Jo Wood’s Ethical Fashion Drive

Jo Wood has been busy this Autumn.  When she’s not dancing with Brendan Cole on Strictly Come Dancing, she’s running her organic skin care business. But most recently she has been an active supporter of the Love Fashion Hate Sweatshops campaign. Jen Marsden writes.

Television star Jo has been pictured with Love Fashion Hate Sweatshops placards to encourage everyone to join her and the anti-poverty charity War on Want to call on the British government to act in preventing UK fashion retailers from exploiting overseas workers.

Ruth Tanner, campaigns and policy director at War on Want, said: “Our charity is thrilled Jo spared us the time from her busy schedule to pose for a photograph and indebted to her for such commitment to this cause. We hope many others will follow her example.”

Since returning from the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka where she witnessed garment workers’ hardship, on a trip hosted by Safia Minney of fair trade fashion company People Tree, Jo has been active fair fashion supporter.

Returning from her trip she stated, “The conditions that they lived in in the slums were appalling: the rubbish, the smell and the poverty. Up to six people live in a tin room on bamboo stilts above heaps of rubbish. Yet I was humbled by the people and their attitudes.”

It is hoped that her involvement will boost the 50,000 names the charity hope to take to UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Since the campaign began with fashion designers and actors alike as Greenmystyle.com reported earlier, more public figures have pledged their support, including John Pilger, Tony Robinson and organic gardener Bob Flowerdew.

You can add your name to the campaign – and your own pictures  – on the Love Fashion Hate Sweatshops website.

Image courtesy of Jo Metson Scott