The Bright Continent

At a hospital in Malawi, I met a woman wearing a “Harvard Volleyball” tee shirt. I don’t think she was on the varsity squad in Cambridge. More likely, her shirt was a “gift in kind”: a used and sometimes useless item (think caps and tee-shirts honoring also-rans in the NBA playoffs), which are sent from advanced economies to the closets of teens and toddlers in frontier and emerging economies. Anyone who has spent some time traveling around the developing world has likely had the same experience. (Mother Jones’ Laura Haughton shot a reel of such shirts in Liberia). As one person continually questioning my presumptions about how to promote progress in Africa, I find this phenomenon both charming and damning.

Damning—why? In 2010, American Jason Sadler began an initiative called “1 Million Shirts,” in which concerned individuals were encouraged to send old t-shirts to him—which he would then ship to “Africa.” Many critics pointed out that importing 1 million free shirts would not only flood local market, putting local tailors and clothiers and textile workers out of business, but reinforce the erroneous idea that Africans are unable to provide the most basic necessities. Shipping was expensive. Mindless clothing donation is not the best way to engage westerners comparatively concerned about Africa. Also, Nobody Wants Your Old Shoes. 

In short, the idea falls into the category of “Stuff We Don’t Want.” Scores more development practitioners joined the pile-on, and 24 hours later Sadler was forced, essentially to table the idea. He wrote: “That money will now be going to help people build wells, schools, homes, etc. The specific places and regions where this will be happening will be defined shortly and we want to make sure we get it right this time and don’t generalize anything.”

Aside from being richly satisfying to those who kvetch about misguided charity (as opposed to well-thought out philanthropy), the instant backlash demonstrated a certain quantum leap forward for accountability in the aid community. Teddy Ruge, a friend and founder of Project Diaspora, summarized: “A project was launched, summarily bashed, killed and redirected in the span of 70 hours of it going public.” That’s an encouraging trend—especially in the light of the crisis of faith Greg “Three Cups of BS” Mortenson’s antics are bringing to the world of do-gooding.

On some level, this is worth laughing about. And, so, via UN Dispatch, behold “Project Repat”—funded in part by Kickstarter—an initiative that vends secondhand shirts from Africa to hipsters in the west:

Their mission is to “purchase amazing t-shirt castoffs from secondhand markets around the world, bring these spectacular t-shirts home with our team of volunteers, and then rebrand and resell the shirts in the United States in support of nonprofits active in the developing world.” It’s a refreshing, interesting idea. I like that it acknowledges and draws attention to the issue of second hand clothes winding up in the developing world. There’s an important awareness-raising and education dimension to Project Repat, which is positive and much-needed. There is still not enough public awareness of the issues associated with donated goods and GIK. Project Repat’s messaging – with its cool graphics and hip communications – is poised to reach many.

Though I am not the kind of person who would spent $25 on a tee-shirt, I appreciate the irreverence of the gesture. And like Penelope Chester, I believe in the potentially curative powers of this scheme:

the real issue is not to get rid of t-shirts that already made their way to the developing world, but to stop them from leaving in the first place. This means changing the incentive structure so that companies like the NFL don’t get a huge tax benefit from giving away obsolete t-shirts to charity; educating individual donors about what constitutes good aid, and the unintended consequences of their gifts; shifting the paradigm around ideas of poverty alleviation; etc. I think Project Repat could play a role in this space.