Ethical Bricks

Over the past years the products available to the person wanting to support ethical traders has steadily increased. Most people these days have heard of Fair trade, but there are many other traders, (click on the link for a list of some of these).

Whilst in Pakistan last year I was personally struck with reasons why I need to support the companies that seek to provide a work environment that is safe and fair. I was going to buy myself a new leather jacket - there are plenty of good quality, hand stitched jackets with that new leather smell - but then I visited the tanneries of Kasur. I saw kids, (and adults) working in conditions that are not just unfair, but patently unsafe. Teenagers with permanent skin diseases from the chemical treatments. Children wading through stinking offal as they cleaned and prepared the skins.

Now, I won't pretend that my decision not to buy leather is going to change this industry, but having seen, I had to do something.

This week, with the Pakistan team, I began the process to do something about another 'abusive' industry. The brick industry in Pakistan is a large user of child and bonded labour, a source of organ selling and unfair work practices. There is not much ethical or fair for the people that make bricks in the kilns in Kasur (and many other locations). But we are going to have a go at working with a kiln owner or two to develop a fair and safe kiln - we are going to try and change the way the brick makers (in particular children) are treated and paid. At the same time we are going to try and convince some of the 'big buyers' to only buy from our 'model, fair trade, kilns'.

Is it going to make a difference? Will it stop child and bonded labour? Well, not overnight it won't - but unless people start buying ethically traded products it's never going to change. Unless people stop buying products they know to be produced by slave labour it won't change! Unless I decide that I would prefer no leather jacket, to one that started life under the bare feet of a little kid working for $0.25c a day - it won't change.

So, we're going to try and make some ethical bricks. We're going to try and build some fair trade walls. And in the process we'll try and stop some kids having to work 15 hour days; instead they can learn to read and write. We might even be able to stop a father from selling his family to the kiln owner for generations to come, or just selling a kidney, to pay for his daughter's wedding.

Simplistic - Yes! But will you imagine the alternative? Would you accept the alternative for yourself, your family, your kids?

Out of Afghanistan

I try to reflect on what on earth I am doing, and why: one of the comments I often make on reviews of programming is: what were the lessons learned and how will they impact future work? Perhaps, for a Christian, there is no better time to do this kind of reflection than this week, and no better position in which to breathe deeply than in the shadow of the cross, and the hope of the empty tomb.

So, after three weeks in Afghanistan what reflections do I have? (There are many but just a couple)

• People are resilient and hopeful: I met some people who have 'had it rough' for 20 years, living in a temporary camp in the desert, on the outside of town. They are stigmatised and held in suspicion because of their cultural heritage, not for any factual reason. They are held in a state of flux because they don't fit within the political agenda, they are not a priority. Yet, despite all this, they have formed a tight, disciplined community that is educating its children (including girls), employing its youth and feeding its people.
• People can be selfish and cruel: I'd like to not acknowledge it, but some people are driven by greed, some by religious fervor. But religious fanaticism is not limited to Muslims - despite the attempt by some to build this case - I know some equally fanatical Christians and Buddhists. Religion doesn't need to be something that divides us.
• Just because it's different, doesn't make it wrong: I often hear people saying that another's cultural practice is wrong, when what they really mean is it's different. I am not suggesting that culture is always right, but we do need to genuinely try and understand before we write off the beliefs and practices of others - sometimes, just maybe, there is something to learn from the other.
• It is possible to be a 'double agent': Officially I was representing a well respected International Non-Government Organisation (INGO), but it is impossible to divorce who I am from all that I do. So it was that I found myself explaining The Salvos in discussions with AusAID and other INGOs; discussing the vision and mission of The Salvation Army, and discussing their Aid and Development footprint and agenda.

Another trip is over, but my role of supporting the program to transform the lives of marginalised, ignored or forgotten people is refocused. Why do it? Because it matters... because it's my Easter.

There are people hurting in the world out there,

There are children crying and no-one to care...

If we close our eyes perhaps they'll go away?