Monday, October 17, 2011
T-shirt Travels
I never knew that the clothes we donate to good will and the salvation army are then sold off to someone in Africa! This movie really surprised me and made me somewhat upset. I understand that people are using second hand clothes as a business but the fact that the clothing manufacturing/infrastructure in Africa is completely gone makes me angry. With out this business Africa would be able to create an industry and help the funds in their country. Even though I had no idea this business went on as I thought more about it I realized that on a recent trip to Nicaragua I found the same thing! The school children had shirts on that ranged from football teams to cartoon characters, all of them were american t-shirts. I imagine that the same thing in Nicaragua happens as it does in Africa. This industry does nothing but hurt the small companies and the people and boost the large companies that sell the used clothes!
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It's kind of bizarre what you see in less developed countries. After watching this film, I took notice of the types of clothes I saw the Libyan rebels wearing in the many photo documentaries released over the course of the conflict. This image stood out the most to me: http://www.maggiesnotebook.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Libya_6.jpg
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