By Daiem Mohammad
(Daiem is a journalist with the Focus Media Arts Centre)

Climate Conversations is a podcast produced by a collective of youth involved with the Focus Media Arts Centre’ Radio Regent.  In the newest episode, hosts Jabin Haque and Victoria Nannetti, speak with Isabelle Sain, the Regional Coordinator for Southern Ontario for the Fashion Revolution. The Fashion Revolution is an international not-for-profit movement that was founded in the wake of the 2013 Dhaka garment factory collapse. Sain describes the movement as a “movement to work towards educating, but also (...) calling the fashion industry to work on issues that it has”. 

The show starts out with the group discussing the Dhaka garment factory collapse, with our hosts who, likely due to their age, was unaware of the disaster. Sain explains that due to mismanagement and the building not being up to code, a factory full of garment workers in Bangladesh collapsed. This structural failure caused the deaths and injuries of many people.

Our guest Isabelle Sain also clearly feels strongly about spreading awareness, but also promoting and encouraging others to be more inquisitive and to think critically about their relationship to the fashion industry. When our hosts tell her that they too have noticed that a sizable amount of clothes that they wear was made in a third world country. She highlights the Fashion Revolution’s hashtag: #WhoMadeMyClothes that they’ve used as a tool for online organizational movement.

They also talk about Fashion Revolution Week, an annual week-long event that happens on both a local and global scale that promotes organization, mobility, and awareness regarding the issues that the Fashion Revolution specializes in. For 2022, the main “thesis” is to demand living wages for garment workers.