide safe employment. People don’t want a hand-out. They want a skill and a job.”
In Dey Tmey, women and girls are extremely vulnerable to exploitation and sex traffickers due to poverty, lack of training and lack of employment. The jobs that are available often leave children unsupervised and vulnerable, while pay is extremely low, hours long and conditions unsafe.
“It was so sad to see first-hand the deliberate exploitation of people by factories who have established themselves within this community,” says Gadsby. “In a place where employment is one of the major struggles, people feel they have little option but to accept the terribly low wages and gruelling work that these factories offer. We want to see more producers paid a fair wage and employed in a healthy working environment.”
Unlike most plans made around a café table, Brown and Gadsby began to turn their idea into reality almost immediately. They were convinced that collaboration was the key, so on their return to New Zealand two more friends were added to the team: Auckland fashion designer Camille Howie and Tauranga-based photographer and graphic designer Deborah de Graaf. ReCreate was born. Gadsby had already established a relationship with Children at Risk in Dey Tmey and the ReCreate team began raising money so they could partner with this NGO to set up a sewing centre. Howie also started designing a range of simple, organic cotton garments.
“We began with a project manager, a sewing instructor and two sewing students,” explains Gadsby. “When training began, we realised it was the first time the students had used a pair of scissors. From there, they learned to lay out and cut patterns, how to use a sewing machine and, with a lot of training, how to produce garments by themselves. We were so happy to go back to Cambodia after a year and to see the professional-quality garments each woman was producing. They now have dreams of passing on their sewing skills to their children, and starting their own sewing businesses.”
After a year of setting up the centre and training the employees, they launched ReCreateStore.co.nz in November 2014 after a successful Kickstarter campaign. It sells quality, designer clothing made by the women and started with two-tone t-shirts and cotton stretch dresses in blues, greys and aqua. They are now launching their fifth range for Spring/Summer 2016. The team has evolved to include more graphic and fashion designers and more volunteers contributing on a project basis. Gadsby continues as business manager, while Brown has stepped back to focus on her other charity work, as well as her paid job and young children.
ReCreate’s silk cotton range debuted at the NZ Eco Fashion Week in June 2015, winning NZ Eco Fashion Designer of the Year. It was designed by ReCreate’s new lead fashion designer, Ashleigh Lloyd.
There is no financial incentive for the New Zealanders’ involvement, with all money earned going into the project.
ReCreate is providing a working environment unlike anything its Cambodian employees have experienced. They not only receive fair wages, but also matched savings and maternity leave. Depending on age, children are cared for onsite or helped to go to school. This means they are kept safe from traffickers and exploitation.
Six women are now employed at the centre. One of them, Kunthea, has become a talented sewer and is currently enjoying the benefits of maternity leave. “I have the freedom to learn and grow,” she says. “I hope that one day I can open a sewing shop… and teach others to sew too.”
The ReCreate team believes in community, not just business. “It is not ‘us and them’,” says ReCreate designer Deborah de Graaf. “Together we’re redefining what the fashion industry can look like. Here in New Zealand and in Cambodia, together with the socially aware customer, as a collective we are moving towards an industry that empowers the producer and the purchaser.”
The ReCreate website includes photos and stories of each worker, one of whom has two children and was homeless and hungry before she started at the sewing centre. She now talks of how happy she is to have a good place to work and live and how dramatically the health of her children has improved.
“People need to know about the conditions in the factories where their products are made. Imagine if you went into a fashion store and ... saw images of the workers making them. People would be often be shocked,” says Brown.
“There absolutely is an alternative to ‘fast fashion', and the concerns it raises around environmental and ethical sustainability,” says de Graaf. “Our team of designers and manufacturers are proving you can have ethically produced product without compromising on good design or quality. And our customers are showing that people no longer think exploitation is okay.”