Platform2 to Ghana, Peru, India... and Aberdeen

We continue to trace Pier32 printed tshirts to far flung parts of the planet and here we see them being worn by volunteers from the UK charity Platform2 which as best illustrated through its website MyPlatform2.com is responsible for sending adventurous volunteers to Ghana, South Africa, Peru, India or Malawi to help aid or relief operation.

Unlike some other aid programmes, it's aimed at people who wouldn't otherwise get the chance to volunteer abroad, so it's fully-funded and free for the volunteer. Platform2 is fully funded by the UK Government's Department for International Development (DFID) and is run by a consortium of charities, Christian Aid, Islamic Relief and BUNAC.

One of the important features of Platform2 is that the volunteers are asked to relate the benefits and experiences of their trip in their community - through music, art, film, photography - whatever the volunteer may be into.

Here is a video of Platform2 volunteers sporting their Pier 32 tshirts going from Glasgow to Aberdeen to promote Platform 2 to young people in another part of Scotland.



The tshirts, which carry the simple but cutting slogan "Some people wait for change to happen", often get worn by volunteers in the field but are especially intended to help promote Platform2 in the UK. One is given to every volunteer at their initial briefing day and they take them to the country they travel to. When they come back, they attend a 3-day residential course where they discuss and are given ideas on how they're going to express their experiences of working in countries where poverty is so widespread and what they're going to do to promote Platform2. When they promote the scheme, they always wear their t-shirts.

We think it's all in all a great concept and are proud that we can supply ethically sound products that work so well to support Platform2 both in the UK and abroad.

I "heart" Y "heart" Pier32

The city of York has a thriving art scene - our client Special Day Films had the excellent idea that it needs something of a collective badge for this talent to wear and promote both art and York (and especially art in York!) to inspire more people from all backgrounds to get involved in exercising their creative side.

The I "heart" York t-shirt, printed on fair trade clothing supplied by Starworld of Africa, was perfect for their needs. The pricing hit the spot, yes, but very importantly for the artistic community, the fact that the t-shirts are fairly traded, Starworld being accredited by WRAP (Worldwide Responsible Accredited Production), means that the artists wearing the shirts can make a bigger statement that extends beyond the boundaries of York.

In the image above the artist Ian Parkin makes his statement. While the concept is in its infancy, a website is already there to show off some of the talent and allow the people of York to grab a t-shirt and be part of the action.

Kids' City

Kids' City is a children's charity providing out of school play, activities and childcare in disadvantaged areas in South London. It was started by a bunch of parents and school staff in 1995 and now it works in 16 primary schools before school, after-school and during school holidays.

The organisation is a social enterprise so it operates like a business but looks to make a social change, not a financial gain. It makes a charge to parents who can afford to pay and has a range of ways for families to get involved, for example by exchanging their time as volunteers so their kids come along for free. Kids' City has a wide volunteering programme and runs its own training centre and through this it assists unemployed people, particularly mums wanting to get into work, to get play or sports qualifications.

Kids' City is a community effort with young people from 14 up to 70 offering their help in all sorts of ways. Even the children in the schemes help out with giving ideas, deciding what toys to buy and designing activities programmes.

Many adults forget that in a relatively short time, the sorts of places they used to play in as children have disappeared through heavy traffic, housing developments and general fear of crime. The streets of London are much tougher places for today's children but organisations like Kids' City offer alternatives to computer games, tv and the anti-social activities that can follow through boredom and perceived disconnection from society. The work that Kids' City does builds individual's self esteem and perhaps most importantly, good communications skills, sense of purpose and promotes a real sense of belonging.

The positive impact as judged by the local community can be measured in that over 220 local volunteers have come forward to help the full and part time workers employed by Kids' City in the running of their centres.

There are several things that Kids' City like about Pier 32. One is that we've been able to deliver the clothes they need for their staff without compromising on their ethos to do good in every way they can. There's no point in helping children today and harming children of tomorrow or children in other countries!

Secondly, over the years they've gone from ordering relatively small amounts of our cheaper lines to today's comprehensive staff uniform of t-shirts, fleeces and outdoor coats. They feel they've always received excellent service including advice about robustness, the 'right' colour yellow, and we've been very happy to liaise directly with their designers (also volunteers) in non-standard ways. They feel that their staff look good and the clothes meet their needs for functionality and practicality. And as a busy medium sized charity, they often need things in a hurry and despite this they note that "there has never been a hint of frustration in Gerry's voice" when they ring!

Of course, Kids' City are price conscious and annually review costs. This tells us that Pier 32's clothing is very competitively priced despite the benefit they get from the added value of the ethical sourcing and the excellent service. Kids' City continue to be glad to do business with Pier 32 and you can see examples of our successful partnership in their annual report on the home page at www.kidscity.org.uk.

Why 2009 can be better!

Here we are in the dying hours of 2008, many people will be look back thinking that this was not a great year, how times were so much better earlier in the decade and how 2009 will simply be worse on all fronts.

But 2008 could also be looked at as being the great cleanser - the year that people behind the easy money got found out and the rest of us got educated about the fact that if there is a fast buck to be made then almost inevitably, in the long term, there is some cost. Unfortunately the cost has been borne by many people, not necessarily those who made the fast buck in the first place.

2009 will be a year in which those who believe in ethical ways of conducting life - and business - can come forward with confidence and make a stand against those who present the more enticing, exciting options. Of course many businesses need to innovative and take risks - and there the risk takers will get their way but the new ethic of risk taking should be that the risk taker sees the losses when it goes wrong and there is little or no 'collateral damage'. The age of banks taking risks in such a way that every one of us sees the after effect when the quest for the fast buck goes wrong must be behind us.

While Gordon Brown might not turn out to be the person who saves the world, in 2009 there will be the great new hope for the planet - in the shape of Barack Obama. His ethics and idealism seem to be just what we need - the issue is whether he will be strong enough to overcome the entrenched interests of those who got us into this mess. For those who might otherwise look forward to 2009 with nothing but pessimism, Obama presents the potential for a new ethical outlook from the top and exciting changes that could touch us all.

Things might be tough along the way but 2009 will be the year of the new clean slate, a year of opportunity for us all to bring the excesses under control and put in place firm foundations for future growth.

A very merry Christmas!

We're about to print our last t-shirts for this year and we do so with the feeling of quiet contentment that goes with completing a job well done - and also a feeling of relief and exhilaration at being able to forget about it all for a few days spent with families and friends.

Fortunately the team here do not have far to go. No long drives across the width or height of the UK in order to be with those closest to us - we're able to pop out to the local and have a final drink together before saying our farewells and meeting up again in the new year.

At the pub we might chat about our achievements this year, not just in terms of our growth but also in terms of being able to do so on the back of continuing to promote the ethical and environmental causes in which we believe. We might chat about how the recession might affect the promotional clothing industry and the steps that we can take so that next year we do as well as this year. We might consider what new technologies might come along to help us meet these challenges.

On the other hand, in the quiet knowledge that we've been dealing with these all issues in the workplace, what we'll probably do is what we normally do when we get to the pub - talk complete and utter bo!!ocks about music, football and anything else that comes to mind except Strictly Come Dancing!

With that profound thought we pass our readers - whether customers past or future - or simply readers - our very best wishes that the festive season brings joy and happiness to you and your loved ones!

The smartest young scientists wear Pier 32!!

It's too easy to think that Pier 32 is just about custom promotional t-shirts. But that's far from the full truth - we supply all sorts of promotional clothing, from outerwear to vests. You can also have us customise accessories such as tote bags and, in the case of children, bibs. Which is where another of our customers, the Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development comes in.

The Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development (CBCD) was founded at Birkbeck College, University of London, in 1998. It has grown steadily and is now internationally recognised as one of the leading centres of its kind. Its mission is to investigate relations between postnatal brain development and changes in perceptual, cognitive, and linguistic abilities from birth through childhood and late adulthood.

For adult volunteers, behavioural studies usually take up to 30 minutes and involve watching sequences of pictures or listening to sounds and making judgments about them. With such experiments the Centre study the response time and accuracy of participants to clarify the thought processes (such as attention or working memory) involved in the task.

Many studies at the Centre use EEG (electroencephalography). This is a safe and non-invasive method of studying brain electrical activity through a net of sensors placed on a participant's head. The sensors pick up tiny electrical signals that can then be processed to learn more about the pattern of brain activity during the experimental task, (for example judging the similarity of 2 pictures, or detecting previously unseen faces). This technique can be used to answer many different questions. How does the brain extract different bits of information about a face? What happens in the brain when you see a novel image? Do left and right hemispheres process different kinds of information?

The Centre also incorporates the Babylab - which is where our bibs come in! The Babylab studies how babies learn and develop, particularly during the first 2 years of life. Some of the areas investigated include how babies recognise faces, how they learn to pay attention to some things and not others, how they learn to understand what other people do and think, and how their language and understanding of the world develops.

Generally studies take the form of simple games in which babies are presented with various interesting things to look at and listen to. Like short video clips or cartoons on a computer screen or more interactive studies involving showing the babies different toys or objects. A researcher might play a game with a baby to understand more about how they think and learn different skills. In addition to studies where they simply observe babies behaviour they also use various methods for measuring brain activity including the EEG 'hairnet' of sensors and the following of eye movements.

As well as studying typical brain development in infancy, the Babylab is one of the only laboratories in Europe that studies brain functioning in very young children with autism and William’s Syndrome.

We have supplied T-Shirts & Bibs sized for babies of 3 - 24 months to the babylab - and on the front is printed the motto: "I'm a young scientist" - never too young to start!

The centre is continuously looking for adult volunteers between 18 and 35 years old to take part in behavioural studies as well as in studies on brain activity, and babies in their first two years. Visit their website to sign up.

Sadly most of us here at Pier 32 are far too old to have the Centre delve into our psyche...

The Great Gorilla Run 2008

During the early hours of 27 September a blanket of mist settled over London and the city was at peace. But not for long... as the sun's rays began to break through, hundreds of gorillas emerged from London's streets and a gorilla gathering started to form in the city. This was the 2008 Great Gorilla Run and it was set to be amazing.

By 10:30am over 732 dedicated Gorilla Organization supporters, dressed in their customised gorilla costumes had gathered at the start of the run in central London. This was the first time in history that this number of people dressed as gorillas had gathered in one place making the 2008 Great Gorilla Run a record breaking event! Wildlife conservationist and television presenter Bill Oddie was in great spirits and after an exciting build up, set the gorilla runners off along the 7km route.

As the gorillas spread through the streets of London thousands of onlookers gathered and TV crews from around the world captured the moment on film.

To date over £250,000 has been raised by gorilla runners for the endangered gorillas of central Africa - a fantastic achievement. Elizabeth Roberts, who raised over £4000 was this year's top fundraiser and as a big thank you for her efforts, adventure travel company Explore, who sponsored this year's Great Gorilla Run, has offered Elizabeth a once in a lifetime trip to see mountain gorillas in the wild in Uganda.

No, Pier 32 did not supply the Gorilla costumes! Pier32 supplied ethically produced t-shirts from our African supplier Starworld.

To see more pictures from the event, for more information and to sign up for the next Great Gorilla Run on 26 September 2009 visit www.greatgorillas.org. Our congratulations go out to everyone who took part!

Living Streets - reducing the impact of the car

We have just heard how another of our customers has been using our services to project themselves - not just in the UK but again in Europe.

The charity Living Streets campaigns for creating better streets and public spaces to be enjoyed by everyone on foot, with their needs prioritised over traffic. Living Streets also campaigns for more walking on everyday journeys, reducing congestion, pollution and our carbon footprint.

The charity runs various campaigns, a notable one being the Walk to School campaign funded by the Department for Transport and the BIG Lottery Fund. That campaign was recently joined by the Walking Works campaign, encouraging commuters to reduce the number of short car journeys they do (20% of journeys being less than a mile!) and walk to the station or all the way to work, with benefits for fitness and the environment.

While most of our customers order our personalised t-shirts or hoodies, Living Streets wanted customised rucksacks to be taken by a group of students from Darlington (with funding from Darlington Borough Council and Northern Film and Media) to visit the Walk21 conference on walking and public space in Barcelona. They presented their own ideas to delegates about their ideal walks to school, and grilled the experts at the conference. They are currently editing their experiences into a video.



The 5 day experience included travelling to Barcelona and back by sleeper train - quite an experience in itself and rather more beneficial to the environment than flying! As well as attending the conference, they engaged in a range of local activities.

This was all part of the Step Up Debate - a national discussion about what changes students would like to see made to encourage them to walk more of their school journeys.

Our ethical and environmental credentials at Pier 32 was an important part of Living Streets choosing us as a supplier of promotional products. We are pleased to have played our part in helping them achieve their aims.

As well as the Living Streets website at http://www.livingstreets.org.uk/ the Step Up campaign site is at www.stepup.org.uk. At these sites you can not only find out rather more about the charity and its campaigning, but also about the students' experiences on the Barcelona trip.

Ethical Brand Profile - Jerzees

Jerzees is a large promotional clothing brand with a higher profile in the USA than in the UK. It's American website is in fact curiously unhelpful to our quest for information on the brands ethical credentials. However Jerzees is one of the brands of the Russell Corporation (Russell itself being the other well known brand) and its European website
is much more helpful as well as being rather more attractive.

Unlike the Jerzees USA website, there is a page devoted to "Our Ethics". "Russell Europe believes worldwide ethical practices and principles are now more important than ever. We work to a strict code of practice to help ensure none of our manufacturing processes put the environment at risk. Equally vital is the welfare of the people who make our garments, wherever they are in the globe."

All the Jerzees garments are Öko-Tex certified (which means no harmful residual chemicals may be in place in the clothing after manufacture and that the environmental impact of the production process itself was minimal). They also say that they are "committed to having all our manufacturers WRAP (Worldwide Responsible Apparel Production) accredited".

Now it's obvious that this means that Jerzees suppliers are not all currently WRAP accredited. I visited the WRAP website to see if that might shed some light. Unfortunately because Jerzees outsources its production and their site does not say where, and WRAP monitors the actual factories not brands, the WRAP organisation is not going to be able to help us.

The Russell Corporation itself was recently acquired by Berkshire Hathaway Inc., which owns Fruit of the Loom. The link is to our separate blog article on Fruit of the Loom where we considered the status of Berkshire Hathaway as the owner of that brand. In that article I mentioned 'high minded ideals' so in that respect the intention of Jerzees to have all its suppliers WRAP certified is good and in keeping with its owner's ideals.

But we'd really like to have more concrete information on how much of Jerzees production is currently WRAP certified and how long it will be before it all is certified. And what is the status of its other suppliers - what standards are applied there?

As ever help on this sort of issue is appreciated from anyone who can shed light on the answers.

Working with Habitat for Humanity

We've a large number of articles in this blog looking at the supply chain in getting t-shirts to us in the UK; it's time to look at the other side of that supply chain, at our customers, how our t-shirts help them and how they in turn help others.

While the clients we supply with clothing are mainly situated here in the UK, the work they do spans the globe. One such client is Habitat for Humanity, an international charity dedicated to the elimination of poverty housing and homelessness around the world. Founded in 1976, and now working in more than 90 countries, Habitat for Humanity have built, repaired or renovated over 300,000 houses in partnership with people in need of safe, decent homes. They run an international volunteering programme, Global Village, where individuals or groups can visit projects and actually work hand in hand with homepartner families to build safe, decent homes.

We got involved with Habitat for Humanity when they were let down by another firm of t-shirt printers. They were soon able to establish our ethical credentials (very important to a charity looking to relieve housing poverty, sometimes in locations where less ethical manufacturing practices may be commonplace) and we were able to supply them with the quality they needed and meet what had become a very tight deadline.

As a result, Habitat for Humanity were able to send their volunteers to a variety of locations where the wearing of the t-shirts by the volunteers helps spread the word about the charity and what they do.



Habitat for Humanity now carries out its work in more than 90 countries around the globe - including most locally two projects in the UK at Liverpool and Southwark. In the image we find our t-shirts being worn by volunteers helping with construction work in Cluj in Romania. The economic and social legacy of years of oppressive rule in a Soviet style economy has left many in Romania without decent shelter. They are forced to live in cold, damp crowded housing, often in high rise apartment blocks, but at the other extreme in older wooden homes that are literally rotting.

What the Habitat programme does is help needy families build their new homes and live in them at a cost that is affordable in the local economy. The homes you see being constructed use a wooden frame structure and sandwich-type walls made of modern thermo-insulating materials. Even though properly heated, living in these homes will use a fraction of the energy of the older drafty colder housing stock still endemic in Romania. The same environmental considerations that helped Habitat for Humanity choose Pier 32 to supply clothing are put into practice in the work they do across the globe.

For more information please visit http://www.habitatforhumanity.org.uk/volunteering.htm.