Mass Consumption part 2

Posted on August 28, 2008
Filed Under mission and justice, thoughts | 3 Comments

Last month I wrote a short post called Mass Consumption. In it I explained that I had been thinking about how much money we do or don’t pay for material goods and if this could change.

There is a store in the UK called Primark and they sell very (and I mean very) cheap clothing. It reminds me of my Walmart experiences only Primark only really sell clothes. These cheap clothes are obviously made in sweat shops, probably by women and children who work long hours for very little pay. Consciously I’ve decided not to shop there, but I am aware that there are other places where I shop where things are probably made by poorly paid staff working very long hours; I’m just not aware of it.

I love fairtrade products but I’m also aware that they are expensive, especially when you’ve got kids and bills to pay etc. Sadly as people continue to buy items made in sweat shops so the demand for products continues. I wonder if working conditions change and indeed if the workers receive a pay rise as the companies in question are making millions in profit? My question is, how do we stop companies from exploiting people in poorer countries so that they stand up and take notice? Given the current economic situation, how do we encourage others to think about where they shop? If you only have $10 in your wallet and have to buy your child some clothes then you go where you can afford. How does this endless circle change for the good of everyone? I’m aware of organizations pushing for change, but find myself wondering if they are making a difference as it’s not obvious in the shops. Answers on a postcard …

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Water

Posted on July 24, 2008
Filed Under mission and justice | 2 Comments

World Vision have launched a new campaign in order to bring clean water to the many throughout the world who have no access to it. Check out their video here.

For 1.1 billion people a glass of clean water represents unaffordable luxury. The plain facts are that over 2.2 million children die every year of diseases they pick up from dirty water. This is 6,000 children a day - dying of something as preventable and treatable as diarrhoea. How can you help? The more people there are who choose not to put up with a world where a third of all people lack basic sanitation, the sooner change happens. You can make a difference - to one life, one child, one family (World Vision)

To find out more about how you can help please visit World Vision’s website

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Mass Consumption

Posted on July 24, 2008
Filed Under mission and justice | Leave a Comment

I’ve been thinking a lot this week about how much we pay or don’t pay for material goods. About how people are exploited for the western consumer. Also about how this can change and if it is possible. I’ll write more over the next few days, but I just wanted to draw to your attention a website called Make Affluence History.

15 Global Challenges

Posted on November 6, 2007
Filed Under environment, mission and justice | 1 Comment

Len has a great post today about 15 global challenges.

Injustice

Posted on September 10, 2007
Filed Under mission and justice | 5 Comments

I came across this article in today’s New York Times (the link plays a very short advertisement first before connecting to the article). I really struggle with all of the injustices in the world, and would love to be able to put the world right. Why are people allowed to suffer the horrible pains of cancer and AIDS without adequate pain control? Why is it the wealthy in these countries have access to pain relief whilst the majority suffer. It’s just wrong, plain and simple.

Here are a few extracts from the article:

The World Health Organization estimates that 4.8 million people a year with moderate to severe cancer pain receive no appropriate treatment. Nor do another 1.4 million with late-stage AIDS. For other causes of lingering pain — burns, car accidents, gunshots, diabetic nerve damage, sickle-cell disease and so on — it issues no estimates but believes that millions go untreated.

Like millions of others in the world’s poorest countries, she is destined to die in pain. She cannot get the drug she needs — one that is cheap, effective, perfectly legal for medical uses under treaties signed by virtually every country, made in large quantities, and has been around since Hippocrates praised its source, the opium poppy. She cannot get morphine. That is not merely because of her poverty, or that of Sierra Leone. Narcotics incite fear: doctors fear addicting patients, and law enforcement officials fear drug crime. Often, the government elite who can afford medicine for themselves are indifferent to the sufferings of the poor.

About half the six million cancer deaths in the world last year were in poor countries, and most diagnoses were made late, when death was inevitable. But first, there was agony. About 80 percent of all cancer victims suffer severe pain, the W.H.O. estimates, as do half of those dying of AIDS. Morphine’s raw ingredient — opium — is not in short supply. Poppies are grown for heroin, of course, in Afghanistan and elsewhere. But vast fields for morphine and codeine are also grown in India, Turkey, France, Australia and other countries. Nor is it expensive, even by the standards of developing nations. One hospice in Uganda, for example, mixes its own liquid morphine so cheaply that a three-week supply costs less than a loaf of bread.

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