"Charity" ??????
Let us start with defining charity. According to the Webster Dictionary, Charity is
a: generosity and helpfulness especially toward the needy or suffering also: aid given to those in need ‘received charity from the neighbours’
b: an institution engaged in relief of the poor ‘raised funds for several charities‘
c: public provision for the relief of the needy ‘too proud to accept charity‘
I have always wondered why there are so many charities in Africa but the levels of poverty are still looming in many parts of the continent, after several years of these Charities being in existence. This has always made me have scepticism towards the word itself. This to me means that charity is very subjective, and there should be general rules that oversee that a group of people is not permanently labeled as ‘needy’ and the other as the lifetime saviours or donors.
When it comes to clothes, it is no different. Also know as second hand, or hand me downs, these are collected from wealthy countries such USA, EU and shipped to Africa in huge containers, piled together like a tonne of trash with no regard to the end user, the ‘poor’ African.
As usual, it is business as usual when it comes to Africa, even though the same place from where this clothing comes, is the same place with the biggest fast fashion markets and stores. For example, in the USA, season after season tonnes of clothing is produced and marketed to the consumers, who keep on buying and buying with no regard or rules. Now it is not the same idea of charity when it comes to second hand clothing in the first world. These countries have the privilege to have a portion of their populations spend without remorse or reprimand and caution for the impact of their consumerism.
Second Hand clothing stores in first world countries. As you can see, the clothing is sorted to wearable and arranged for low income citizens to have access to previous season’s clothing at a very low cost.
The irony is that among the clothing that the citizens donate in form of charity, includes torn, worn out, ugly, dirty clothing, the nice stuff is picked out and the rest sent to Africa as shown below, then sold to poor people and in some cases at a high cost.
My question is that is it still charity if you have to pay for it?
I grew up in Uganda and happened to have studied in Kenya, I have been to these markets where this clothing is sold, for example a pair of jeans can go for 20 dollars depending on the brand. That to me is absurd considering the pair of jeans was bought for 50 dollars by the previous owner. After this owner experiencing the rush of wearing a pair of new jeans, the privileged owner has the right to send them off as charity, perhaps with little to not knowledge of where it ends up, no responsibility to who stands to lose of gain for the existence of these jeans. This means that an African does not have the privilege to buy something that is not a hand me down. The rules have been set that that the west has an illusion of being responsible for Africa, this illusion has made them make rules that put Africa as a mine and a dumping ground for its capitalist, materialistic culture, where the people from the two realities have been blinded by notions such as charity whose definitions are very blurred, and the “needy” have been defined for us permanently with these shady systems.
In conclusion, I would like to challenge everyone that reads this article to ask themselves what charity means to them. My job as a sustainable fashion designer is to bring these things to light in my field, because I believe it is the same thing happening in all fields such as electronics, books etc. We need to challenge definitions that blindly lead us into thinking one group is this and the other is that, we need to understand that our role on an individual level affects the greater collective. And this starts by us questioning certain things that completely do not make any sense. Therefore I challenge us to take the responsibility in understanding our role in changing such flawed definitions.
The point of this blog is to wake as many people up in the field of fashion so that one by one, we change the way fashion has affected the world we live in and how it will affect the future of coming generations. Please check out other blog posts on the evils of fashion, feel free to share, subscribe and comment.
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