Harry Potter, Fair Trade, Take 2

We already blogged about the connections between Harry Potter and fair trade. Now, smart girl Hermione (known in real life as actress and Brown University freshman Emma Watson) says she's spent the last year serving as creative advisor for People Tree, a fair trade clothing line.

Watson has helped design a summer wardrobe for teens, including everything from basic cotton tees to jersey dresses and poplin shorts.

"I wanted to help People Tree produce a younger range because I was excited by the idea of using fashion as a tool to help alleviate poverty and knew it was something I could help make a difference with," Watson said. "I think young people like me are becoming increasingly aware of the humanitarian and environmental issues surrounding fast fashion and want to make good choices but there aren’t many options out there.
"It has been the most incredible gap year project.”

For more on Watson and People Tree, check out this Sky News article.

Potter Thinks Fair Trade?

This made me laugh.

Looks like some people are taking the Harry Potter love to a whole new level--one blogger has decided to promo fair trade based on the fair-minded leanings of Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore.

On a website titled What Would Dumbledore Do?, fans can share their take on "what it means to be loyal to the spirit of Albus Dumbledore." Fair trade is today's topic.

Again, although I can't help but chuckle at the site, Harry Potter fans (like me) will have to laughingly agree that the writer makes some valid points.

I've re-posted the beginnings of this post below. Click here to read the full article.

When Hermione Granger discovers that the food at Hogwarts is being made by house elves – essentially unpaid, indentured servants, she immediately starts a campaign to replace exploitation with fairness. Though Dumbledore is not as outspoken on this issue as Hermione is, he certainly shares her passion. For one, he agrees to hire Dobby, the first “free elf” in modern Wizarding history and pay him fair wages for his work.
But he later elaborates on how Wizards have treated the enslaved workers who are doing their cooking and cleaning – saying that we have come to regard them as servants “…unworthy of much interest or notice. Indifference and neglect often do much more damage than outright dislike…” (Half-Blood Prince 834).

In the United States, we are often indifferent to the fact that much of our food and clothing comes from sweat shop labor. Sometimes the very chocolate that we eat is grown by enslaved children on the Ivory Coast who are forced to live in small shacks, beaten and sexually abused. In less intense cases, farmers are still exploited and left to stay in poverty as they toil in the hot sun growing cocoa plants.