A Fairer Education in Africa

Education is not a finite resource like drugs or energy, it’s self-perpetuating. It’s also empowering; enabling people to take control of their lives and have more say in how things are run. Education programmes are popular with charities and governments, but as with a lot of development, there’s devil in the detail.

Particular devils that are widely overlooked are the obstacles that girls face in getting to and staying in school. Money is increasingly there for building schools and improving teaching, but not enough attention is being paid to how gender remains a major factor in determining who actually gets access to it.

One organisation dedicated to rebalancing these injustices is Pathways Togo (www.pathwaystogo.org). Since its founding in 2010, Pathways Togo has been building more and more support for girls and young women to get a high school and university education through scholarships, mentoring and workshops.

The young women who have earned scholarships with Pathways Togo have overcome many of the obstacles typical of girls struggling to get an education in rural Africa. High on the list is pressure to marry young through arranged and often polygamous marriages. Furthermore early pregnancies, lack of access to sanitary products, and personal safety and health issues make attending school and studying at home impossible for many girls. Domestic duties also limit girls’ time to attend schools; many are expected to do childcare and work in family farms and businesses.

Paying for school is also a serious challenge for many students. Where boys remain priorities in families, girls will often have to depend on brewing and selling alcohol, moving away from home, and selling street food in order to support themselves and continue their education.

Others have had more support from within their communities, with many families investing a great deal in their children’s education. One young woman had narrowly escaped an arranged marriage at age 11, and with support from her sister had been able to earn enough money to continue through school, earn a scholarship from Pathways Togo and eventually progress to university.

Many of the young women Pathways Togo has worked with have felt that the presence of strong female role models has made a great difference to their lives and those around them. While these are undoubtedly signs of progress, the work still to be done is vast.

The support of volunteers who can raise funds for scholarships, and help provide training and workshops for girls and young women is what keep organisations like Pathways Togo doing what they do. Governments and international organistions are investing heavily in education, but without this crucial work to address the gender gap in education, more education investment risks exacerbating the gender gap in wider society.

I have recently read The No-Nonsense Guide to Overpopulation. Like all of the No-Nonsense Guides, it is a concise overview of issues facing our world today.

This book discusses a number of reasons for overpopulation, and suggests some practical solutions. The book’s author suggests that overpopulation is partly caused by the role of women, particularly in Third World, or “Majority World” countries.

In some developing countries women are encouraged to have lots of children, to become “baby machines”, to keep the family name strong. As a result, contraception is frowned upon, and in some cases illegal, meaning that as well as the increasing risk of developing AIDS, women are more likely to have lots of children.

This in part is caused by lack of education: in many countries women are not educated beyond primary level, if at all. This means that they are not well-informed about the dangers of having lots of children. Worth bearing in mind: in some countries 1 in every 30 women dies in childbirth, and the number who die having unsafe abortions is even higher.

This book also discusses how some countries have attempted to deal with the perceived problem of overpopulation. In many countries, forced sterilisations are commonplace. Just in places like China, one would think. No. During the 1950s, the USA encouraged sterilisation, and sanctioned people who refused to comply. Interestingly, another restrictive country, Iran, had a policy to address overpopulation, much like the one-child policy in China. The difference being that in Iran the policy was implemented by education and empowering people to make their own choices.

So what are the causes of overpopulation? I would argue that they are varied. Lack of education, particularly for women, is a key factor, along with lack of information about contraception, but also some advances in education: medical advances mean that people live longer, and are less likely to die in childhood.

This book is definitely worth a read, like the other No Nonsense Gudies it offers bite-sized chunks of information, which can be used to argue your point to sceptics.

Technocracy; n. derived from the Greek words kratia (meaning ‘rule of’) and techno (meaning ‘bad European dance music’)

Europeans have always had an inexplicable affinity with techno. In the 1980s and 90s they had the UFO Club, the Love Parade, Paul van Dyk. Nowadays they’ve got Mario Monti and Lucas Papademos - their love of minimalist electronic beats matched only by their love of minimalist fiscal policy.

The first wave of European techno was a product of its time – advances in electronic instrumentation in the 1980s made musical experimentation possible, and this new direction (I presume) sounded modern and fresh. However I think there’s now broad agreement, amongst all but the heaviest of drug users, that it was rubbish.

The neo-con economic policies of austerity and liberalization were the product of a similar time, coming to prominence in the 1980s as a response to the economic crises of the 1970s. As with European dance music of that era, history has shown that these policies were, for the most part, a very bad idea. (see Argentina).

Yet these are the very same ‘economic solutions’ being offered up by the new-wave European techno-crats. If Einstein’s definition of insanity is repeating the same thing over and over and expecting different results, then the only conclusion to be drawn is that Mario Monti et al are insane. Or that they are the heaviest of heavy drug users.

As Paul Krugman said, possibly more coherently:

…the trouble with the alleged technocrats we’re supposed to rely on isn’t just that they’re uninspiring — it is that they have been wrong about everything, again and again…in Europe, the “technocrats” have consistently ignored their own economic models …calling for fiscal austerity and higher interest rates when their own analyses say that unemployment will be high and inflation subdued.

What I think Krugman is trying to say is that European leaders are in a ‘trance’ like state, refusing to accept that their policies just aren’t working. (Krugman would probably also add, with some justification, that attempting to crowbar trance music into the ‘techno’ analogy is probably stretching it a bit too far.)

Possibly more worrying than the economic repercussions of this new wave techno is the repercussions for democracy. Whatever your views on Papandreou and Berlusconi, they were at least democratically elected. In Papandreou’s case, his ultimate downfall was triggered by having the temerity to suggest that, in the birth place of democracy of all places, the people should have the final say over a decision which would dramatically affect their lives.

To borrow from Krugman again, “we need the right ideas, not the right sort of people”. At the same time as Monti and Papademos were being installed as Prime Ministers of their respective countries, Mario Draghi became the new President of the European Central Bank. All three have previously worked within the European machinery as well as leading financial institutions, namely Goldman Sachs. Given their backgrounds, it’s perhaps not surprising that there’s no new ideas or changes in policy direction coming from these “technocrats”. It’s pretty hard to view their ascent to power as anything other than a financial coup d’état.

If only Europe could heed the words of noted social commentator Marshall Mathers III – “Let go, it’s over. Nobody listens to techno”.

Fair Trade, Empowerment and Human Rights

“Human rights are rights inherent to all human beings, whatever our nationality, place of residence, sex, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, language, or any other status. We are all equally entitled to our human rights without discrimination. These rights are all interrelated, interdependent and indivisible” - UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights

Examine the Principles of Fair Trade and it quickly becomes apparent the intention of Fair Trade is to EMPOWER disadvantaged producers and their communities. The principles reflect business practices free from exploitation; are based on respect for universal human rights, women’s rights, child rights, minority and migrant rights, rights of the disabled, and labour rights; embrace gender equality; and incorporate environmentally sound practices. However, the fact remains that for many of our producers their rights are not well known; the Universal Declaration of Human Rights remains an abstract idea, an international convention far from their immediate reality.

When our producers are unaware of their rights, there is opportunity for exploitation. In the field of International Development, programs and projects are often designed to target root causes. One increasingly popular approach is a Rights-Based Approach (RBA) which recognizes poverty as injustice and includes marginalization, discrimination, and exploitation as central causes.

As Fair Trade supporters and advocates, it is nice to believe that we are leading the way in making ethical consumer choices a reality in the global marketplace. Admittedly, many of our producers reside in countries which are not well known for upholding those rights. However, unless we support our producers with knowledge of their rights, we fail to follow the principles of Fair Trade. Look at this from the perspective of our producers:

Fair Trade is a partnership, not a charity. As set out in our shared Principles, Fair Trade importers, wholesalers, buyers, and retailers are required to provide for the development of producer groups in order that they are empowered, self-sufficient trade partners capable of conducting international trade in ways which are beneficial to them and their community free from any form of exploitation. To integrate a Rights-Based Approach is to strengthen our trade partners not only in trade relations, but in their quality of life; to enjoy the freedoms internationally recognized as inherent to all human beings. Taking a closer look at our Shared Principles we see that our principles are based on UN Human Rights Declarations and Conventions, and the ILO Conventions. For a comprehensive analysis read Journey for Fair Trade: Human Rights Framework.

Saturday, December 10, 2011 is Human Rights Day

(http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Pages/WelcomePage.aspx).

This year, let’s make it a point as a global Fair Trade movement, to not only join the celebration, but integrate a Rights-Based Approach into Fair Trade; Join together in an effort to raise awareness of Universal Human Rights with our trade partners and their communities!

Here is an idea for Fair Traders regardless of where you reside – empower your trade partners directly: the United Nations has translated the Universal Declaration of Human Rights into 131 languages. Download and print a copy in the language of your trade partner, take an extra step to creatively decorate it, and mail it to them. What a great way to personalize your trade relationship:

http://www.ohchr.org/EN/UDHR/Pages/SearchByLang.aspx.

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) has been translated into 58 languages and is available from UNICEF on their child-friendly page. UNICEF has made the CRC available in an easy to read English poster which is quite colorful and attractive. If you have trade partners whose first language is not English, download a copy and take the extra step to print it out in their language on a poster size paper, decorate and laminate it, and mail it to them! What a terrific way to let them know you support and care for their children:

http://www.unicef.org/magic/briefing/uncorc.html

To advocate for a Rights-Based Approach to Fair Trade it is vitally important that Fair Traders know what the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) is and how it works, particularly when it impacts 51% of the global population, yet women are often considered to be in the minority. To see how this convention works to empower women, read Journey for Fair Trade: Understanding CEDAW. The national UNIFEM offices have translations of CEDAW in printed locally available - they have a budget for printed materials, so don’t hesitate to make a request!

For those who have trade partners in developing nations, I encourage you to do some online research of Women’s Rights Organizations, to include Rights-Based Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) in their country and put them in touch with your trade partner. Contact the UNIFEM national office if you need a referral to a local NGO which conducts workshops in women’s rights. It is important that as Fair Traders we unite with the Rights-Based Organizations in their efforts to make change happen and put an end to gender inequality and social  http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/cedaw/text/econvention.htm

To integrate a Rights-Based Approach to Fair Trade begins by raising awareness of the rights we are all entitled to enjoy; the rights which form the very foundation of our Shared Principles. Take a stand for human rights and begin raising awareness with a celebration on Human Rights Day, December 10^th, 2011. For ideas and information read Journey for Fair Trade: Fair Trade Celebrates Human Rights Day.

Mitch Teberg, MA

WFTO Associate Member

Sustainable Development / Fair Trade / Women’s Rights and Gender

Researcher / Trainer / Consultant

www.journeyforfairtrade.blogspot.com

Solar panels on University of Bath rooftops

This blog is written by Mechtild von Knobbelsdorff - a former P&Per who’s organising Community Solar Day

As the protesters leading the Occupy Wall Street and Occupy London movement decry the big banks that crashed the economy, foreclose people’s homes and continue to finance mega fossil fuel projects like the Tar Sands, community solar represents one path forward: clean energy created for and by the people.

Community solar projects are taking the first steps toward a future where people can move their money out of low-yield savings accounts and into safe and high-yield solar investments that lower carbon emissions and create green jobs and local prosperity.

Sign-up today to get together with your family and friends and take a picture occupying the rooftop of a community building that you want to take solar!

Many of us aren’t able to go solar on our own homes due to high up-front costs or because we don’t own our home, but we all know university buildings, churches and schools with big roofs that are perfect for a community solar project.
Sign-up today on and you’ll get all the resources you need to start a beautiful, job-producing solar project in your community. Go greener!

Sign-up to help your community thrive through clean energy at www.solarmosaic.com/solarday

Unless you are a certain flame-haired supermodel who can afford a flat in London and a first-class commute to lectures, shared accommodation is a necessity during university. I have to say my experience of shared living was mixed: communal baking, charades and having friends around were excellent; dying rats under the floor boards and shelling out for monthly bills; not so excellent.

If you have ever had to suffer the stench of a decomposing rat, you have my sympathies. Equally, if you have tried to explain to a housemate why having four light bulbs on in one bedroom is a waste; I also feel your pain. There is an element of reason involved, of course. Walking around the house with three jumpers, two t-shirts, gloves, tights, trousers and several pairs of socks on at once is definitely no fun (believe me, I would know), but it is surely important to save money– and the planet too. If SJP of Sex and the City had practiced energy-saving initiatives, she could have bought more shoes instead of needing a bail out from Big. And who wouldn’t want more shoes, or anything else for that matter?

There are many ways to cut down on unnecessary energy use but measuring your electricity use is a good place to start. There are ways to get free measurement devices that plug in and calculate your costs . Oxford University have also created an imeasure which is more work but still provides results as you can find out which appliances eat up your money and use them less. One ‘out there’ suggestion is to use cling-film for secondary glazing – tape it around your windows and then hair dryer it taut. I did this to keep a ladybird infestation out, but it works just as well to keep heat in. Tin foil behind a radiator may help too; recycle foil take-out boxes to be optimally sustainable. Alternatively, sign up to People & Planet’s Big Green Makeover project and you’ll get all the training and resources you need to help fellow students do this for free!

I also recommend outlining the ‘Landlords Energy Saving Allowance’ to your landlord. Up to £1,500 can be claimed against tax each year to improve a property’s eco-credentials. Who knows, there may be some green landlords out there, so spread the word. Encourage your landlord to install better insulation on the roof or around water pipes, and point them in the direction of claims information.

There is one caveat to implementing energy saving suggestions: the rest of your household. Lead by example, gentle persuasion, reminders, and advice as the first steps to switching off appliances and turning down the heating, which can then be backed by technological solutions. Forgetting to turn something off is not an excuse anymore. There is of course an App that can remotely turn off electronics – can you believe that? If nothing else works, try positive conditioning. Get housemates to turn off lights or computers then surreptitiously give them a sweet. Repetition is key. Soon energy saving behaviour will occur with just the vague memory of a delicious sweet for encouragement. In a nod to Thorndike, like rats pressing a lever, those lights go off.

The latter suggestion may not be such a good idea (though I’d love to try it just to see if it works!) but it is definitely hugely beneficial to try and implement energy saving initiatives around the house you’re letting. If nothing else, try it for a month as evidence for the months to come, and watch your bills go down. Before you feel the pinch of huge bills, try turning to this advice. It just might help!

Katie

The theme for last week’s World Food Day was ‘From crisis to stability’. Between 2005 and 2008 the price of food staples rose to a 30 year high, the price of rice trebled, and food riots broke out in countries all over the world as people found it increasingly difficult to obtain enough food to feed themselves and their families. In June 2008, as a response to the global financial crisis, prices crashed, falling 33% in six months, but began to rise sharply again in 2010.

Food accounts for the majority of many households’ budgets in the global south, making them extremely vulnerable to any fluctuations in price. According to the World Development Movement, 44 million people in developing countries have been driven into extreme poverty since the price spikes of 2010. Through the images of famine in the Horn of Africa we can see the results of this crisis being played out on a tragically large scale.

In Ethiopia, food prices rose by 41% in the month of May alone this year. While the crisis in East Africa has been exacerbated by drought and conflict in Somalia, like many famines its roots lie in the economic choices we’ve made as a global community. The WDM offers a very clear explanation of how ‘food speculation’, has helped to create this new volatility in food prices, and create a healthy profit for banks and traders in the process. After this speculative bubble burst in 2008 and the price of crops collapsed, food prices for consumers were kept artificially high, as companies such as Cargill limited supply by ‘hoarding’ of stocks of grain.

Other short term factors have also been important, such as the transfer of land away from the production of food to the production of agro-fuels and cattle feed, and rising energy prices, which have increased the day to day costs of farming. The huge instability caused by the combination of these factors has lead to a worldwide movement for ‘food sovereignty’.

La Via Campesina is a global movement of small scale farmers and peasants which has lead this charge, and defines food sovereignty as:

…the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through sustainable methods and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems. It develops a model of small scale sustainable production benefiting communities and their environment. It puts the aspirations, needs and livelihoods of those who produce, distribute and consume food at the heart of food systems and policies rather than the demands of markets and corporations.

The argument is that small scale farmers are capable of feeding the world – if given the chance. Under President Lula da Silva (2003-2010) Brazil halved the proportion of its population who go hungry people and slashed its poverty rate from 12 percent to below 5 percent. This was done through the introduction of agricultural reforms aimed at connecting consumers to local smallholder farmers and widening access to food for the poor. This month, Lula was jointly awarded the 2011 ‘World Food Prize’ in recognition of the success of these policies.

La Via Campesina are also fighting the power of corporate agribusiness and transnational companies, as well as globalized, export focused agricultural policies. It has had some success in Latin America, for example in March 2009 the Venezuelan government expropriated Cargill’s major rice-processing facility and temporarily took over a plant owned by Polar, Venezuela’s largest private food producer.

Central to the idea of food sovereignty is the prioritizing of local food production and consumption. Globally, we need to regulate the futures markets so that they work in favour of small scale farmers instead of financial speculators, but also to try and break the stranglehold of transnational companies over agriculture. One great way to do this locally is to support small-scale local producers through food co-ops. The main principle behind food co-ops is that by pooling resources and ordering in bulk direct from local suppliers a group of people can buy good food at more affordable prices.

However, as well as personal savings, there are many additional benefits of foods co-ops, including: a reduction in carbon emissions through the transportation of food; less waste through unnecessary packaging; support for local producers; and more money retained and circulated in the local economy. Importantly, it also helps to break the dominance of large transnational companies in food markets and integrates with La Via Campesina’s view of food sovereignty – locally produced food being consumed locally.

Read about “Scoop” - People & Planet’s student food co-op project – here.

“The Life of a Student Activist”

The first year of university went very slowly for me. Despite making some great friends and settling in to my course, I was never sure whether I should really be there. Second year, however, was a turning point where my social and political views came together and I started to feel a need to make a difference in the world.

Autumn 2010

Over the summer, after spending time as part of my local Fairtrade group and discussing political issues with friends, I realised that to be happy I needed to make the most of my university experience. I needed to get involved in a charity or organisation with people who shared my interests. After seeing a People & Planet society stall at the Freshers Fayre, and realising how dedicated the network was to defending human rights, ending world poverty and protecting the planet, I got involved immediately. At the first meeting I felt really enthusiastic about ethical and environmental issues and was so delighted to realise that I was surrounded by others who shared my passion. I also became more involved in the Green Party and met activists who had campaigned for more to be done around climate change, and felt keen to make an impact myself. At the start of the term I went to a talk from a speaker for the Global Poverty Project and it really inspired me to try and help others. The words I heard and the images I saw that evening triggered something in me and life started to change.

My first encounter with my activism having an effect on people directly was at a Barclays Graduate training scheme talk. Along with some friends I interrogated the Barclays ambassadors on their ethical and environmental policies – or lack of – which resulted in a lot of resentment from the workers, and some very interesting discussions with other students.

As news spread of Nick Clegg’s betrayal of his policies, the student movement began and I was eager to join the campaigning against the rise in tuition fees. The student demo in London inspired me to stand up for what I believed. The anger at the MPs who had gone back on their word was prominent that day and there was a worry that Thatcher Tory days were returning. Despite the small amount of violence that day, there was a sense of unity amongst the campaigners and I felt like a student from the 70s – determined to start a movement and give a voice to the unheard. My family were reluctant about my involvement in such controversial issues, and in some respects my Dad has continued to disapprove of my outspoken, direct action ever since, but my Mum was proud that I was standing up for what I believed in. My lecturer was also very supportive and allowed me to miss a lecture to take part, meaning I felt even more empowered to stand up for future students. The beginning of the student movement was quite special. Many students felt passionate about the cause, there was hope that we could win this and prevent tuition fees rising. As the months drew on, the public’s spirit seemed to dwell and societies’ reaction to who I had become as a person was changing.

Winter 2010

The initial passion of protest had worn off for the majority of those at the original tuition fees demo as snow appeared on the doorstep of Cardiff students, but there were still some dedicated souls ready to keep me fighting for a cause I believed in. As part of “Action Against the Cuts Cardiff” I took part in the occupation of a lecture theatre and organised demonstrations throughout the city centre which gained lots of Welsh coverage and achieved great things. However, the London protest on the day of the national vote, was different. The violence I saw that day from police and students frightened me, but I was defiant that we were campaigning for a serious and important cause and that my activism would not stop. My involvement in such edgy issues and contact with the police after being traditionally a well behaved, suburban A grade student came as a shock to some friends back home as my fiery nature shone through.

UKUncut action in Cardiff

The student protests built momentum for the rest of society to stand up against the cuts and movements like UK Uncut began. Occupying stores like Vodafone and Topshop was becoming a more prominent part of my day to day life as the tax avoiders were targeted. I knew that when I came back after Christmas, I could not go back to my old self and that I had developed a passion for activism, for devoting myself to worthwhile causes.

Spring 2011

The beginning of the Arab Revolution last spring gave hope to so many individuals across the world. I can remember my Dad saying “When did protest ever achieve anything?” just before Egypt‘s old president Mubarak stood down. It was a turning point in how my father saw my actions and to students and academics across the globe. Being involved in the larger community in Cardiff by now, I felt keen to stand up against the cuts affecting all individuals, and protested against pension cuts and the NHS. In times of need, it was comforting to see society come together and shout for each other’s livelihoods.

Striving for equality is also a continuing theme in my Sociology degree and has meant that my feminist belief has grown significantly since first year. After reading about “Slutwalk”, I took part in a Cardiff demonstration which was empowering but at the same time controversial for the wrong reasons. It made me feel that as a fiery young woman, life was still very different to how it is for a man. Women are treated differently even in issues of activism where we are campaigning for equality. At the student protests, the police were definitely more lenient to frightened young women than to the frightened men. This has only fuelled my desire to fight for equality even more.

In 2011 my participation with the Green Party increased significantly as I volunteered to undertake a media internship. As I learnt more about how we need to change our reliance on fossil fuels and take more drastic action to prevent runaway climate change, my every day life was altered a little. Already being vegetarian, I strived to do more simple things to look after my planet, such as recycling and cycling instead of driving. However, the way I perceive TV shows, individuals and the actions of companies changed significantly as I realised how little others think about their impact on society and our future planet. Being so concerned changes the way I see others, which made me question whether people have changed the way they see me? But my political involvement has become an active part of my lifestyle and I hope it continues that way for the rest of my life.

Year Three

This year I hope to become part of the Student Council and fight for our university to become more ethical and environmentally friendly. I will be campaigning against the Tar Sands in Alberta, attending a demo in London to ban public sector clothes being made in sweatshops and perhaps occupying an oil or gas head-quarters to try and stop the UK’s dependency on unsustainable fuels. I will also be supporting Oxfam and the Global Poverty Project on issues such as Fairtrade and food shortages. This of course will be done alongside campaigning against the cuts to our society.

Being an activist means leading a busy lifestyle and campaigning becomes a priority, but not behind trying to have fun with friends, family and my boyfriend. I have learnt not to preach my views but just to let people know that I will live my life focused on trying to make a small difference to the lives of some individuals somewhere in the world. Life seems very merry when you know you are being the best you can be while living life to the full as a university student in one of the best cities for fun and education in the UK.

by Marie, who is currently investigating garment factories in Bangladesh.

After my first three weeks as a project manager of a project to improve the social labour conditions for female line-operators in the garment industry in Bangladesh by providing them with free training and skills-upgrading to become supervisors and move up the hierarchical gendered ladder of highly exploitative factory work, I have been faced with both ups and downs.

So far we have 50 factories officially on board and in agreement to let us provide training to and interview their female workers, however sweet-talk words exchanged through diplomatic performance and acting in shiny factory director offices as well as warm receptions pampering us with cake, chai, factory-gifts, restaurant visits and hummer rides, do not always amount to concrete action, and still 30 out of the 50 factories haven’t signed and returned the memorandums of understanding we have handed them.  The sad reality I have come to realize is that there is a never-ending amount of layers to go through to really get a chance at revealing and changing what goes on behind the scenes in the garment factories.

One of the by far most 'decent' looking of Bangladeshi garment factories I've seen so far. Yet, these workers had no air conditioning.

The overwhelming princess treatment I have received as a ‘white woman’ has been the hardest challenge and has been a real distraction in my attempt to have a formal meeting about a serious issue at social compliance and workers’ rights.

In the middle of conversations, factory directors interrupt me to ask if I am single, where I live, or ask me what if I’m free to meet for a drink later. After meetings they often invite me for lunch/dinner at their fancy restaurants, or offered to give me a ride home in their Hummer cars. One factory director even insisted on giving me a pair of factory produced jeans as a gift – and before I had the change to refuse he snatched his fingers to get one of the female workers to come and take my measurements and within 15min she returned with a shiny new pair of quality jeans. I’ve never felt so embarrassed and awkward in my life. By having to negotiate with these directors I’m trapped in their terms having to accept their fake hospitality for me and therefore implicitly their maltreatment and disrespect of their workers.  One of the things that has hit me the worst on a personal level is that because I hand them over my business card with my mobile number on it, many of them give me sleazy prank calls and text messages with compliments and sexual innuendos. Under these circumstances, keeping up the ‘business etiquette’ mask is tough, and the directors behaviour feels like such a smooth side-track maneuvre when my research team’s sole intention is asking them to commit to training and promoting their female line-operators.

One of the most unexpected experiences I had was probably a meeting I had with a rich french guy, who at the age of 24 is now the director of one of the big garment factories over here due to his noble family connections. The most memorable comment he made during our meeting what when he boasted that “It’s a tough job trying to control my workers here sometimes, they are all connected to the mafia and talk like ‘des petits nègres’ (little negros), without me in charge they would be lost”. After that statement, I simply had no words.

On the other hand, I’ve also had a lot of golden moments of visiting factories highly committed to ensuring the social welfare of their workers. I’ve had meetings with Directors who introduced me to their FEMALE Social Compliance Managers, who were strongly committed to workers’ rights and told me stories about their different workers backgrounds and some of the social difficulties they face in Dhaka and what social benefits they provide them to cope with these.

One of the most inspiring meetings I have had was with a garment factory who had received an award for the best Corporate Social Responsibility practicing firm in Bangladesh in 2008 after receiving the very same training program which my team is now trying to introduce to 96 other factories. This factory had each floor of the factory named after a Bangladeshi freedom fighter to teach his workers about history while they work. They also provide their workers with English lessons, disease-prevention courses on anything from Tuberculosis to AIDs/HIV, free health care and dental care vouchers, maternity leave benefits and ‘newborn’ baby prices. They arrange monthly workers’ sports tournament and cultural festivals where workers’ perform. The director has founded a free school for his workers kids next to the factory. They even had a ‘ladies club’ and a hair and beauty salon for their female workers.  Most remarkably, the factory had implemented rigorous sexual harassment measurements and awareness courses – introducing male/female separated exits, staircases and canteens. At first when I was given a tour of that factory and shown their portfolio of all the seemingly impressive things they do for their workers I was in awe. However, a head of social compliance at a large supermarket firm, he informed me that a lot of these ‘big achievements and social commitments’ are mostly for show for when foreigners come to visit and that there is still a lot of labour exploitation going on behind closed doors, which only local staff working in this field will realise. Alas, my Scandinavian naïveté fooling me again.

Another contradiction I was exposed to was when visiting another factory that had received training two years ago and now demonstrated me that they had 50 % female supervisors and even some female line production chiefs – they even gave me the whole tour of the floor and allowed me to take photos of them (see pictures below). Yet, all my respect for them and their commitments to women’s empowerment was lost when the director slapped and shouted at a female worker who ran up to him crying because she had injured her foot on one of the machines on one of the floor I was shown around on. Horrific.

More generally, there is a lot of mismatching and deceiving information going around both regarding social welfare standards at factories and the CSR of the major international retailers. Some factory directors supplying for a major brand big them up saying how committed a brand they are to training their workers and ensuring high environmental and social standards. However, one of my friends here who is engaged to a man who has  senior position at a garment producing  office in Dhaka told me that it is common knowledge within the garment business in Bangladesh and amongst retailers that the brand are by far the worst at exploiting their factory workers and not living up to social compliance standards – often not even respecting the ban on child labour.

The garment industry over here simply is a jungle and impossible to get your head around – still I’ll keep trying!

Tim Gee is a blogger, author, activist, and also the nice smiling man in the Quaker adverts that are always in the New Internationalist. His first book, Counterpower, “began as an enquiry into how campaigning might be more effective. But the more I read, the more convinced I became that a successful campaign is an unfinished revolution and that a revolution is the result of a series of successful campaigns.”

And revolution is in the air throughout the book, from the Indians overthrowing the Raj, to the South Africans ending apartheid, right up to the Arab Spring in Egypt that starts and finished the book. Gee has an encyclopaedic knowledge of 19^th and 20^th century social movements, and a sharp eye for the successes and failures that lie behind the historical myths.

Gee’s general argument is that just as governments use ideological power, economic power and physical coercion to enforce their hegemony, so campaigns for change must counter this with their own power in all three spheres – ideas, economics and physical counterpower. This sounds a little obvious, but so many campaigns today focus only on one aspect (usually the physical or ideological) to the exclusion of others that it remains a useful thing to hear, especially with the wealth of examples that Gee gives to back up his claim. (My only annoyance is his insistence on capitalising it all the time – Counterpower, not counterpower – as if it’s a brand, a trademark, or, worse, an easy-to-utilise product you can pick up off the shelf - “Where’s the Counterpower, love?” “Next to the Brillo pads in the cupboard!”)

So it is that we’re presented, in Gee’s clear and confident narration, with a broad mix of intertwining tactics – radical, ‘unstamped’ newspapers, boycotts, parliamentary votes, window smashing, marches, and even a little bit of outright violence. In the midst of all this Gee manages to wind in a little more theory, arguing that there are four clear stages to all the movements he analyses – consciousness, coordination, confrontation and consolidation – but that they are not necessarily progressed through in a neat and linear fashion, as setbacks befall campaigns and forward motion is stalled, sometimes for decades, before being reinvigorated by new generations of activists.

Gandhi on the Salt March, one of many tactics used by the Indian resistance

Ultimately, Gee knows that no theory is infallible, just as no victory is certain; and that if we’re ever going to achieve our own revolutions in social, economic and environmental justice, many more successful (and unsuccessful) campaigns will have to be fought, with many lessons learnt along the way. Counterpower is an engaging and at times inspiring read, recommended to those looking at the past and the future of movements for change.