A Lot has been said against Jason Sadler and his project 1 million shirts. A lot of it I agree with, but I want to try to present some things that may linger from a different view point. Some of this is a personal exercise to learn more about how and why this idea started. My goal is to get people to attack some misconceptions and thoughts in regards to this issue. So please, no personal attacks, this is an exercise and an attempt to change the direction of the conversation to look at this in different ways. If I miss anything please make suggestions and try to think of ways to not only prove me wrong, but to also think of how to combat these ideas.
- There is an existing market for second hand clothes in Africa. How can 1 million shirts spread over a continent of 1 billion people be anything more than a drop in the bucket when spread out over the continent?
- If it does flood the market, what is the harm in providing even cheaper shirts for people to buy? Won’t this give people the ability to spend less on clothing and more on investing on other projects?
- How is it ‘trash’ or ‘insulting’ to send second hand clothes when people happily buy and wear second hand clothes?
- Isn’t it a good thing that we are not just throwing the shirts away?
- By using social media and connecting people to the travel of the donation, isn’t it positive that people will be able to easily remain connected to what they contribute (ie. see where and how the project is growing and developing live via twitter and Facebook)?
- There are still some people who do wear rags and little to no clothes. Wouldn’t this help to clothe these people and improve overall hygiene of the continent?
- Who says the shirts have to be used as clothing? Doesn’t this provide a cheap product that can be used to make other items by innovative Africans?
That is what I can think of right now. Please let me know if I should add anything and please consider this as a discussion point not as a case in either direction for the issue.
Update : 6pm clarify question 5 and add buy to question 2
Update 2: 8pm changed opening phrase from 'plenty' to 'a lot' to reflect that this is not the end of the discussion
4 comments:
1. Depends how you do it, of course. The SHC market depends on a cascade approach as the containers are broken down to be sold by individual retailers. Just giving a load to someone else might totally upset the local economic balance. A million t-shirts is quite a lot of containers in one go - conventional SHC containers are a mix of various kinds of clothing.
2. Personally, I'm not in favour of giving anything much to most people for free most of the time. Mostly because I don't think it is sustainable. At present the africans buying the clothing pay for the distribution costs, so at some level the price is set by market forces. Any other system depends on someone else to pay the distribution costs.
3. It isn't.
4. Well kinda. It is better to reuse than just throw it away, but it'd be better not to produce the waste in the first place and/or deal with the results of our own fixation with Fast Fashion.
5. Yeah, tricky one. Doesn't that feel a bit like Big Brother?
6. Don't understand the question.
7. Nobody - I'd totally be in favour of training people to make things they need from waste materials. But then, there are going to be cheaper and easier ways to get waste fabric than shipping it from the USA.
8. Yes :)
Good call, I like your questions
1) The plan was to send the shirts to very specific locations. A few countries in East Africa to be exact. The effect is very different than sprinkling 1 million shirts to 53 countries. A concentrated influx of the same type of clothing for FREE into select markets would choke what's already a saturated market to begin with.
2) To correct you, he was to hand them out for free... oddly enough, this is much more devastating than selling them.
3) See point #2. Key word, "buy." Also, no one asked for these clothes. It also continues to foster dependency on aid and empowers no one. Buying and selling empowers, receiving handouts doesn't. Actions like that don't strengthen local capacity income generation. "If someone else will feed, clothe, and treat our population, why should the government bother trying to create a taxable middle class at all? Let aid groups perpetually take care of us."- terrible mentality to have in development.
From an ideological standpoint, #1millionshirts was a feel-good exercise for someone who genuinely wanted to do good, not a response to a dire need or a call to action.
4) Shirts are biodegradable & decompose, shipping them away to another continent has direct effects on the environment. Better to throw them away actually.
5) Not sure I understand your point. But if you are looking for a tool to foster project transparency... http://openaction.org pull all your social media channels into one platform. (disclaimer: I am an advisor)
6) You could use the same analogy in the first world in reference to the homeless. There's no UN campaign to build houses for the homeless in the US. That's the US government's problem.
7) Agreed, if #1millionshirts must continue to collect shirts, think of them as raw materials for a new product line that directly empowers a sub-economy in the developing world.
My objection to the said project is twofold:
Firstly, i don't appreciate its contribution to the narrative of hapless Africans in need of Western Aid. And I don't mean this in the cliched way. I mean it in the sense that people should not be made to think that the only way Africans can clothe themselves is if we send them a million shirts. This IS the message the project imprints on people's minds.
Secondly, the project is not sustainable. It does not generate jobs, and might indeed kills jobs in the garment industry. There is never a free lunch.
Thanks for your thoughts Ken (sorry if I am using the wrong name) I have found your blog as a valuable resource and think you are dead on with your comments.
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