Second Hand Clothing

The Second Hand Clothing Market:

You may often wonder where the thousands of pounds of clothing that people donate to clothing drives, flea markets, Value Village and other various places go if it is not sold on the racks of any number of second hand clothing shops. Or you may be like me into a few short months ago, and not even think about it at all. Right before I arrived in Ghana, George Roter (for those who don't know one of the co-founders and CEOs of EWB) spoke about this at one of our pre-dep sessions. He told us how Africa, not unlike other developing countries has become a dumping ground for used clothing. It has become a way for people to make their livelihoods. From the charities that collect the clothes in Canada, the U.S. and countries in Europe, they sell it in bulk to intermediary companies that ship it overseas and sell it by weight to vendors who will travel from bigger cities - here in Ghana, Kumasi and Accra are examples - to smaller places to markets where they sell their goods. Some industrious vendors will hoof around towns and villages peddling their wares. It is generally men who sells used clothing here. From t-shirts, pants, sock and bed-sheets, you can find whatever you need or desire. Sure it isn't haute couture, but it is durable and inexpensive. YOu see people wearing shirts with various slogans, companies names or sayings like "Playboy" or "Miss Naughty" or "Oakville Marathon 2003", without having any idea what they are wearing around. I have heard stories of people coming to Africa and seeing sweaters and t-shirts from their graduating class of college and speaking to the person and finding out that the shirt is actually theirs! (This may be an urban myth, but still...)

But I digress (what else is new!) from the point of this post. So when someone buys a bag of clothing, from 20-100 Ghana cedis, they create their means to feed, clothe and send their family to school. I was explaining to a men selling shorts for 1 Ghana cedis a pair (which is about a dollar) around one Sunday afternoon how people throw away these clothes in Canada and he was ready to get into business with me. He explained if I was to ship 3 or 4 big bowes of clothing over, it would provide him enough money to buy land and build a house. WOW did I feel guilty for giving about 8 bags of clothes over the year to charity or even worse, the dumpster.

SO what? Ask yourself how you feel about this. Does this change how you will donate old clothes? WIll you give more because you know that it is going to create a means to income for someone? Or will you stop donating because this is deceitful of charities to dump clothes on developing countries for money? Why aren't they advertising the fact that they are doing this? Or will you keep doing things the way you are now? I hope this has given you some brain-food!

A little not to accompany this post. Ghana has a very strong clothe industry. From Kente cloth in the South, to hand woven cloth here in the north and various types of tie-n-dye, batik and wax prints, people can have clothes tailor made! In Zambia, where my coach Josephine was in a placement before she came to Ghana, she told me how this also used to be the case, but since the second hand clothing market has come and grown like a big hairy monster, people no long support the local clothe industry like they used to. I sincerely hope that this does not happen here in Ghana. The excitement and character that fabric gives here in Ghana is definitely something I treasure and will miss dearly (I mean come on, tailor made clothes? It is wonderful!)
Until Next time!

At the market, where many clothing stalls are