What do you value?

If you saw your relative being harassed in the workplace, would you come to his or her defence?

I hope you’re nodding your head to say yes. If your answer is a yes that means you care for and value your family. Value is how important something or someone is to you.

In one of the Naitika workshops we ask people to list what they value the most. Most of the time family, friends, education and humanity come out on top. And where did we put possessions? Right at the bottom.

What we do then is ask the young people to list what they value when they go shopping. This list has slightly different results. Price is almost always at the top followed by fit and brand. At the bottom of the list are fair-trade, country of origin and quality. Why is this? Especially when workers are still beaten and paid poorly for the sake of our clothes?

One of the young people in a group we worked with recently compared her lists and said “All the humane things are at the top such as family and friends but in the second list those same things are at the bottom and everything is switched round.” Another participant said “we like to think we put other people first but we don’t.”

The amount of clothes we buy here in the UK has a direct affect on the conditions and amount of hours workers are forced to work. For the first time ever demand is higher than production. Workers are under extreme pressure to deliver on numbers and produce as many clothes as possible for us to wear for 6 months and then throw away.

We need to reflect on our values and use those when we go shopping. We need to Demand better quality clothes and for them to carry a fair-trade label and not a £2 tag! We can show humanity we care by holding onto our clothes for longer. Staying away from clothes of poor quality can help reduce the enormous amount of clothes sitting in landfills.

What are your values? Are they the same when you are buying clothes?