Events

When the year 10 Italian students at the Victorian School of Languages (VSL) were tasked with designing the school’s end-of-year graduation jumpers, they wanted to ensure the garments would not be made in a sweatshop. So they went to local manufacturer, Qualitops, which is accredited by the joint business-union initiative, Ethical Clothing Australia.

As part of their ‘Student Action Team’ project, the class of 15 students designed, organised the production, and sold over 50 ‘hoodies’ to their fellow VSL students who are studying languages such as Greek, Albanian, Bulgarian, Mandarin and Bahasa, with the profits going towards a planned class trip to Italy next year.

Student, Thomas Benjamin, explained how the class decided on the slogan, Voices of the world, to appear on the grey hoodies to present a positive message for all of the students that study with the VSL each Saturday at the Brunswick Secondary College campus.

“We split the team up and assigned different roles which included surveying the different classes about what they wanted. We made our own logo and did a sketch of what it looked like, but because of a mistake we made with the order, it was the actual sketch version that ended up being used on the jumpers,” Mr Benjamin said.

However, student, Maria Louca-Ziino, said the ‘accidental design’ was popular amongst the students and she was pleased it turned out the way it did.

“We didn’t want it to be like a boring uniform. We wanted it to be a bit different and something that we’d like and want to wear. It’s good because you can tell that it was made by us – it’s our own end of year jumper,” Ms Louca-Ziino said.

The students’ teacher, Nina Rossini, was proud of the students work, because of the care they had taken to make sure the product was both of a high quality and ethical standard.

“All of the Student Action Group projects have been fantastic. It’s something the VSL has continued with even when the funding from the government finish, because the Actions Groups are a great way for the various classes to interact within the school and the community to look at broader issues,” Ms Rossini said.

Ethical Clothing Australia’s spokesperson, Tommy Clarke, said ethical uniform procurement policies are a great way that schools can help support an ethical and local clothing industry.

“Either swapping to ethical manufacturers that are accredited with Ethical Clothing Australia on their Australian-made garments, or encouraging existing suppliers to become Accredited are both great ways that schools can help our initiative, so we are always more than happy to assist schools review where their uniforms are sourced from,” Mr Clarke said.

Photo caption: Belinda Colosimo-Minniti & Adam Makcontenti model the ethical hoodies for their classmates.