Launch of Drishtipat London with the theme of highlighing the Garments workers of Bangladesh

We had a very successful launch of Drishtipat on Sunday. Thanks to the publicity team and the agility of the members in selling tickets, we had a full house. We took utmost preparation in having the program run smoothly. But as luck would have it, the venue had some negative surprises beyond our control. The content of the program was very rich. We had a colorful dance drama on the life of a garments workers with songs and poetry on the first half followed by an intro of dp and a slideshow on the issue. This was followed by a panel debate with 6 fantastic panelists. Among them Neil Kearney came from Brussels and Lakshmi Bhatia of Gap came from India. Naila Kabeer and Jenefa Jabbar from BGMEA also came from Delhi and Dhaka respectively.

We opened the gate at 4 and the show started promptly at 4.15. All the drishtipat members were wearing green and red attire -- the color of Bangladesh and Drishtipat. The play was inspired on the life of Suraiya, a garments worker that Shafiur interviewed around Dhaka. The play was written by Eeshita Azad and directed by Leesa Gazi. The choreograph was done by Sultana Sharmin Jhara. A colorful brochure awaited the guests. The brochure contained an overview on the issue, the organization, past project detail of Palashbari, some pictures and the translation of the entire play. These are all well known young artists in their own right who decided to donate their time and skill for the show. The songs ranged from Robi Thakur to Suman Chatterjee to Moushumi Bhowmik to Shah Abdul Karim. Similarly poems ranged from traditional to contemporary -- all well suited for the theme. The 40 minute drama had added background score by Tadhin Project and the lighting was done by Katryn. Altogether the production was hailed by all as very well knit and well made. It was very effective in putting in a human face to the issue. The effect of the drama was palpable on the audience face. Later an audience sent the feedback saying the following:

With your absolute spot on dramatisation of Jamila's life and slide show -The issue that you have high lighted yesterday was so effective that -I am sure people are having difficulty in sleeping tonight. My mother is a sleeping partner of a garments factory in Bangladesh – I phoned her as soon as I got home. I felt so ashamed and felt some how responsible for the miseries of fellow human beings. I understand that government, buyers have vital roles to play in order to make changes in our valuable work forces' work conditions ,but I also think we need to alter our culture of exploiting the poor and need learn to treat less privileged "social under classes" as equal .

Sohini, our star Amra Kojon performer, who recently joined dp creative as well was the star performer in singing along with Imtiaz bhai. Sohini's briliant rendition of “Tor-ee Jonno” by Moushumi Bhowmik got even Moushumi, who was present at the show, to commend her performance. We are really lucky to have so many talented performer together in the London chapter. The show was MC'd by Tahmima Anam, a novelist, whose debut novel is getting published next March by a mainstream publishing house. After the play Tahmima introduced me to give an intro on Drishtipat. I made a informal talk to give the essense of Drishtipat. I then made way to the briliant slideshow created by Sid Arthur (F G) who is the author of Golmal blog.

The slideshow gave the background on the issue with some beautiful images provided by Drik and Farjana K Godhuly and images found from own internal research. It perfectly set up the debate that was to follow.

The debate was very lively. We had prepared some set questions. It was moderated by Tahmima and I. We started with Neil asking him what was the real story of the recent unrest in Bangladesh.
and why were the workers breaking the factories that provides their livelihood. To this Neil, who visited Bangladesh 9 times in the past year, gave a long list of issues that were the cause of the worker's grivences. To this we asked the BGMEA rep Barrister Jenefa Jabbar to respond. She was forceful and very well spoken and gave us a list of actions that the BGMEA has taken to address these. At this point, I mentioned the recently published stat that BGMEA has not implemented the past 4 agreements they signed with the workers and I asked her what would be the guarantee this time around. Asked to be given a time line, she gave a timetable of three months.

We then went to the government representative, the very eloquent Saida Muna Tasneem. Tahmima asked her what the government was doing for implementation. Govt speaker was eloquent but she gave the same tired argument that govt's lacked of resources for proper implementation. She mentioned the task force and some recent steps, then we moved to naila and martin, I asked martin whether there was a balance in the int campaigns as boycotts may move markets away from Bangladesh, martin mentioned that they are not calling for boycotts and they are trying to make the consumers more aware of where they buy their clothes from. Naila kabeer at this point made some really good points about how the same way owners are abusing workers; corporations are also abusing Bangladesh. She asked the bgmea to accept some responsibility for the current mess we are in. Laxmi Bhatia, the star panelist from Gap who came from India for this and who previously said that Bangladesh has become a "mission" made some really good points on how the consumer is becoming more aware and companies are listening. Also she stressed the importance of ALL the companies be serious about compliance issue. Jenefa made a point strongly at this point saying that if the companies are willing to not squeeze the suppliers for every penny in price, BGMEA would make sure all the compliance issues are taken care of in no time. Martin highlighted that ultimate power to convince the buyers should lie with consumers and he wanted everyone to be not just concerned with value. A lot more was discussed and debated [we will provide the full transcript soon]. Neil Kearney summed up the meeting at the end saying that he was more optimistic than before. This time he saw the urgency among everyone to pay attention but he said we must keep the pressure on for results.

All in all, a remarkable event where a comprehensive overview of the whole issue of garments industry was done. On one hand, we were able to highlight the remarkable achievements for women that has been possible because of the garments industry and on the other hand we showed the necessity of social compliance for strong and sustainable industry.