The One More Project

Mission By fusing journalism with design, we believe inter-personal knowledge can generate the trust needed for a new business paradigm. Below is a video on our Mission and Campaign. Please Watch it and if you would like to invest in our project please click on the "Invest in the OM Project" at the top of the page.

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Featured OM Visionary: Jennifer James

We are down to the last two weeks of our Indiegogo campaign and we have some great surprises in store! In the next 14 days we will be featuring 9 amazing leaders in the fields of ethical fashion, environmental advocacy, arts and community organizing, international development, and women's empowerment, so check in daily to see who is new to our wonderful group of Featured OM Visionaries. Today, a conversation between Lisa Markuson and Jennifer James, the founder of the hugely inspirational ethical blogging forum, Mom Bloggers for Social Good. They have a huge global network of over 200 contributors, scores of renowned institutional partners, and yet retain their unique voice and mission, and give mom bloggers every a great name. Interviewing Jennifer James about her work and vision was a great honor for us here at The OM Project, and at the end of the interview Lisa was given the honorific title of Mom Blogger for Social Good!

Jennifer James

In your most recent blog post, you said, "The more transparent the global development community is the better for everyone. Real change can take place for the communities that most need aid and a broader story of how things work gets told." How do you see the push for transparency improving the field of international development right now? 

Right now transparency is high on the global agenda, particularly during the G8 summit where it is one of the UK's main topics of concentration and importance on the worldwide agenda. World leaders are increasingly understanding that transparency in the extractive sector, aid community, land rights, and private sector creates improved opportunities to help more people.  Resources and the money that is being paid to extract them is essentially dissipating into thin air. More transparency helps track where the resources are going and where the money is allocated. Transparency helps the aid community understand from where more monetary resources can be gathered in order to save more lives and improve more global development programs.

As the founder of Mom Bloggers for Social Good, you saw the potential that the powerful community of women had to nurture not just their families but each other and societies across the globe. What are the qualities that you see that these communicative, activist mothers have in common

As a mom I knew that all moms -  to some extent - have a special empathy quality that is intrinsic with motherhood. I knew that mothers with above average digital prowess would certainly move the needle for global development programs and issues. It's been great thus far. As a collective we have been able to spread awareness globally about a wide range of issues from worldwide huger and malnutrition to maternal mortality.

The One More |OM| Project is so new and fresh that we don't have a lot of the international accreditation that many large, recognized groups have, but we are transparent and open about the scrappy, innovative, and boundary-pushing nature of our work. Where do you see that type of venture fitting in, between spheres of international development, arts diplomacy, journalism, and eco fashion?

What is great about having a new, innovative company is that you can call the shots and you don't have outside influence moving the agenda. That's important. It's great to be nimble and independent. The more great work the OM Project does the greater exposure you all will garner. It's inevitable. Great work with a completely new spin will always grab the attention of those who share the same beliefs and activist ideals. Time will tell how the OM Project will fit within international development, journalism, arts diplomacy, and eco fashion. It's important to keep and open mind and maneuver among them as best as possible.

What is some advice you would give to new activists, entrepreneurs, and explorers seeking to change the world for the better and tell their stories about their work? My biggest piece of advice to new activists is to keep going. No matter how discouraging things seem one day, don't quit. Be committed. Check your ego at the door and always work for the greater good. I am not a mom, and will never have children ( I don't even have a pet) - can I be an honorary mom blogger for social good? Of course, we'd love that. I hereby declare you an honorary member of Mom Bloggers for Social Good.

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Featured OM Visionaries: Anushay Hossain

Bangladeshi blogger and journalist Anushay Hossain is no stranger to issues surrounding women’s rights and policy initiatives. After working on the Nobel Peace Prize nominated Campaign for Afghan Women, the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), and more than a decade as a feminist policy analyst on Capitol Hill, she regularly contributes to Forbes Woman, Huffington Post, The International Herald Tribune and is a co-anchor for Al-Jazeera English’s social media driven show The Stream.

She recently sat down with the OM Project to share her thoughts on the changing role of women’s movements.

  You've spent much, or most, of your career focusing on the role women play in society.  Why women, and why in the context of policy and development practices?  What does feminism mean to you?

Women because my own mother was, and still is, a really big feminist. She was involved with the feminist movement in Bangladesh, and she was always dragging me to all these feminist events growing up. I used to really hate it, but now I think it was so critical in shaping who I am today. My mother showed me from an early age how difficult it is to access education and health care for the majority of women and girls in Bangladesh. This had a profound impact on the development of my own feminist conscience. Putting women in the context of politics & development? That is a huge question I could go on and on about, but simply put, because we need to be at the decision making tables. For centuries, laws & policies have been made and implemented about and for women, and continue to be made, without our input. Women and girls are the world's largest untapped resource. It's absolutely ridiculous. This needs to change, and it needs to change now. Feminism to me means, and has always meant, the freedom as a woman to do whatever you want, to have your human rights recognized & respected. We have been kept uneducated and unaware for so long. We need to accept the fact that women and girls are our best investment for the future.

  Can you put your experience in context for us?  Where do women in general, and women's movements specifically, stand today compared to when you started your career as an activist?   Where do you think the women's rights movements are heading today?  What, in your mind is their goal? 

If I have learned anything from my experience, professional and personal, it is that all women are still fighting for equal rights. All of us, around the world from Turkey to Bangladesh to Italy to the US. At the core of my work, especially my writing has always been to show this struggle, to expose it and somehow unite women’s movements globally. I think the Internet & social media, social networking, and technology in general are helping women connect, organize and collaborate. We have seen the birth of online activism, and the feminist movement is huge online. I don't think you can generalize or lump all feminist movements together. Every place has their own history, and women have always been a huge part of that history, and continue to be so. I think the shared goal has always been political, social and economic equality, but how that is defined by whom and where is a huge factor. The recent focus on girls, child marriage and our need to eradicate these so called cultural practices by investing in girls and their education is something the whole world will soon reap the benefits of. At least, it is making me very helpful to the stipulation of girls rights in a lot of development and policy-related projects. Awareness is always the first step.

  What is your interpretation of recent events in Bangladesh?  Do the systemic challenges facing the garment industry disproportionately affect women?  If so, what implications does this have on development more broadly?  If it were up to you, what systemic components of the current situation would you address first and what would your objective be? 

I think the Rana Plaza tragedy, and the strong of garment fires leading up to it, exposes a secret Bangladeshis have kept for too long: the exploitation and complete disregard for worker's rights in the industry that is the core of our economy is rampant. It is a secret the world may just be discovering, but Bangladeshi know too well. A certain level of corruption and exploitation exists across the country, this is a much larger issue. But if we are at a point today in Bangladesh where we cannot even guarantee the workers we owe so much to, that they won't be killed, literally crushed to death at work, what does that say about us, about our humanity? The women who make up 80% of the garment work forces are often the breadwinners for their families. Many Bangladeshis point to how this has "empowered" our women by giving them financial independence which is true, but it also locks simultaneously locks them in a cycle of exploitation, and low wages. 

That being said, we cannot and must not lump all garment factories under the Rana Plaza umbrella. Many exists that do follow rules, provide safety standards and high wages to their workers. But more needs to be done and must be done. We cannot lose our economic bloodline, but we also cannot continue to exploit away the way we have been for decades. This exploitation exists on all ends—the Western clothing companies, the consumers, and even the Bangladeshi factory owners themselves. Greed for cheap clothes exists across the board, and no t-shirt is worth Bangladeshi blood, or human lives.

  What are your thoughts on The OM Project, and the work that Jason and Susie have done from Bangladesh?  Keeping in mind that The OM Project is a new model and it is crowd-sourcing its initial development, what would you want to tell people about it that may get them interested in participating? 

Any initiative that works to raise awareness about what is happening in the garment industry, that puts a human face to the cost of your $10-15 t-shirt is important. Jason and Susie have a unique understanding of the Bangladesh garment sector because of the work they've done through their journalism, through the time they have spent there. People need to understand that this is not a hopeless situation, it is a hopeful one. We all have an opportunity to empower ourselves here, the consumer, the female seamstress, and that is the message that is at the core of The Om Project that I think is really powerful.

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From the Charred Remains of a Bangladesh Garment Factory Fire, A Project of Hope | Women on GOOD

Check out our recent article in GOOD magazine! 

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Social Good Moms Meet Carolyn Miles, CEO of Save the Children, at We Can Be Heroes Event

Last Thursday New York City-based Social Good Moms got a chance to meet Carolyn Miles, President and CEO of Save the Children at the We Can Be Heroes campaign event during a Manhattan screening. 

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Design like you give a damn! #architectureforhumanity #iloveArchitecture (Taken with instagram)

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YES! #smartdesignfromthegroundup #theomproject @OM_Bangladesh

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Design like you give a damn! #architectureforhumanity #iloveArchitecture (Taken with instagram)

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YES!  Smart design, from the ground up.

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Bangladesh Factory Collapse: Uncertain Future for Rana Plaza Survivors

Bangladesh Factory Collapse: Uncertain Future for Rana Plaza Survivors

By Krista Mahr / Savar           June 10, 2013

    ABIR ABDULLAH / EPA

An injured survivor of the Rana Plaza building collapse returns home after having a follow-up medical treatment in Savar, Bangladesh, on June 7, 2013

          The news spread quickly: somebody was coming to give out more money. By the middle of the steely gray morning of June 7, thousands of men and women who used to work at the collapsed Rana Plaza factory complex had made their way to a military school in Savar, the industrial district outside Dhaka. They stood outside the compound’s walls as rain pattered down on their umbrellas. It was a chance to get some much-needed cash, but also a chance to trade information — about the dead, the missing, how to get compensation and, perhaps most elusively, what they should do next.

Six weeks after the worst industrial accident in the history of garment industry, information is still in short supply. The official death toll of the Rana Plaza collapse is 1,129, with 301 bodies still unidentified, but workers’-rights groups think the count is higher. Of a group of 20 or so people crowded under a tree, nobody quite knew why they had waited in line that morning to register their names, surrounded by soldiers and security guards in crisp polo shirts. Nor were the workers sure who, exactly, had provided the 1,000 taka — about $12 — that they were handed before they left. “An NGO?” somebody in the crowd offered. Khadija Begum, who worked at Phantom Apparels on the building’s 4th floor, said a neighbor had told her to come. “They gave us 1,000 taka and I wrote my name down on a list,” she said. “I don’t know who the money was from.”

 In fact, the money was from Primark, a British high-street retailer that had purchased clothes manufactured in Rana. The company had put an advertisement in the local press the week of June 1 telling people to go to the school in an attempt to create a master list of people working in Rana Plaza, according to Chris Barrie, a spokesman for the company. Primark wants to help all the workers it registers: it plans to set up bank accounts in order to pay the equivalent of a three-month salary to them, including workers who were not making Primark’s clothes.

It is symptomatic of this opaque industry that a foreign private company has taken on the job of untangling exactly how many people were in the building that day and who they were. The dangers of that lack of transparency were well known in Bangladesh before April 24, when Rana Plaza’s eight stories collapsed like a stack of pancakes. Safety violations have caused hundreds of worker deaths and thousands of injuries since Bangladesh’s garment sector — the world’s second largest after China — took off in the 1990s. But several successive governments have failed to clamp down on an industry that supports millions of people in a country with few other opportunities. “This is not a wake-up call,” says Sara Hossain, a prominent human-rights lawyer in Dhaka who has filed several public interest cases calling for inquiries into garment-sector accidents. “This is like somebody sleeping in after the alarm has been ringing and ringing and ringing.”

The horror of Rana Plaza finally made global consumers wonder about the true cost a T-shirt manufactured halfway around the world for $5. But that awakening has yet to translate into a loss of business: garment exports were up 15% in May, one of the sector’s best months all year. What comes next for Bangladesh’s 5,500 registered garment factories — and the people who work in them — is uncertain. The government and domestic manufacturers have already distributed cash for salary compensation and funeral expenses to workers, but it is still unknown how much long-term help will be available to disabled workers and victims’ families. It is also unclear how survivors will secure the jobs that the government has promised them, or whether the government will stand by its promises to amend the current labor law to, among other things, improve workers’ rights to organize freely. The need for such protection was clear last week, when hundreds of former Rana Plaza workers gathered to protest for more compensation. Near the site of this tragedy, police opened fire and used tear gas on a crowd full of survivors, witnesses said.

The concentrated attention on Bangladesh’s factories has, of course, led to some swift action by officials desperate to keep foreign buyers from fleeing to other markets. The owner of Rana Plaza and the individual factory owners operating in the building have been arrested. The government is making moves to correct its anemic and underperforming safety-inspection apparatus. On June 9, the Labor Ministry suspended seven safety inspectors who it said had rubber-stamped the license renewals of Rana Plaza factories. One company, the Ministry said, had been operating since 2008 without a site inspection. Over the past month, the government has also ramped up inspections, evaluating hundreds factories and shutting down several noncompliant factories.

Better late than never. But if the crackdown continues, that too raises questions about what will happen to the thousands of workers on the payrolls of unsafe enterprises — and the many more thousands of mothers, fathers and siblings in villages across Bangladesh who depend on their salaries. The Bangladesh Garments Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA), the leading industry association, estimates there is up to a 30% labor shortage in the country and more than enough jobs for garment workers who are looking for them. “If anybody doesn’t get a job, we can get them a job,” says Atiqul Islam, BGMEA’s president. “It’s an express guarantee.”

But many survivors have no interest in going back to work anywhere near a sewing machine ever again. In a hospital bed in Savar, Rogina Faidul, 25, is recovering from having had her left arm amputated. She pulls absentmindedly at her white bandage as she describes her ordeal. She was trapped under a beam for three days before rescuers handed her a small saw. She tried to cut through her arm to free herself, but when she got to the bone, she says, she passed out. She was later pulled out of the rubble, but her sister, who was working beside her, is still missing.

Faidul says she will not go back to work in a garment factory, and she won’t let her husband go back to the jute factory where he was working either. There may be some help on the way. Primark, which was buying clothes from the factory where Faidul worked, has promised long-term assistance to disabled employees, though it has not determined how much it will give, says Barrie. In the meantime, the young couple is hoping officials will make good on their word. “The government has promised to help us get some work,” Faidul says. If Dhaka comes through for Faidul and other survivors, a better future for Bangladesh’s garment industry may start to come into focus.

  Credits: TIME WORLD - Krista Mahr / Savar Source: http://world.time.com/2013/06/10/bangladesh-factory-collapse-uncertain-future-for-rana-plaza-survivors/?xid=rss-topstories&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+time/topstories+%28TIME:+Top+Stories%29

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on the bangladeshi factory disaster

This is not something often discussed on fashion blogs, but I felt it necessary to talk about the recent collapse of this Bangladeshi garment factory. Around 400 people died, sparking an intense Internet discussion about ethics in fashion. This particular factory produced clothing for retailers such as Primark, a pioneer of fast fashion, proving once again that cheap clothes come at a high human cost.

“It’s so offensive and shameful that this is the cost of cheap production and mass consumption, and people will surely feel more acutely than ever that something needs to be done, and quickly,” writes Jess of Empty Emptor. The solution seems simple: consumers should stop shopping at fast fashion chains, and retailers must sever their ties with dodgy factories. I myself try to avoid shopping at fast fashion retailers, not only for ethical reasons, but also because I often find myself displeased with the low quality of their garments. Clearly this is the way to go. Or is it?

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Story of The OM Project

In early 2013, Jason Motlagh and Susie Taylor traveled to Bangladesh to investigate its garment industry in the wake of the Tazreen Fashions fire. During the course of their reporting, they confronted the systemic problems that continue to claim hundreds of lives each year as manufacturers cut corners to meet overseas demand for cheap clothing. To date, pledges to clean up the industry have not resulted in a lasting investment to protect people. When they visited a women’s cooperative in the north of the country, it struck a refreshing contrast to the despair in Dhaka. Employees earned a daily minimum wage for an 8-hour workday, and accrued savings to set aside. They were free to take their work home with them, and enjoyed financial planning help and advancement within an organization that had successfully expanded abroad. With their savings the women unanimously chose to invest in their homes and children, enabling some to pursue a higher education. Agency and a broader sense of responsibility grow hand in hand. Susie and Jason had a realization: if consumers were offered the chance to see where products originated, they would likewise be empowered to make better choices and choose to invest in the people who made them. With this in mind, they designed a working bag made of locally sourced plant fiber and repurposed sari cloth. Made entirely by hand in dignified conditions, the bag is a symbol of fair and honest work, and a commitment to productivity. This is how the OM Project was born.