Social Responsibilty and the Global Garment Industry

The service learning project I chose is entitled, “Social Responsibility and the Global Garment Industry” (http://www.servicelearning.org/slice/index.php?ep_action=view&ep_id=308). Its stated project description is as follows: Students will learn about industrialization today, globalization, free trade zones, the fashion industry, sweatshops and child labor issues. After viewing a video documentary about a maquila in Central America, students will confront these issues in a classroom simulation: a U.S. clothing corporation must decide how profits and its own human rights policy will guide overseas operations. Students from seven different interest groups make recommendations to the corporation’s vice president in an advisory board meeting about a subcontractor’s use of child labor. Following the simulation, students will consider their own roles as teen consumers and/or workers and determine the issues they will produce action on. Some possible options include: identifying where consumers can buy socially responsible clothing, creating a corporate responsibility letter-writing campaign, launching a consumer awareness petition project, educating teen workers about their rights, surveying teen workers to assess. I thought this lesson was really unique in that it teaches students about their own rights in an interesting way that directly affects their lives. It also strengthens the connection between students’ in school and out of school lives. Also, having students learn about other children their own age, could provide extra motivation and a deeper connection to the issue. This sort of project would most definitely use collaboration with outside groups, such as Sweatshop Watch and the National Labor Committee, and allow to students to create their own ideas and learn through hands-on activities. To mitigate some of the challenges posed by inquiry learning, students would be assigned specific roles in the project, to provide structure and make sure each student is fully participating. Also, students would be responsible for picking their own project ideas, but they would be picked from a predetermined set of possible projects, so as to compensate for the project having too much dependence on the students.