Green Cotton

Green Cotton’s devotion to eco-fashion and style includes a broader inclusion of sustainability. Sustainability to us means not only sustainable environmental practices and sourcing, but also attention to the people and communities that make up our environments (and our products and companies). To this end, we are interested in fair labor standards, empowerment of women worldwide, and social responsibility. One issue that has come into the news this week concerns Hershey’s chocolate.

Photosource: www.businessweek.com

You may be very familiar with the Hershey’s kiss,  and even love it, but this love does not appear be to trickling down to all levels of Hershey’s production and processing of their little kisses. Hershey’s is one of few large chocolate companies to have yet to establish fair trade certified and organic chocolates.

To help speed up the process, on June 23rd, Green America and partners at the International Labour Rights Forum (ILRF), the Organic Consumer’s Association, and Global Exchange announced a national day for action aimed at improving the lives of cocoa farmers all over the world, and stopping the abusive child labor that is prevalent within this industry.

Photosource: laborrightsblog.typepad.com

The partners ask all their members, supporters, and others interested to call on Hersey’s Food Corporation – one of the largest chocolate producers in America – to obtain third-party fair trade certification. And when I said “call on” Hersey’s, I mean literally make a 2 minute phone call to the corporation. A script and phone numbers of those who need to hear about the plight of cocoa farmers have been prepared for the caller, so all you need to do is pick up your phone!

Ultimately, the aim of this campaign is to get Hersey’s (one of the biggest producers of chocolate worldwide) to produce all fair trade and organic certified chocolate and sugar in all their products. With some recent advancements in the corporate chocolate world, such as Cadbury’s fair trade chocolate line, this goal seems not only a realistic, but a smart move to make. Fair Trade certification is a good competitive move in a market where consumers are increasingly demanding more eco and fair trade products. While this campaign started as a National Day of Action on Tuesday June 23rd, 2009, the lines are open until Hersey’s makes a move.

So next time you go to get a Hersey’s “Kiss” remember the children and other workers behind that to cocoa and step up to offer them a fair wage and in good working conditions. Fair trade certification is one of the best ways to ensure this. Be a part of the change:  take two minutes, go to www.organicconsumers.org and place a call.

By: Julia Rea

Planet Aid is not exactly the “charity” that we previously thought. In fact, we would like to update our earlier post with the following new information to give you a more well-rounded perspective on this organization. Our sincere apologize to our readers for this oversight, as we were initially excited by the premise and mission of the group. A special thank you to our readership, especially Genna, for bringing these new insights to our attention.

Photosource: www.thebollard.com

First, Planet Aid seems to have a controversial record as a charitable organization, in fact, the Better Business Bureau has refused them as a ‘charity’. One of the ways in which Planet Aid has failed to be a ‘charity’ is the amount of money produced by donated clothing that is put back into development programs. The American Institute of Philanthropy (AIP) gave them an “F” in their December 2006 “Watchdog Report” after finding that Planet Aid only spent just 23 percent of total revenue on programs for the poor. The AIP requires non-profit charitable organizations to spend at least 60 percent of revenue on these programs. The best rated organizations spend up to 75 % of revenue on charitable programs.

Planet Aid also has tenuous connections with the Danish cult-like organization called Tvid. Their founder also started Planet Aid’s partner organization, Humana People-to-People.

Photosouce: www.thebollard.com

Tvid’s Founder, Morgens Amdi Peterson, originated as an alternative school teacher who had received funding from the Danish government to support his school, and then had that funding recinded when the school was found to have ‘cultlike’ qualities.

After some controversies arose surrounding his school, Peterson went underground for two decades! During his decades underground, Danish and American prosecutors believe he “masterminded a global expansion of Tvind that included both non-profits like Planet Aid and for-profit enterprises that now collectively number around 150, with hundreds of millions of dollars in total assets.” Prosecutors allege that funds raised from these organizations are transferred between Tvind’s non-profit and for-profit entities, which share many of the same members and corporate officers.

Peterson was arrested in Los Angeles in 2oo2  and extradited to Denmark where he and other top Tvid officials were to stand trail for charges of tax evasion (11 million) and embezzelment (9 million). However, Peterson and four other Tvid leaders fled Denmark before they were served court papers and are still at-large. It was discovered at this time that Peterson had been living in a multi-million dollar pad on an island off the coast of Florida with a $5 million dollar yacht, the “Butterfly McQueen.”

Butterfly McQueen Yacht

Photosource: www.yachtdevelopments.com

Of course Planet Aid has denied any funny business. We cannot know for sure how involved Planet Aid is in all this, or if funds are being used to support these men or Peterson’s new $5 million dollar yacht, but we do know that Planet Aid is not recognized as a charitable organization by any of the most respected watchdog organizations in the United States or the world, and that just the thought of someone using the needs of poor children in Africa as a front to get rich is repulsive.

So where does this leave us? Well, our opinion is to steer clear of this organization and not to donate a darn thing, but of course we leave it up to you. At the same time, we continue to strongly encourage recycling all your old clothing or let someone else enjoy it. So for now, lets stick to Goodwill and Salvation Army, as well as your local clothing swap. Tell us about your favorite clothing donation option. We want to hear from you.

By: Julia Rea

Photosource: www.invisiblechildren.com

“Starting a fashion mutiny by giving high style a soul.™”
Invisible Children (IC) was the organization that made a name for itself with the horrific video documentary that exposed Joseph Kony’s scheme to kidnap children and force them to fight in his rebel army in the Eastern Congo beginning in 2003.

Today Invisible Children is a broader franchise, and while their mission has remained exactly the same, their means of achieving the same end are now multifaceted. IC representatives spend time traveling to raise awareness about this issue, continue to create documentaries, and have started sewing cooperatives to help former female child soldiers emancipate themselves economically.

One of their main sewing cooperatives is called “MEND”. The goal of “MEND” is to “Seam a personal connection between products and their makers, while repairing the lives of women in distressed regions of the world.”

Photosource: www.invisiblechildren.com

Each garment is signed by the women artisan who crafted it, so that purchasers can go to the website and read her personal story documented in video bios, photos, and testimonies. All of these different means of documentation are meant to explain how each individual woman is “on the MEND” economically and emotionally due to both her participation in the MEND program as well as the purchases made.
Female child soldiers in Joseph Konys rebel’s army are often also used as sex slaves. When they finally escape to return to Ugandan society, they are ostracized because of their affiliation with the rebels. They are given sewing lessons as “brief rehabilitation” but skills learned through this program are generally not in high demand.

Additionally by offering women lessons about health, literacy, numeracy, savings and investment, MEND gives women life skills necessary to be self-sufficient. In addition, MEND teaches women tailoring skills that are above average, giving them versatility to make men’s, women’s and unisex products.

IC has a Savings and Investment Training Institute (SITI) which gives MEND seamstresses the skills they need to run their own small business and open a savings account, through which they can then receive medical care and pay for school related fees for their children.

Lastly, MEND helps women ‘mend’ emotionally from the inside by pairing each seamstress with an IC mentor, with whom they meet monthly and work through unresolved psychological traumas and provide basic HIV and AIDS awareness training.

By offering all these methods of recovery, MEND program is extremely comprehensive, thinking of all needs these women may have economically but also emotionally, and tries to provide means for them to “MEND” completely.
For this reason, the MEND program is quite amazing, and worth anyone’s support. While their products are not available on the Invisible Children website just yet, they are expected to be up by late 2009. To see others way to support Invisible Children like these women seamstresses, go to the Invisible Children website.

By Julia Rea