Waubonsee Community College

T-shirt travels, by Shantha Bloemen

eng

videorecording

For College; Adult audiences

T-shirt travels

electronic resource

747798627

by Shantha Bloemen

57

Global business and economics in video

What happens to all those old clothes you bring to the Salvation Army or Goodwill Industries? This comprehensive program is about Third World debt and secondhand clothes. The filmmaker travelled to Zambia and was amazed to find almost everyone wearing Calvin Klein, MTV and James Dean t-shirts! Huge bales of American secondhand clothing are sold to African importers, putting the African manufacturers out of business. We see a secondhand clothing dealer in Zambia carefully select a bale among dozens, bundled and shipped from abroad. He pays for the used clothing and then transports it by bus ten hours to a market. His meager profits support his entire extended family who subsist in shanty towns miles from the market. Their lives exemplify the poverty plaguing Africa today. They have virtually no possibility of advancing themselves and their children. Prof. Jeffrey Sachs, Harvard University Center for International Studies and other experts discuss the history of colonialism, slavery and the depletion of Africa's natural resources. They draw the connection between this shameful legacy and the current huge debt. As the African governments service their debts according to an IMF/World Bank policy known as "structural adjustment lending," people's benefits are slashed drastically, resulting in terrible suffering from malnutrition, poor healthcare, inadequate schools and a crumbling infra-structure. Our old t-shirts come with a high price-tag. A presentation of the Independent Television Service (itvs). Partially funded by the Soros Documentary Fund of the Open Society Institute and the International Foundation for Arts and Culture

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