Design internship with 3things

Posted on June 15, 2011 by Sophie W

We’re so excited to be offering a design internship to work with us on Exchange for Change, our annual festival about fashion, design & sustainability. Get in quick though – applications close Tuesday 28th June.

 

 

 

Position Description:

Section/Unit: Oxfam’s Youth Engagement Program

Start Date: July 2011

Finish Date: September 2011

Days/hours per week: 1-2 days per week

Position Title: 3things Designer

Position Description: The successful applicant will work within the 3things team to design visuals for Exchange for Change, as well as other 3things design work for online or printed use.

Can the task/s be performed outside the office and/or office hours? Yes

Will this position involve working with children (under 18 years old)? No

Staff Person Responsible for Volunteer: Lauren Robertson

Roles and responsibilities:

  • Design DIY Exchange for Change ‘kit’
  • Design poster/s + flyers
  • Design avant card
  • Assist web team in developing online designs (website page/facebook ads, etc)
  • Design print ads for event
  • Design info booklet to have at the event
  • Design any additional collateral to have at the event

    • Possible additional design work:

  • Source/create new hero 3things images for website
  • Create any collateral for upcoming events

    • Qualifications/Skills/Attributes Required:

  • Proven talent in the area of design, visual communications
  • Ability to keep to deadlines
  • Ability to work in a team
  • Ability to communicate ideas effectively
  • Ability to use design programs (e.g. Photoshop)

    • Training/Supervision Provided:

  • Guidance and support from Oxfam staff in carrying out your responsibilities

    • Additional Comments:
    How to apply:
    Answer the following questions (max.250 words each):

  • Why does this position interest you?
  • Tell us about any professional or volunteering roles that may be relevant to this internship.
  • Why else would you be completely amazing in this role?

    • Email your completed application to design4change@oxfam.org.au by Tuesday 21st June.

    Posted in Design 4 change | Leave a comment

    Choosing cruelty free

    Posted on May 23, 2013 by Emily Chantler

    Compassionate shopping made easy! If you’ve ever been daunted by the process of switching to all cruelty-free products, I’m telling you now is the best time to do so given the abundance of cruelty-free products on the market. 

    So, what exactly is cruelty free?

    A cruelty-free company is one that does not test their products or ingredients on animals.  It is a term most commonly used by cosmetic companies to let consumers know that animal-testing is not a part of their manufacturing process.  As a basic rule of thumb, to ensure that a product is cruelty-free, be on the lookout for products marked with a ‘not tested on animals’ label, or better yet, the ‘Choose Cruelty Free’ stamp of approval.  For a more in-depth look at a cruelty-free lifestyle, I’ve complied a small number of tips & tricks taken from the websites of such cruelty-free advocates as PETA, The Humane Society International and Australia’s own CCF, in the hopes of making the transition to a cruelty-free lifestyle that much easier.   

    Make a pledge

    It’s thought that by signing up to a pledge to live cruelty-free you are more likely to stick with it by cementing your new lifestyle choice and holding yourself more accountable to what you’d like to achieve. There are a great number of pledges available to you on websites such as CCF and Leaping Bunny.

    Have a great support network

    You’ll be more likely to stick to your cruelty-free pledge if you’ve got some friends or family along for the ride. PETA recommends taking family members, friends or housemates along with you the next time you go on a shopping trip and selecting the cruelty-free products together. It can be a huge help to pick out cruelty free products that everyone can use, such as laundry detergent, dish washing liquid, toothpaste and more.

    Do your reading

    There are a great number of cruelty-free and ethical shopping lists available online – all of which take the guesswork out of choosing cruelty-free products. The best one I found was PETA’s searchable online database, where you can search by company name or product type to learn which products are cruelty-free. Or more specific to Australia, Choose Cruelty Free, which outlines all ethical cosmetic companies nationally.

    Become technological

    PETA has released an iPhone app that allows you to check the cruelty-free status of a product on the go. And by connecting with your favourite animal rights group on social media, you can be sure to stay up to date with the latest in choosing cruelty free.

    Purchasing products from cruelty-free companies is one way of showing your commitment to ending animal suffering, and because of the power of the almighty consumer dollar, boycotting companies that do test on animals may compel the “testers” to change their policies in order to keep consumer business. 

    Related posts:

    Posted in Ethical Fashion Month, Fashion | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

    Exchange for Change @ Canterbury Girls’ School

    Posted on May 23, 2013 by 3things

    The students at Canterbury Girls’ Secondary College in Victoria didn’t have to go far to find a bargain during their lunch break yesterday.

    They had a great time hosting an Exchange For Change clothing swap at their school …and the best part? Refreshing their wardrobes barely cost them a thing, helped raise awareness about ethical fashion choices and helped raise funds for Oxfam Australia. Win!

    Year 12 student Rachel Ch’ng was the organisational brains behind the event, and she gives us a round up of all the fun she had and the challenges she faced hosting her school’s first Exchange For Change.

    Sounds like it was a lot of hard work, but worth it in the end. Nice job, Rachel & co! 

     

     

    Rachel:

    A week before the event, I allocated a couple of girls to be in charge of accepting clothing donations in the school foyer. On the first day of accepting of donations, no donations came in, my helper and I realised that the posters, announcements, bulletins and newsletter advertisements were not effective, and so we got to work by getting a couple of donated coats that Ms Vilinksy had brought in, and went around the school telling everyone about the clothes swap that was happening the next Wednesday.

    On day two, there were still no clothing donations from any of the students, and I started to get a bit worried and stressed. I had a talk to a couple of the Social Service Representatives and asked them whether we should cancel the event, move it back further, keep on going and hope for the best. We settled with the latter.

    The hard working team of volunteers

    On day three, which was a Wednesday, I held my “very-important-must-come” meeting for all the representatives that were involved in setting up the event. I sent two girls to take care of the accepting of donations, whilst I talked to the rest of my crew. Apparently, my email regarding the “very important meeting” was not read by many of the Social Service reps and so only a couple of girls turned up. The good part was that we got one donation from one of the reps that day, so hooray!

    Day four wasn’t any better, but one donation did come in from one of the reps. I initially thought of stopping the accepting of donations by day four, but obviously, I had to extend it.

    I then decided to use the social media (oh how great Facebook is!) to notify many of my Year 12 mates about it. It didn’t work overnight, but at least they were aware of Exchange for Change. Thankfully, one of the Year 11 Social Service reps had the initiative to pester all her friends about the event, and so we got quite a number of donations on day five. But we needed more, and so we extended the accepting-of-donations dates and rounded up some girls to take a couple of fabulous looking coats to tell every friendship group we encountered about the event.

    Creating posters for the event

    Creating posters to spread the word

    Over the weekend, I continuously reminded my friends to bring in their stuff in on Monday. A couple of them did, one of them even cleared three quarters of her wardrobe and brought in two large bags full of amazing and branded clothes (branded clothes – appeals to everyone).

    By Tuesday afternoon, the day before the event, we got quite a large number of clothes/accessories/bags/shoes etc., which I then got a couple of my trustworthy friends to stay back after school to help me sort them all out into categories and appeal. It wasn’t until 5pm that we finished, and by then, we were feeling very pleased with ourselves. My friends also managed to find something that they liked and placed first dibs on them before anyone else could take them!

    Before I knew it, the day itself came. And not surprisingly, I woke up thanking God that the day has come, and it would soon all be over and I can finally catch up with my studies and friends.

    So, today (22nd May) was the day of Canterbury Girls’ Exchange for Change (aka: Clothes Swap) where a great deal of swapping, clothes, shoes, bags, accessories, squeals of delight and rummaging took place in Canterbury Girls’ drama space over lunchtime.

    But before all that could take place, there was the setting up to do, so a couple of Social Service representatives came in during recess to set up the drama space with all the clothes on their racks, shoes under the racks, scarves and bags on tables and so on. One of my favourite parts of the day was when the girls who got there first did not wait for me to tell them to start, instead they just got everything out and got started right away. Another favourite of mine was the innovative way they thought of making a rack out of two large boards and a bamboo stick on top of them.

    "Bags this dress!"

    Yeap, that’s it in summary. There’s still heaps of clothes left over, so tomorrow, I’m going to leave the boxes of clothes and stuff in the middle of the drama space and the girls can rummage through all of it and buy things that they would like. It’ll be pretty crazy, but at least that will raise more money, and get rid of much of the stuff that is left over.

    It’s been a crazy experience trying to do something new and different in the school and by someone who is inexperience at organising events (me). But well, we managed it. And dare I say, it went quite well.

    Want to host your own Exchange For Change event? You’ll find everything you need in our DIY kit, plus heaps more info on our ethical fashion pages.

    Posted in 3things, Ethical Fashion Month, Fashion, Students | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

    Kmart, Target, Cotton On and Big W – protect the workers making your clothes

    Posted on May 22, 2013 by 3things

    The recent factory collapse in Dhaka, Bangladesh, is a shocking reminder of the unsafe working conditions many people  have to endure just to make a living. Unfortunately, hazardous and sometimes deadly conditions are commonplace in the garment industry, not to mention very low wages and long working hours.

    It took the deaths of over 1000 factory workers on April 24 to make this well-known injustice a hot topic in the news, but the upside is that public pressure over the last few weeks has brought about a major win for garment factory safety standards in Bangladesh.

    More than 30 companies including H&M, Mango, Inditex (owner of the Zara), Primark, C&A and Tesco have now agreed to sign the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh.

    Unfortunately, Cotton On, Kmart, Target and Big W have not yet signed.

    Oxfam is urging these companies, who source many of their products from Bangladesh, to join others in their industry in standing up for workers’ rights. The Accord will help ensure better working conditions for some of Bangladesh’s poorest people by giving them the right to refuse dangerous work and by making independent building inspections compulsory.

    Sign the petition here and tell Cotton On, Kmart, Target and Big W that you care about the people who make your clothes.

    Learn more

     

    Posted in Ethical Fashion Month, Fairtrade, Fashion, Global village, Human Rights, Humanitarian, Poverty, trade | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

    YouTubing for a cause

    Posted on May 20, 2013 by 3things

    Zac Phillips wants you to help him raise money for charity simply by watching his YouTube clips, AND he wants you to help him decide where to donate it!

    The Aussie YouTuber says, “I have decided to donate all the advertisement revenue that I get from my YouTube videos to a charity. Recently I got my first cheque for $159 and I’m going to match that with my own money. I know it’s not much but it is infinitely more than nothing.

    “I believe that donations of time or money to any charity is the upward shift that the world needs.”

    Zac will donate to whichever charity his viewers comment and vote for most.

    Go to Zac’s YouTube page to suggest a worthy cause!

    Posted in 3things, Community, Profile, Tech, _blog | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

    Silk – what you don’t know probably won’t upset you

    Posted on May 20, 2013 by Guest Blogger

    By Louise Kate Anderson

    On my various travels, in Europe and more recently, Vietnam, I’ve picked up a few beautiful silk scarves over the years. Yesterday by chance I happened to google how silk is made. Although I’ve been to a silk factory in Lyon, I never really understood the scientific process of how silkworms produce this luxurious fabric.

    Photo via Kidspot

    I was… astonished, angry and saddened to learn that I can add silk to a long list of things like many household products, cosmetics, fur, cage eggs, etc that I no longer wish to buy. I was astonished because it’s so commonplace to understand that something like fur comes from an “evil” place, but silk was always this beautiful, luxurious natural product that never harmed a fly. Pun intended – it actually harms the silk worms.  

    From several websites like this one, and this one, I learnt that most silk is produced from the cocoons of silk worms (which are apparently a lot like caterpillars). The caterpillars make their cocoon in order to transform into moths, and just before they eat their way out of the cocoons, they are boiled alive, before the cocoons are pried open and harvested as that beautiful, luxurious fabric we call silk.

    So that’s why I was astonished. I was angry because I’m sick of it. I don’t want to live in a world where I have to google every single product before I buy it to make sure it hasn’t been involved in ripping someone off, treating something or someone or the earth badly, all for the glorious purpose of making someone else some money.

    I’m no saint. I eat meat, I kill mosquitoes and cockroaches (or rather with the latter, I scream and run away until someone else does it). Nature has no shortage of cruelty. The frog eats the bug, the snake eats the frog, the bird eats the snake. Often in less than humane ways. I get it. But I don’t torture cockroaches before I kill them. I realise caterpillars are caterpillars. People seem to classify smaller animals as “less than alive”, as “unable to feel pain”. Well, just because we don’t like to think about it, doesn’t mean they don’t.

    Silk scarves for sale in Sapa, Vietnam

    As (arguably), the most intelligent and powerful creatures on the planet, humans, who on a large scale, farm and kill animals for food, for fashion and even for sport, I believe we have a duty to the earth that has provided these species for us. Power doesn’t come without responsibility, or at least it shouldn’t. I realise that animal and environmental welfare is very much a first world problem – you do what you need to survive, and no starving society is going to be worried about the welfare of the monkeys they need to eat. What bothers me is the motivation behind everything – money.

    Yes, the Great Barrier Reef is beautiful, but would anybody worry about it as much as we do if not for the billion dollar tourism industry it caters for? And even that isn’t enough – I just donated to the WWF because turtles are washing up sick and dead on the shores for no reason anybody has yet worked out. Not only do we trick the fish onto our lines and suffocate them, we do it at a rate that will leave none of those fish for the future. It’s not enough to use the fur off creatures’ backs, we have to torture them to get it. We boil alive lobsters because it apparently makes them “fresher” to eat and we terrify them by chasing them around in “catch your own lobster” fork machines in pubs before we do. We turn a blind eye to the torture of animals like rabbits for industries like L’óreal that make billions of dollars a year and could very much afford to change their policies. But hey, if we make a profit from that mascara, what’s the problem? It’s not my rabbit being tortured.

    And lastly, I was saddened. Sad that this beautiful scarf I was wearing that made me happy is no longer something I will enjoy wearing. No longer something I can say to someone “hey, check out my scarf – it’s 100% silk and I got it in this cute store in Vietnam!”

    Cruelty-free silk, via Earth & State

    No, to me a luxurious item is not luxurious when it’s got blood all over it. The websites have told me to look for “cruelty free silk”. Well I don’t know about you, but I’ve never seen cruelty-free silk in my life. There’s 20 brands of free-range eggs in supermarkets, but I imagine cruelty-free silk is harder to find than toothpaste that’s not tested on animals.

    I feel frustrated with this. Being human doesn’t give us the power to own the world and all its species and do with them what we please just as long as it makes us some cash. Disrespecting a species you’re farming to make money doesn’t make your produce luxurious, it makes it dirty.

    I’m on a tangent now, but I feel like humanity has misunderstood this concept of ownership. Working for money that humans created and paying for land they didn’t doesn’t really make it yours. Nature has been around since long before you were born, and will exist longer than you are alive. It is not owned by anyone. If anything, you are just borrowing it from future generations, and what is left of it for them is entirely up to you.

    So here I am, trying to respect the silk worms that painfully died to make me this scarf. And frustrated with the world that allowed this to happen because everybody thought “hey, it’s just a worm”.

    Posted in Fashion, trade, Travel | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment