I did my Year 12 work experience at People & Planet, the Oxford based student campaigning network in August 2010. People & Planet campaign to end world poverty, defend human rights and protect the environment, as I believe that all three are incredibly important issues, I decided that this would be a good place to do my work experience.

From the offset of working at People & Planet, I was struck by how friendly the staff are, I was immediately made to feel welcome and given a wide variety of things to do. These included contacting student volunteers, emailing universities about volunteering opportunities and collecting contact information from institutions. This provided me with a good experience of general office work, experience that will be invaluable in later life.

All in all my work experience at People & Planet was very enjoyable, I found the people there friendly, engaging and interesting and the work that I did was satisfying and provided useful skills. I would heartily recommend volunteering at People & Planet to anyone interested in the issues and with a desire to gain skills in general office work.

By Nathaniel Newman-Beckett

Our friends in the US from United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) have begun a new campaign demanding the infamous worker right abuser Nike ‘Just Pay It’. Nike currently owe 1,800 workers $2.2 million in severance payments and without jobs these workers are in need of food and money. Associated Press also report that owners of the factory pocketed payments to the Honduras’s national health care system, costing workers their health insurance.

However the student fightback in the US has already had a small but significant success with the Worker Rights Consortium affiliated University of Wisconsin ending contracts with Nike in solidarity with workers. This makes the university the first in history to stand up to Nike and make a clear demand that human rights are respected, an action which USAS hope will echo throughout the sector and encourage other universities to cut.

This small victory highlights the importance of the Worker Rights Consortium and the power a affiliated university can have in protecting human rights within its supply chain. Find out more about the Worker Rights Consortium and how you can get your university to affiliate.

The Worker Rights Consortium have also recently created a UK specific Q&A document to help answer any questions

Between the 1st & 7th March students from across the UK and US are taking action against sweatshops as part of the International Week of Student Action Against Sweatshops.

Students at University College London are planning to host a Global Supply Chain exhibition to lay bare the exploitation within the supply chains of two different product categories. (more…)

In November 2009 Reyna Dominguez, a Honduran union activist from the closed Jerzees de Honduras Fruit of the Loom factory toured the UK speaking at various events as part of Boycott Fruit of the Loom campaign. The ‘Stitched-up in Honduras’ tour was also joined by Rod and Shaun from United Students against Sweatshops, the pioneering student anti-sweatshop organisation who kicked of the campaign in the US and Canada. This blog is the collective diary of that hectic and tiring tour, enjoy! (more…)

It’s a positive moment when you ask a school chapel full of students to raise their hand if they know what the Fairtrade organization does, and the response is a jungle of arms reaching into the air. Even more positive when you consider that the students present are the youngest in the school - if every child in years seven and eight knows about the work of Fairtrade, surely theirs will be a generation more roundly educated in the responsibilities of young people in a world which needs responsible and accountable activists. (more…)

The Buy Right campaign has a army of student activists ready to deliver the new Buy Right workshop  to the network.

If you want to find out how your university can respect human rights throughout its supply chain, book now! (more…)

Hiya, my name is Manishta Sunnia and I am one of the two current fundraising volunteers at People & Planet. As an Environmental Sciences student in Oxford Brookes, I am very passionate about environmental isssues such as climate change and pollution. As a student campaigner, I have committed a lot of my time into campaign work. It has been quite hard and challenging to get excited about fundraising. (more…)

Come to the Forum and have your say.

People & Planet (P&P) prizes itself on how student led and democratic it is. But have you ever wondered if People & Planet actually is the most student led and democratic organisation out there? Are there organisations which do things better than us? Can we learn anything from these organisations so as to become more student led and democratic. (more…)

After a 3 hour journey, I am now back in my house in Leicester, sat n the floor as my housemates are sprawled across the sofas, watching X-Factor.

It was my first time at Shared Planet this weekend in Manchester. I had a wonderful time even though i was sleep deprived and got lost frequently.  (more…)

This weekend, I’m leaving my cold student house in Leicester, and heading up to my favourite city Manchester for People & Planet’s annual conference Shared Planet. My parents live near Manchester, and some of my friends are studying there so I tend to be in the City at least once a month, although usually for shopping and drinking rather than attending talks and MP panel debates! (more…)