Do you know where your kids’ school clothes really come from?
World aid organisations are gearing up to investigate how ethical uniform suppliers are. By Julie Iles.
efforts of late Don Merton, who saved the black robin from extinction, and played a major role in the ongoing fight to save the kakapo, the world’s only flightless parrot.
Goodall held Merton, who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2010, in utmost regard, recalling a letter he sent her, ‘‘telling me I should not be sad, and that he had had ‘a great life, worked with many amazing, dedicated folk, and visited some of the most remote and beautiful places imaginable’.’’ ‘‘Of course,’’ she wrote, ‘‘I had tears running down my cheeks before I read the next paragraph.’’ Goodall’s contact with chimpanzees has all but ceased, though ‘‘if I go to a zoo, of course I always go to see the chimp exhibit, and if it can be improved,’’ she says. ‘‘Sometimes that’s very depressing.’’
She has a worthy proxy, however, in Mr H, a soft toy monkey she’s had since 1996 and which she perches on lecterns, takes into classrooms, and carries on red carpets (most recently alongside American supermodel Karlie Kloss at the DVF Awards in New York).
‘‘I’m looking at him right now,’’ she says. ‘‘He’s listening to every word.’’
Mr Hwas a gift from Gary Haun, a former US Marine from Illinois who lost his eyesight aged 21 while on active duty. Against the odds, he became a magician.
Haun has also summitted Mt Kilimanjaro, skydived, and swum with great white sharks. And, he taught himself to paint.
‘‘There’s actually a portrait of Mr H, who he’s never seen,’’ Goodall says. ‘‘And it’s pretty amazing.’’
For Goodall, the love-worn Mr H is a symbol of the ‘‘indomitable human spirit’’ in which her own hope for the world lies.
‘‘Everybody told Gary that it’s impossible to be a magician if you’re blind. And he said, ‘Well, I can try’.
‘‘The children don’t know he’s blind,’’ Goodall adds.
‘‘He’ll tell them that things might happen in their lives, but they should never give up. There’s always a way forward.’’ For tickets to An Evening with Dr Jane Goodall, visit thinkinc.org.au/events/ goodall. Proceeds will go directly to the work of The Jane Goodall Institute New Zealand. AUSTRALIAN non-profit organisation Stop the Traffik has plans to work with Baptist World Aid to put uniform suppliers in the spotlight of future Ethical Fashion Reports.
Stop the Traffik director Carolyn Kitto said she has contacted 46 uniform suppliers across Australia and New Zealand about their supply chains, but only three had responded.
Kitto said, ‘‘Uniform suppliers are able to be relatively invisible... and once they’re invisible they’re really hard to interrogate.’’
The three businesses to respond to Stop the Traffik were not able to show any ethical codes or any supply chain information that would verify there was no exploitation, Kitto said.
Of course that doesn’t mean that there is any problem, but Kitto is keen to investigate.
‘‘The whole concept of sending children to school in uniforms where other children have been exploited to make them, I just don’t think that sits very well and I think uniform suppliers are going to have to find a way through this.’’
Kitto said uniforms would be the easiest clothing to make ethical because they do not tend to change, and the move would not have to come with higher prices.
Scott Goddard, founder of Australian fair trade uniform and sporting company RREPP, said his standard polo sold for less than the average polo at a uniform shop, but that was partly due to school fundraising markups.
Moana Clothing whole-sale supplies uniforms for around 100 schools across New Zealand.
Managing director Paul Frampton said both his factories and fabric mills complied with international standards.
He regularly visited the factories making the garments in Indonesia, but had a New Zealand agent that checked on his fabric mills in India. He said because everything he made often has to be a particular colour, he needed to have a more consistent supply chain and used a limited number of factories.
‘‘Every time you do a different dye batch you can guarantee that it will be a slightly different colour from the last time you did it.’’
Frampton said that although he is often asked by schools about his manufacturing process, he had never been asked by his clients where his raw materials came from, and it’s a question he would not be able to answer.
The recent Ethical Fashion Report commissioned by Baptist World Aid, found that only 7 per cent of the 330 businesses surveyed traced their raw materials.
Kapiti College principal Tony Kane is no stranger to progressive uniform policy, having introduced gender-neutral uniforms to the kit. But when it comes to thinking about ethically sourced uniforms, Kane said it was an issue that had not been brought up by parents, or considered.
‘‘We wouldn’t really have the resources to know how ethical or unethical our uniform suppliers are really,’’ said Kane.
He would be open to giving students the choice of fair trade if there was a supplier.
New Zealand start-up garment company Little Yellow Bird was founded by Samantha Jones who said she saw a gap in the market for fair trade corporate uniform items.
Jones said publicity got consumers thinking about the topic of traceability, but it was important they did their own research.
Uniforms would be the easiest clothing to make ethical because they do not tend to change.’ DIRECTOR OF STOP THE TRAFFIK CAROLYN KITTO