Sun, Aug 17, 2014 page14

• Ethical fashion blends profit, development in Africa

  • By Nichole Sobecki / AFP, NAIROBI
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  The muddy streets of Kenya’s Korogocho slums are a far cry from the fashion boutiques of Paris, Milan, New York or London, but beneath a tin roof, workers from some of the country’s poorest communities are sewing buttons and stitching cloth for top international designers as part of a non-profit “ethical fashion” project.

  “Before Ethical Fashion, I couldn’t educate my children,” Lucy said as she sat in a circle of women deftly sewing white seed beads to the surface of smooth, chocolate-colored leather.

  “But now I can educate them and provide for them anything they need,” the 30-something mother of four said.

  

  Women work in Nairobi’s Korogocho slum creating clothes and accessories for the Ethical Fashion Initiative’s Kenya workshops on June 19.

  Photo: AFP

  From Korogocho, accessories like the cuffs the women sew are sold in high-end international boutiques, stamped with the labels of international fashion houses like Vivienne Westwood, Fendi and Stella McCartney.

  It is part of the Ethical Fashion Initiative, a project built on a model of “mutual benefit” that aims to support poor communities by linking them up with fashion houses and distributors.

  Workers on the scheme — a member of the Fair Labor Association — would take months to earn enough to buy the luxury goods they help make that sell for hundreds of dollars on the high street.

  Yet conditions are a stark contrast from the sweatshops that muddy some fashion brands, with the UN-backed scheme providing decent working conditions, training and — in perhaps the clearest sign of its success — people lining up to work for the project.

  Organizers say that about 90 percent of their workers in Kenya have improved their homes and almost 85 percent can now provide better food for their families.

  The UN-WTO joint initiative has expanded from Kenya to Burkina Faso, Ghana and Haiti, with plans for future expansion on the African continent and in Asia.

  The long journey these bags, clothes and accessories will make has reshaped the lives of women like Lucy.

  Struggling to survive a tin shack slum in Nairobi, Lucy had turned to prostitution by the age of 16. With three children of her own, she also cares for her nephew after her sister died of AIDS.

  Starting out five years ago as a seamstress, Lucy is now a supervisor at one of the initiative’s centers.

  Last year, she moved her family out of Korogocho to a nearby suburb that has lower crime rates.

  Of the more than 5,000 people involved in the initiative in Kenya, 90 percent are women.

  For Arancha Gonzalez, chief of the International Trade Centre that runs the project, it offers a sustainable way to improve lives.

  “Trade, economic activities, markets can also be married with human development, with women’s economic development, with poverty reduction,” Gonzalez said on a visit to the workshops in Nairobi.

  The project’s slogan is: “Not charity, just work.”

  “We call it ethical because we give a decent job, with decent working conditions, to very destitute people,” Gonzalez said. “First and foremost, it gives women dignity.”

  Workers also use environmentally friendly, often recycled materials and their operations are carbon neutral.

  Gonzalez said that for the designers working with the initiative, economics and ethics need not be mutually exclusive.

  “It’s about making money, but you can also make profits in a socially sustainable way,” she said.

  Beyond Vivienne Westwood, brands producing work through the initiative include Karen Walker, Sass & Bide, Stella Jean, United Arrows and other major houses.

  Hubs in Nairobi, Accra and Port-au-Prince receive commissions from the designers, provide training and organize the production of bags, jewelery and fabrics by locals.

  “We talk about responsible fashion as if it were a segment of fashion, but it is not, it’s fashion,” said Simone Cipriani, the project’s technical advisor.

  Although fashion may be fickle, quality endures. By linking skills like sewing and beading with top fashion houses, Ethical Fashion hopes to create products that are both beautiful and meaningful.

  “We are not talking about those things that you buy because you have a sense of guilt,” Cipriani said. “We are talking about things that you buy because they are beautiful, really gorgeous, but then they have this incredible, positive story behind them, the story of people who get a decent life out of this work, who get a new life.”
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