Fairtrade the Irish way

I'm sure you'll know what I mean when I ask if you ever get an overwhelming feeling of uselessness when you think of all the problems in the world you'll never be able to fix or all the poor people you'll never be able to help? Sometimes it feels like a far cry from enough but the little choices you make everyday add up to playing a part in the overall scheme of things. From throwing your newspaper in the recycling bin or having a compost heap in your garden to making ethically conscious decisions in your purchases we're actually doing more than it might seem.

I'm ashamed to say that toward the end of my poor student days last May I went through a phase of buying €2.00 coffee from the Eurosaver menu in McDonalds. It was cheap, didn't taste so bad, and when I had six stickers collected I could get a cup for free. But after having not eaten there in around four years, bar once in an airport, I am now shocked and appalled at myself for the extreme atrocity I managed to commit in such a short period of time. From now on my caffeinated beverages will be of a Fairtrade nature or I shall simply have to make do without.


Luckily it's not that difficult to find Fair Trade food and drinks, but in terms of fashion it's much harder to locate a company whose clothes are ethically sound. Organic cottons are slowly becoming more widely available, with high street stores beginning to launch lines, such as H&M's Garden Collection, but the availability is still rather limited. Sustainable trade is essential in the long -term fight to bring third world countries out of their poverty and I think much more needs to be done to bring awareness to the fore.
EDUN is one perfect example of a fashion label conscious in what it does. Established in 2005 by Ali Hewson and Bono they have built a network of organic and locally sourced textile products, and they strive to encourage trade in Africa, build sustainable working communities and provide a working model of business for third world countries (from which we in the developed world can most definitely learn a thing or two).

Last week the do-gooders took part in Louis Vuitton's latest Core Values campaign which supports Al Gore's Climate Change campaign. Annie Leibovitz shot them wearing clothes from EDUN and carrying bags which were designed in a collaboration between the Hewson's and Vuitton, and which have hand crafted charms created in Kenya for the fairtrade jewellery label MADE attached to them. Apart from the carbon-footprinted-fact that they flew to Africa to take the photographs and that for some reason there is a private aeroplane in the background, the advertisment is fantastic because the Hewson's fee for the shoot as well as all proceeds from sales will be donated to Technoserve in Africa for the Conservation Cotton Initiative and to the Chernobyl Children International.

Now tell me that isn't worth a lifetime void of big macs?