Educating for Justice

Educating for Justice is one of my favorite nonprofits of all time. It’s really small scale (run basically by two people), but its impact could be huge if it just got some more funding. I first saw an E4J presentation in 2001 in L.A. It was one of the clearest, most interesting, and persuasive presentations on sweatshops I had ever seen, and I’ve seen and read a whole lot about this issue.
At the time, co-​directors Jim Keady and Leslie Kretzu had recently returned from their attempt to live in solidarity with Nike workers in Indonesia. The two tried to get jobs at the Nike factory, but when they couldn’t, they took up residence in the slums the factory workers lived in and lived as they did. This meant eating exactly what these workers did, using the medicine these workers had access to, etc. Both Americans lost a bunch of weight in just one month. They had their experience filmed, and this led to the creation of their nonprofit. They travel around the United States to high schools and colleges giving presentations about the reality of sweatshops – namely, that many if not most textile goods manufactured in foreign countries involve some form of serious human exploitation.
The personal stories of both do co-​directors is also very interesting. Keady was an assistant soccer coach and graduate student at St. John’s University. When he learned and did research about Nike’s exploitation of foreign workers, he decided to refuse to wear the Nike paraphernalia and/​or to cover up the swooshes on his clothing. Because of Nike’s contract with St. John’s, Keady and other coaches and players were prohibited from altering the logos in any way, covering them up, or wearing non-​branded items. Keady refused to wear the swoosh, and he was fired.
Leslie Kretzu drew attention to the exploitation of workers who make the clothing for athletic events by running a leg of the 2002 Winter Olympic Games torch relay barefoot. Although the Olympics ostensibly stand for fair play, the uniform Kretzu had to wear during her leg of the run was made in Burma, a repressive country whose military government recently killed thousands of nonviolent protesters, including Buddhist monks. Kretzu ran barefoot in solidarity with factory workers despite the fact that her leg of the relay was in Philadelphia in January. (The temperature was 35 degrees.)
If you’re a teacher, please contact Educating for Justice to see whether they can give a presentation to your class and/​or at your school.