What is The Clothing Supply Chain? Classroom Activity: Make The Supply Chain Through Drama & Art

What is The Clothing Supply Chain?

The supply chain refers to the order of how our clothes are made. Just like the chain on your bike which are in order, if one link of the chain is removed, your bike chain will not work. Similarly, the the links in the clothing supply chain have to be in order to work.

First, farmers pick crops such as cotton.

Next, The cotton goes to the Suppliers who change the cotton into sheets of fabric.

Then, the fabric goes to the factory, where garment workers sew our clothes.

After that, once our clothes are made, they are sent to warehouses.

Our clothes are then transported to shops.

Then, we, the consumers buy the clothes and bring them to our house.

Finally, when we do not want our clothes anymore we get rid of them in different ways.

The supply chain is currently in a linear fashion. This means that there is a start and a finish. There is a big problem with our linear supply chain. Often the farmers who make our clothes live very far away from the people who sew our clothes and the people who sew our clothes live in a very far away and different country than us in Ireland.

This means that clothes need to be transported all around the world in either a truck, a boat or a plane. Trucks, planes and boats release lots of CO2 into our atmosphere which leads to climate change.

Lets say we pay 10 euro to buy a tshirt. That 10 euro needs to pay the farmers who grow the cotton, the garment workers to sew our clothes, the warehouse workers who pack our clothes to be transported. The drivers and ship captains who transport our clothes between these countries. Then we need to pay for petrol. Once at the clothes shop in Ireland, for example Pennys, we need to pay the Penny's staff who work there. We need to pay them with that 10 euro we paid for our Tshirt.

How much money can the farmer, garment worker, warehouse staff and pennies staff get paid from that 10 euro? Can they feed their family on that much money?

What Can We Do To Help?

Swap clothes with your friends.

Shop in charity shops.

Rent your clothes.

Mend your clothes.

Give your clothes to charity shops.

Recycle your old and holey clothes at recycling bins.

Class Activity: Make the Supply Chain through Arts and Craft and Drama.

Resources.

Paper

Pencils

Pens

Toy plane, ship, truck (draw or make them)

Cardboard

Assign kids into 7 groups and give them a country each. Spread the groups around the classroom.

1. Farmers- Africia

2. Supplier- China

3. Factory/ Garment Workers- Bangladesh

4. Warehouse Workers- Sri Lanka

5. Penny's staff- Ireland

6. The Adults- Their home.

Ask each group to create the setting of where they work through arts and crafts and costume design.

The teacher can give themselves a small object (get creative) to represent their Tshirt. Walk slowly along the supply chain demonstrating that your 10 euro Tshirt is being transported around the world.

Then ask your kids to look up at the world map on the white board. Using a pointer, show the children exactly where their Tshirt traveled around the world before it got in your classroom.

Remind kids to never bin their clothes.