Pants to Povertyt syntyivät vuonna 2005 alkaneen "Make Poverty History" -kampanjan myötävaikutuksesta. Inspiraation lähteenä oli halu osallistua tähän maailmanlaajuiseen kampanjaan ja vastata muutoksen tarpeeseen poistaa maailmasta köyhyys.
Nykyään Pants to Poverty alushousuja myydään yli 20 maassa ja niiden valmistus tukee yli 5000 viljelijää ja tehdastyöntekijää Intiassa. Lähtökohtana on, että kaikki tarvitsevat alushousuja. Pants to Poverty ei tyydy tuottamaan ainoastaan miellyttävän tuntuisia ja tyylikkäitä alushousuja vaan se haluaa, että myös niiden valmistajat hyötyvät konkreettisesti. Myös muodin avulla voidaan muuttaa maailmaa!
Pants to Poverty tekee yhteistyötä viljelijäjärjestön Zameen Organic kansssa, jonka omistavat noin 5000 viljelijää Andhra Pradeshin ja Maharashtran alueilla. Organisaatioon kuuluvat viljelijät kunnioittavat luontoa mm. noudattaen luonnonmukaisia viljelymenetelmiä - torjunta-aineita ei käytetä. Viljelijöille maksettava Reilun kaupan lisä on auttanut viljelijöitä merkittävästi. Tuoton avulla on muun muassa rakennettu kaivoja, parannettu infrastruktuuria ja koulutusmahdollisuuksia.
Pants to Povertyn ja Zameen Organic´n yhteistyö on tuottanut merkittävää tulosta. Vidarbhan provinssissa Maharastassa viljelijät ovat yli 15 vuoden ajan tehneet useita itsemurhia päivässä! Siitä lähtien, kun Zameen alkoi työskennellä viljelijäyhteisöjen kanssa (jotka valmistavat Pants to Povertyjen puuvillan) itsemurhia ei ole enää ollut.
We have come a very long way since Nelson Mandela stood in Trafalgar Square in 2005 and called for a generation to rise up and Make Poverty History. It was his words, and the enormous need for change that inspired us establish our brand as part of the global campaign that echoed around the world that year through the Live8 concerts and the massive rallies. With climate chaos, the global financial meltdown and growing poverty around the world, the consequences of doing nothing are terrifying… but we prove that doing something amazing can be easy, fun and even sexy!
Today, nearly 5 years after we were born, our pants sell in over 20 countries around the world, support over 5000 farmers in India and within a week of launching our first campaign, we made one of the world’s most powerful companies pull a killer pesticide off the market! The power really does lie in our pants!We’ve got a very English name. In England, in case you didn’t know, Pants are not trousers, but they are underwear. However, more than that, if something is pants, then that means it’s terrible! So, “Pants to Poverty” means Poverty is terrible, as well as saying that they are fairtrade and organic underpants! We all need pants and so we aim to provide pants for all people, in a way that supports, rather than destroys, all of the wonderful people that make them!
We are a brand that you can truly believe in, and with your support, we’ll be able to reach out and support even more people… from Africa, Asia and even the Americas. We would be totally unable to do this without the incredible support of our network of many thousands of consumers and hundreds of independent retail shops around the world, and especially, our incredibly dedicated staff and supporters. Click here if you’d like to meet us!
Soft, fair and totally natural, the cotton in our pants comes from the heart of India’s cotton belt – Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra.
We work with an incredible farmer organisation called Zameen Organic, based in Hyderabad and owned by over 5000 farmers across both Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra. Zameen means earth or land in Sanskrit and the organic and fair practices they enable thousands of farmers to deliver means that they treat the earth as we all should – with care, respect and devotion. None of the farmers use pesticides and all of them conduct their farming on rain fed land meaning that rivers are protected and people are not poisoned. In addition to this, the fairtrade premium that we pay for the cotton has helped many of the farmers triple the profit that they make year on year as well as build wells, school resources and infrastructure for their communities.However, not only do we know exactly where the cotton in our pants comes from, but we’re now starting to build a long-term relationship with the farmers who grow the cotton. Nestled amongst the cotton farming villages in the province of Vidarbha in Maharasta we’re really starting to see the power that lies in our pants. This is an area of both terrible tragedy and inspiring hope, which, over the past 15 years, has become world renowned for horrific level of suicides of on average 7 a day for the past 15 years. However, since Zameen have been working with the communities where the cotton in our pants comes from, there have been no suicides at all and farmers, once shackled in the prison of un fair trade, corruption and climate chaos, are now free to lead their lives with pride and satisfaction. However, alot more work remains to be done and this can only be done sustainably through fair trade. So, by buying our gorgeous pants, you can be happy in the knowledge that you are supporting these farmers and the more we sell, the more cotton the farmer sell and the more people can join the happy pants family!
For us, it’s not enough to simply farm the cotton well, it’s got to be a beautiful process right from cotton to bottom! So we’re delighted to say that the factory we work with, Pratibha Syntex, (www.pratibhasyntex.com) have ethics and excellence sewn deeply into its core. Pratibha means talent, and as you’ll see below, they use every ounce of it to make sure our pants are as beautiful as they should be!
With almost every certification under the sun they go way further than most factories to ensure that they are able to look after both people and planet when making your lovely pants. This means that we are able to look after the following things:
Environment:
Over 90% of the water used in the plant is recycled and, thanks to a special desalination plant, the water that does leave the factory is even cleaner than it is than when it comes in! All dyes used are special low impact dyes and, in our pants, they are completely Azo free (so no carcinogens in our pants!) with no discharges into the environment. Energy used is all natural gas but thanks to efficiencies they have reduced consumption by 30% and continue to plant over 200,000 trees to offset their impact. They also have a very exciting waste cotton recycling programme that one day you’ll see in our pants!
Society:
As well as having set up two schools and a technical college they support another 90 schools and a variety of old age homes and orphanages in the surrounding area to ensure that they share the value that they generate with their neighbours. To their staff, as well as paying a living wage, they also provide free medical care, nutrition, housing, training opportunities and even self defense and yoga classes. Around the time we started working with them, Pratibha initiated the Women Empowered Project which today delivers better job opportunities, access to free medical facilities, skills training, and health care programs to over 2000 women. The goal of this work is to socially and economically empower as many as 700 new women every year! We’ll be with them every step of the way continually evolving their models to make them better and better each year.
In addition to the above, we’re continually working with them on new product development, extra special trims and even gorgeous new fabrics to make sure that the pants continue to be the best on the market!
