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Dress Down and Speak Up badge

Dress Down and Speak Up badge

How to earn the "Dress down and speak up" badge?

Challenge:

Hold a non-uniform day to raise awareness about the impacts of sweatshops and fast fashion.

Badge instructions:

Did you know that Development and Peace — Caritas Canada helped organize Catholic schools in the 1990’s to build more accountability from uniform providers like McCarthy’s, demanding that workers in the Global South who make their uniforms have their dignity and rights respected?

Unfair working conditions continue to exist for the people who make our clothes, largely due to the pressures of the fast fashion industry. Research the issue to develop an announcement that you use to promote your non-uniform day (an excellent resource is www.cleanclothes.org).

On your non-uniform day, put a world map up in a public place (upside down, of course!). Invite students to put a pin on the map in the country where the clothes they are wearing were made.

Bonus:

Have students wear their shirts inside out and backwards, so the “MADE IN....” tag is front and center!

Optional: Research the countries that appear on your “clothes map”. What are the issues that textile workers in those countries face and what is being done to protect their rights?

Optional: Write to McCarthy’s or other uniform providers and ask them to send you a copy of their most recent Corporate Social responsibility report. Does the report do a good job explaining what the company does to protect the rights of workers?

Idea:

Some schools choose to hold their Dress Down, Speak Up day April 24, the anniversary of the Rana Plaza factory collapse in Bangladesh.