Black Friday’s Highly Anticipated Sequel: Giving Tuesday!

Black Friday: a case of the more you spend, the more you save! How was it for you? For the shoppers among us, you’ll have spent the weekend resting your weary feet and totting up exactly how much you saved in your bargain-savvy, deal-hunting escapades. So, the big question now is, what will you do with all this extra cash you’ve saved?

Luckily, we’ve got the answer. For today is, drum-roll please…Giving Tuesday!

Click me to DONATE!

 

Since the growth in popularity of the Black Friday ‘spend-and-save’ culture over the last few years, another new phenomenon has risen up around us: ‘Giving Tuesday,’ which now follows Black Friday every year. On Giving Tuesday, we ask people to dedicate just a little of their Black Friday savings to a good cause of their choice – and specifically to organisations that are working to ameliorate the damage caused by our current consumption patterns, and to improve the lives of people working in the supply chains that fuel the Black Friday frenzy (hint: that’s us!).

If you thought nabbing a mega-bargain got the endorphins pumping, just wait for the feel-good factor of knowing you’re supporting others around the world to try and live their best lives! Now, that calls for a happy dance!

Donate today at: https://www.proudlymadeinafrica.org/get-involved/donation

At Proudly Made in Africa, we support over 600 manufacturers and producers across Sub-Saharan Africa to export their high-quality food and fashion consumer goods to Western Europe. This export trade creates fair and sustainable employment, provides skills training opportunities, brings prosperity to local communities, strengthens these developing economies, improves the African image in Europe and contributes broadly to higher standards in health, education and living conditions for many people living in the world’s poorest countries.

As a non-profit registered charity, we could not continue our work without the generous support of our friends and donors (hint: that’s you!)

Give Today. Then do a little dance.

What better way to kick off the festive season!

Making The BEST of Black Friday

It’s Friday and after a long and busy week at the offices, the PMIA team is looking forward to relaxing for the weekend (and maybe doing a little partying too!)

It’s also Black Friday, a day on which it is estimated £1.74 million will be spent EVERY MINUTE by consumers in the U.K. alone. Over £700 million had been spent before 9am this morning. That’s a fairly whopper figure. 

It’s great news for retailers, and the ‘Black Friday’ culture of discounts and promotions is great news for all of us seeking Christmas shopping bargains. However, the garments industry is the second most polluting industry in the world (after extractives) and one in which human rights violations are all too rife (for example, consider the now infamous tragedy of the Rana Plaza factory collapse in Bangladesh in 2013, when over 1100 people died, or more recently, the scandal of unpaid workers in the Zara supply chain in Turkey earlier this month) – therefore, the spike in consumption around Black Friday may not be great news for the people employed to make the clothes, footwear, jewellery and accessories filling shopping bags across the world today. But the good news is consumers like you and I – with our collective purse – have more power than we think to change these stark realities of the fashion industry.

I’ve been following the debate in recent days about the benefits, or otherwise, of this global spending spree, which verges on hysteria all too often become fiercely destructive (we’ve all heard the horror stories of department store stampedes in the US) and never more so than on this day is the critique of the ‘fast fashion’ phenomenon so relevant or so necessary (for further reading see: Ethical Fashion Forum’s newsletter and The Huffington Post among others). I’m not going to ask anyone NOT to shop today, or any other day for that matter. I love a bargain as much as anyone, and I must admit my mind is already on my own Christmas shopping list.

Instead, I simply remind you that it is worth thinking about the power of your pound. As Anna Lappé said in 2003: “Every time you spend money, you are casting a vote for the kind of world you want.” So consider not only design and discounts as you spend this weekend, but take a moment to contemplate the potential damage done in the course of producing much of the merchandise you see on shop shelves across the world. Choose, instead, to spend your hard earned dollar on “ethical” products that will not only enrich your life, but have also enriched the lives of those involved in making them. Win-win. It’s a no-brainer, really.

At Proudly Made in Africa, we work with manufacturers and producers all across Sub-Saharan Africa,

Mayamiko, ethically made in Malawi

who are committed not only to providing gorgeous, high quality apparel and accessories to global consumers, but who pride themselves on their positive social impact – from skills training to providing education for street children and a whole host of other programmes. We can proudly recommend these brands for the good they do with their employees and in their communities. (And some of them even have super Black Friday deals!) Check out a selection of some of our favourite fashions currently coming out of Africa’s growing ‘responsible fashion’ industry:

Enzi Footwear, mens’ and ladies’ trainers, handmade in Ethiopia.

Khama, made in Malawi and available from ethical online store Birdsong,

Soul of Africa footwear 

Mayamiko, fairly made ladies’ fashion from all over the world, mostly produced in Malawi

STUNNING Maasai Colour handbags from Kenya

Lulea – impeccably handcrafted leather handbags come from this Kenyan social enterprise, the most recent project from the stable of world-renowned French leather craftsman, Edmond Chesneau.

The African Shirt Company – for funky tailored shorts, fairly-made in Kenya

And the perfect festive stocking filler this festive season – new and exclusive MIA chocolate, direct from Madagascar and available in six divine flavours.

£10.1 billion will be spent in retail stores across the U.K. this week, and globally that figure will be far far higher. AND an immense 30% of all purchases for this entire year will take place between today and Christmas Eve. The collective voice of consumers will never be as loud as it is during this time. So if you join the Black Friday hordes, as I will be doing this evening (online, obviously, because it’s Friday and my couch is calling me) – spend, but spend wisely.

‘Tis the Season to think ethical.

 

Claire Lynch, Head of Operations, PMIA

Challenging Stereotypes in Communicating Development

By Luna Rieu and Aoife O´Reilly

Thea Willoch Njaastad

We are the newest additions to Proudly Made in Africa’s Communications team and are so excited to contribute to the amazing work that the organisation does! Our first week started with a bang as we attended a seminar hosted by Dóchas titled: “Change A Life With Just One Swipe: Challenging Stereotypes in Communicating Development”. The purpose of the event was to discuss Dóchas´s Code of Conduct on Images and Messages and Thea Willoch Njaastad, Vice-President of the Radi-Aid group, was the keynote speaker. The event was the perfect introduction to issues that arise when communicating images and messages about the Global South and it really helped us to think critically about responsible communication and how this ties in with Proudly Made in Africa’s values.

Not-for-profit organisations in the development sector face a number of challenges when communicating important issues as poverty, war and inequality. These issues need to be addressed and highlighted, but it is important to do this without portraying beneficiaries as ‘helpless’ or ‘powerless.’ This is a challenge, clearly, because those of us in the developed world often hold a biased and inaccurate perception of the Global South, and many of the advertising campaigns in the media simply reinforce these stereotypes. Television advertisements bombard us with images and videos of malnourished children who are unable to survive without help from other countries. The camera zooms in on their swollen bodies and vitamin deficiencies and the parents are seen to have no control over their children’s development at all. These images depict individuals and whole communities as being helpless, and strip them of their agency.  The only solution, these advertisements suggest, is financial support.

Source: BBC

These traditional types of charity advertisements, we believe, are not responsible communication. They focus on the sufferings of vulnerable people without offering any kind of context for their poverty and malnourishment. Responsible communication can only begin when we understand why stereotypes in messaging do not work. Images and messages that focus predominately on people needing support and financial aid reinforce notions of Western superiority. They focus on the effects of poverty and inequality rather than looking at the global systems or institutions that cause them in the first place.

The media holds a very powerful presence in the public domain, particularly in the digital age where the channels of communication are continually expanding. Forums such as social media now accompany more traditional forms of communication, and this can make it difficult to communicate clearly and effectively. For NGOs in the development sector, the media is an excellent tool for highlighting the important work that organisations are carrying out in the Global South. Gaining financial donations is not the sole purpose of communicating development, and we need more advertisements that highlight this. Advertising campaigns should promote the ability of people to transform their own lives. They need to show men, women and children in a variety of roles and situations in order to avoid simplifying complex issues that occur in the world today.

Some of the team at Meru Herbs in Kenya

We really resonated with Plan International UK’s campaign titled: ‘What Do Girls Really Learn at School? Learn Without Fear.’ In their television advertisement, girls from both the developed and developing world encounter sexism in the home, at school and in public spaces.  By exposing sexism as a worldwide problem, Plan International emphasize the universality of suffering and empathy and effectively break racial stereotypes of who suffers, and what it actually means to suffer. NGOs need to continually challenge stereotypes by showing a diverse range of people in their campaigns.

How does all of this relate to our values here at Proudly Made in Africa? Our vision is of a future where African communities thrive. There is so much potential for these communities and for this reason, we act as a trade facilitator between African producers of shelf-ready products and European retailers. Producers and manufacturers from across the continent of Africa offer a vast range of ethically-made, high quality goods that are more than able to compete in an international market, and provide sufficient, sustainable incomes for entrepreneurs and their employees. We believe that trade is the fastest route to eradicating poverty – just as soon as consumers and trade buyers in the developed world stop seeing Africa as a desolate place without hope or autonomy. This is why we promote a wide range of high quality African fashion and foods – we strive to always show the enterprising, industrious, innovative face of Africa – the face less often seen through conventional media. We hope to continue to use our digital platforms to promote African goods and services and to demonstrate Africans’ potential for sustainable economic development through the trading channel. The challenge for NGOs in the development sector is to come up with innovative ways to address and highlight issues, and we are ready to take on this challenge and communicate responsibly in our work.

                          

Ethical Gift Ideas

We are at the one month mark to Christmas, and so the festive-season, secret-Santa sweat begins. Buying ethical and sustainable products is tricky enough, so we thought we’d lend our insight. Check out our top picks for  festive season gifts. 

1. Red beaded tote by Maasai Colour £150 pounds. Maasai Colour is a small company producing in Nairobi that makes beautiful hand bags and purses with the aim of improving lives and giving back to the community.  Shop Here.

2. Divine Chocolate gift hamper containing 13 divine chocolate bars £30 / or their advent calendar £4. Divine Chocolate  is  44% owned by cocoa farmers from Kuapa Kokoo, Ghana. Its business model is revolutionary. Their  products are sold online and also in Whole Food Market, Tesco , and Waitrose among others .

3. Khama bomber jackets £60. Bomber jackets are everywhere this season. What isn’t everywhere are Khama’s ridiculously cool bomber jackets. This gift has the perfect combination of on-trend, uniqueness and ethical. Khama is based in Malawi, founded in 2012 by Elaine Burke National College of Arts and Design, Ireland graduate. 

4. Khama tote bag £25. Another Khama item  because we love them !

5. Madecasse Sea Salt & Nibs Brownie Baking Box  £29.50. Madecasse grow their heirloom cocoa and produce chocolate in Madagascar. Their mission is simple…to make chocolate where cocoa grows.

 

6. A bad ass backpack from Sandstorm Kenya  £115. Sandstorm started out as a luxury safari tents producers but have since transferred their skills into making bags all shapes and sizes. The really cool thing about Sandstorm is they have an open door policy, so if you’re in Nairobi and want to see how a Sandstorm bag is made you can pop in.

7.  Mayamiko ipad case £21. Mayamiko is based in Malawi and describes itself as a fusion between traditional African craftsmanship and modern designs. They were short list by Vogue Italia  Eco Talents scouting.

8. Sseko Designs jewellery  starting at $9.99. Sseko began as a way of generating income for high potential to go onto University. It is based in Uganda and has head quarters in the U.S.

p.s Sseko is having a Black Friday sale today 25% off everything !

9. Last but not least. Black Mamba Chilli sauces. For your loved one who is basically Beyoncé. Hot sauce in my bag, swag!

End of an Era

This week we begin our next chapter at Proudly Made in Africa: Vikki Brennan has just joined us as our new director. Before he moved on to new projects, we nabbed Conall – who founded PMIA almost a decade ago – in his kitchen for a quick interview about PMIA’s journey and what he envisions for its future with Vikki at the helm.

Specially thanks to videographer Oisin Deighan .

African Fashion: Walking the road less-travelled

 

Last week, the fifth-annual ‘Fashion Africa Conference’ was held in the culture hub, Rich Mix, East London. Of course after attending I was left with the normal post-fashion event feeling of, ‘I need to revamp my wardrobe asap!’

However I also left with excitement…excitement for the future of African fashion.

Cover of Daniele Tamagni’s book ‘Gentlemen of Bacongo’.

The conference, founded in 2011 and run by Jacqueline Shaw of the African Fashion Guide, was attended by the leaders in African fashion, such as the Founder of Mayamiko, Paola Masperi, and world renowned fashion photographer, Daniele Tamagni. The conference focused on the future of fair fashion in Africa. Throughout the day, we reflected on Africa’s past to determine how it progress in the future.

What enthused me about the talks were the attendants’ bright projections for the future of African fashion. The continent, and Sub‐Saharan Africa in particular, has been too often deemed several steps behind the rest of the world in every aspect of production and trade. The obvious development plan would be ‘catch‐up as quickly as you can – look at China and India follow their paths to high annual GDP growth rates.’ But wait, hold on! If we look beyond 9.7% annual growth (yes I know it’s difficult to do through all that smog) becoming the sweat shop of the world frequently does not improve and even worsens the quality of life of a country’s working population. What we see are people’s lives becoming a tiny cog in many corporations production of garments and other produce. Due to the pressure of international corporations of the fast fashion industry, factories are required to push the cost of production lower and lower in order to be competitive. The outcome is catastrophic. In Bangladesh of 2013, we witnessed the largest tragedy in a garment industry to date, the Rana Plaza collapsed, killing 1124 garment workers and many more were seriously injured.

PMIA’s Claire Lynch second from left on a panel at the FAC 2016

But if not the labour-intensive factory route, how else can African countries ‘catch‐up’ to the West? After all, North America and Western Europe developed during  a time of colonialism and slave labour, neither of which are a resource option for today’s developing countries! At The Fashion Africa Conference in  London, my eyes were opened to an alternative path for African countries. Being a late developer in trade and production, Africa actually has a distinct advantage. Africans can learn from what went before it’s clear that developing sweatshops in order to attract investment and achieve economic growth, would entail a cost too high for the people and the environment to bear. Ideas and discussions now point, instead, to the road less travelled – that is, developing businesses that champion both quality and ethics.

There are currently many inspiring garment companies in Africa embodying a wondrous combination of ethical, fashionable, high quality and sustainable. For example, Kenya based ethical fashion house SOKO were represented at the conference, a promising company whose clients include the UK retailing giant, ASOS!! Consumers, globally, are becoming more and more aware of the power of their consumption and the effects of not being a smart consumer. Consumer demand for ethically produced, fashionable and high quality goods will be the energy that lights the way along the road less travelled.

FAC attendant Mayamiko design and image.

…..The future of African fashion is bold and bright, in both aesthetic and in nature.

Lucy Ray PMIA Programme Officer

Proudly Made in Africa

Awarding Excellence in African Industry.

Bringing the best of African food and fashion to the discerning, ethical consumer worldwide.