Hello!

Hello world of blogging!

I guess i should start by introducing myself… My name's James, i'm 20 (all too soon to become 21) and i'm a student. Oh yeah, and i love Jesus.

Other the past couple of years I've become increasingly uncomfortable about the injustices in the world (well doesn't that sound very Miss World!). Why should people across the world be forced to take jobs for payment below what they can actually live off, in appalling working conditions, giving up any opportunities to enter education, just so that i can have that morning cuppa and that hoody I want? My reaction a couple of years ago would have been 'well of course i don't want to do that, but that doesn't actually happen right…' wrong!

Last year i read a book called 'Lift the label' written by Esther Stansfield and David Westlake (or as he's known by my friends, the vom man!). It literally (well ok not actually literally….) blew my mind! One of the stories that most stuck with me was that of Shima. Forced to leave school at 14 because her family could not afford to support her education, she found work in a clothes factory. The fans to cool the workers are broken, the rubbish piles up on the window ledges, there is no fire equipment. Her job is stitch buttons on to jeans and jackets, and many of the clothes she helps make end up in UK stores. After three years at the factory, working 8am to 8/9pm, 6 days a week, she earns a grand total of £4.40 a week. Half the amount she would need just to afford basic essentials such as nutritious food and adequate healthcare and accommodation. After work she returns to her slum in Dhaka in a dangerous area, and sleeps until time for work the next day. The slums have no proper toilet facility, piles of rubbish and open sewers stagnate close to where children play. In a single month, thirty-one female garment workers were raped as they walked from their factory shifts to their home in the slums.

Since then I've tried to think more about my decisions, and realise that my actions are important. Ok, so I'm not naive enough to think change can come over night by us all buying fair trade coffee, there are other complex issues here. But for me its about two things, firstly what do i feel comfortable with? I want to make informed decisions on where i shop, and decide if it's somewhere i want to be supporting or not. Secondly, i believe in a powerful god, who loves justice! I do believe changing my lifestyle can start to change the lives of some of the poorest around the world for the better.

This blog will follow my journey as I ask shops about how there products are made, find out where i can get fair trade items, and further explore the issues that keep so many in the world in poverty.

Lets get started!