Theme: Ethical Consumers Title: Don t Shop Quietly! Target Group: Mainly Church Background Age: 11-14 Aims: to introduce students to issues of inequality to show students that their choices affect others to consider a Christian response to inequality to encourage students into some possible actions Equipment: Print-outs: Computer and internet connection (if possible); calculator; Bibles Print-out 1: Party Invite; Print-out 2: Shima Print-out 3: Prayer For Justice Bible Base: Proverbs 31: 8 9, Amos 8:4 6. Leaders Note: This session uses material from, and is linked to, Tearfund s Lift the Label campaign - http://youth.tearfund.org/lift+the+label/ It s Not Fair! (6 mins) Bring enough copies of Print-out 1, Party Invite (or better still, design your own to have that personal and more authentic touch!), so that there is one each. Start the session by saying that you have some party invitations to hand out. Hand out your invitations to most of the students, but leave some out. You may want to leave out the students for a particular reason, for example the colour of their hair, what they are wearing, their gender. The activity works best if a small number of people are left out. Explain to the group how excited you are about the party and you hope those invited can come etc. Ask the group if they have any questions about the party. If someone mentions the fact that some people have been left out, make some excuse about numbers for the party being limited. After going on about the party for several minutes, reveal the fact that there is no party after all. Pray that the students aren t too disappointed! or plan an actual party to which everyone is invited! Explain that it was just an activity to make a point. Ask the students if they think they know what it is. Ask the students if they think the party invitations were handed out fairly; ask why, or why not? There are lots of other ways to make the same point as the above. These include the following: An unfair tug of war An unfair distribution of food or money
An unfair game An unfair quiz Quick Quiz? (3 mins) In groups of three or four read out the following questions. Give each group 30 seconds to decide if their answer is a, b, c or d. The correct answers are in italics. 1) How much do Europeans spend on ice cream in a year? a. 500, 000 b. 1 million c. 5 million d. Other ( 7.3 billion) Note: that s enough money to provide safe water for every child on earth. 2) How much do we in Britain spend on clothes each month? a. 25 million b. 250 million c. 2.5 billion d. Other Note: what we spend in a year could wipe out the entire international debt of eight of Africa s most heavily indebted countries. 3) What percentage of the actual retail cost of clothes does the average garment industry workers receive for making them? a. 0.5% b. 5% c. 15% d. Other Clothes Calculator! (7 mins) If possible connect a computer to the internet for this next activity. Have a calculator handy anyway! Ask students to make a rough estimate of the total spend for the clothes they have bought in the last month. With this spend figure, do the following if you have an internet connection. Visit http://youth.tearfund.org/lift+the+label/fashion/ and click on the clothes calculator button. Follow the instructions to work out what percentage of the money paid by each student has gone to the person who made the clothes?
Now use a calculator to do the same calculation by finding 0.5% of the spend figure. (Working out percentages will please the Maths teacher! and help them to appreciate how small the workers take home pay is.) When they have done this, emphasise that 0.5% is the average amount that garment industry workers receive of the retail cost of clothes bought in the High Street. Ask students to say whether they think that s fair or not? And to say why they think it s not fair (or is fair). Tearfund, Lift the Label and Ethical Consumers! (2 mins) You may want to treat the following as background information for yourself, or if appropriate use the bullet points to summarise the ethics of Lift the Label to your group: Tearfund (www.tearfund.org/) is a Christian organisation that is passionate about bringing justice, transforming lives, and overcoming global poverty. Tearfund have launched a Lift the Label campaign (part of the youth and student site) aimed at raising awareness of how our choices affect the poor. Lift the Label is an ethical lifestyle campaign, to help us think about how our choices in the areas of food, fashion, and finance, impact the lives of some of the poorest people in the world. Lift the Label challenges people to live lives that reflect God's priorities as we shop, but also challenge the unjust structures that keep our global neighbours in poverty. An ethical consumer is someone who lifts the label of the goods on sale (e.g. on clothes) and makes a decision to buy goods that are ethically produced. This means that the makers have been treated and paid fairly, and that the production of the goods is not harmful to the environment and society. Ask the students to consider the following: Our breakfast may have travelled over 5000 miles to reach us this morning. What do we know about the hands that plucked the coffee beans or tended the orange groves? Where were our clothes made? The care label may tell us, but what do we know about the lives of the people behind these products? Bible (10 mins) In the same small groups as before, give each group a Bible and a copy of Print-out 2, Shima. Ask each group to read Proverbs 31 v 8 9, then the case study of Shima, answering the Questions at the bottom of the Print-out. 'Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy. Proverbs 31 v 8 9. Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version NIV Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Possible answers for Question a) are: The amount of Shima s pay; her need to work; her family situation; the working conditions including long hours; the age of starting work; the vulnerability of workers; etc. Possible answers for Question d) are: We need to be a voice for Shima. We can make a difference through the choices we make. We need to make a stand against injustice. You can also view Shima s case study online at: http://youth.tearfund.org/lift+the+label/fashion/case+studies.htm Note to leaders: either use the following Challenge section as a response with your group, or the Going Deeper section. Alternatively do a mix of the two! Challenge (2 mins) Set a challenge for your group to visit the Lift the Label web pages http://youth.tearfund.org/lift+the+label/ over the coming week and discover the different ways they can make a difference and get involved in the Lift the Label campaign. Encourage students to come up with their own ideas. Give space the following week to feed these back. (You may want to collate these and hand them out on a subsequent week?) If you want to take this issue further, there is scope to consider how the group might raise awareness in the school. You may want to encourage the group to consider what they could do. Potential ideas include: Hold a Lift the Label fashion show at lunch time with the aim of raising awareness. Organise an ethical consumer stand at your school for a week. If you have access to the internet you can use some of Tearfund s interactive web pages so that other students can interact and be challenged e.g. the clothes calculator at http://youth.tearfund.org/lift+the+label/fashion/ Going Deeper (10 mins) In the same small groups get the students to read Amos 8:4 6. 4 Hear this, you who trample the needy and do away with the poor of the land, 5 saying, When will the New Moon be over that we may sell grain, and the Sabbath be ended that we may market wheat? skimping the measure, boosting the price and cheating with dishonest scales, 6 buying the poor with silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, selling even the sweepings with the wheat. Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version NIV Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. Ask the students to list as many business practices in the time of Amos that were unacceptable to God.
There are five main ones: 1) Trading took over the lives of the rich (verse 5a). They couldn t wait for the New Moon festival to be over to start trading again. 2) Use of corrupt scales misled grain producers (verse 5b). 3) Prices were inflated: the powerful received profits while the poor received less than they deserved (verse 5b). 4) Poor producers of grain were not treated as humans, with respect (verse 6a). 5) There was a lack of concern for quality (verse 6b). Ask the students if they think practices like that still happen today. Ask the students how they as Christians can respond today to these unfair practices a) as individual consumers b) as a Christian group at school A Prayer For Justice (5 mins) Cut up and hand out copies the Prayer For Justice (Print-out 3) so there is one for each person. Use the prayer as a reflection or meditation. Read out the prayer several times using different methods, pausing after each for 20 to 30 seconds. Below is a suggested order for these readings: you may want to change it or do your own. a) A leader reads out the prayer slowly. b) A confident member of the group reads the prayer out loud. c) Each member reads the prayer quietly to themselves. d) All together read the prayer out loud. e) The same leader reads the prayer out slowly.
Print-out 1: Party Invite
Print-out 2: Shima Age: 17 Name: Shima Job: Punching buttonholes in jeans and jackets. Background: Shima left school at the age of 13, not because she wanted to but, as she says, because of poverty in my family. Even though she was just a child, Shima needed to support her family and earn some money, so she came to the city from a rural area to find work. Shima started working in a clothes factory in Dhaka city (Bangladesh) and has been there for three years. Wage paid: Shima earns around 1700 Taka per month (around 4 per week). She says her pay is not enough to live on. She finds life difficult. This wage is not enough to have good food on, or to be able to afford to go out in town after work to relax. Working hours: Working hours are from 8 am to 8 or 9 at night, six days a week. Working conditions: The factory is hot with no working fans. There is no fire equipment on the stairs and there s lots of rubbish on ledges because there are no bins. Living conditions: Most workers like Shima simply sleep when they go home, as they have no time left in the day for anything else. The slum area where Shima lives is a very dangerous place to be at night theft and rape are common. Shockingly, 31 garment workers were raped in one month due to women walking home late at night from factories to their homes in the slums. Many of the workers simply can t afford public transport because their pay is so low. Case Study text: Copyright Tearfund. Used with permission. Questions: a) List any things that you think are unfair about Shima s situation. b) If you knew that a pair of jeans in your favourite shop had been made by Shima would you buy them? Why/why not? c) Does Shima s story make you think differently about how you might shop in the future? Why/why not? d) Based on the passage in Proverbs, what do you think God would say about our responsibility to Shima?
Print-out 3: Prayer For Justice Grant us, Lord God, a vision of our land as your love would make it: a land where the weak are protected, and none go hungry or poor; a land where the benefits of civilized life are shared, and everyone can enjoy them; a land where different races and cultures live in tolerance and mutual respect; a land where peace is built with justice, and justice is guided by love. And give us the inspiration and courage to build it, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. Grant us, Lord God, a vision of our land as your love would make it: a land where the weak are protected, and none go hungry or poor; a land where the benefits of civilized life are shared, and everyone can enjoy them; a land where different races and cultures live in tolerance and mutual respect; a land where peace is built with justice, and justice is guided by love. And give us the inspiration and courage to build it, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.