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how the pandemic led to my faith fueled passion for climate justice Flo Wright

How the Pandemic Led to my Faith-Fueled Passion for Climate Justice

4 min

Along with the rest of the world, 2020 turned my life upside down. I was preparing for my A levels and then hoping to go inter-railing with my friends before taking a gap year where I would work and then attend a bible college in Kenya with Cross-links.

You guessed it, none of that happened! I found myself in March with A levels cancelled, my travelling plans up in the air and suddenly a ridiculous amount of time on my hands. At first I was distraught. I found it hard to get used to the fact that my exams weren’t going to be happening and I was worried about how my grades would be calculated. Then I began using my time to sew. At first I listened to magic FM constantly but after hearing the ‘Bensons for Beds’ advert one too many times, I began to listen to podcasts.

I had given up fast fashion as a new year’s resolution and trying to use less plastic for a while, but the more I listened to climate change podcasts and researched issues around fast fashion, the more I became passionate about sustainable fashion and climate justice. In case you aren’t aware, fast fashion is clothing produced rapidly in response to trends and often uses sweatshops and methods that are damaging to the environment. Climate justice explains climate change to be damaging politically, ethically and environmentally. For example, the people who are least responsible for global warming will be the ones most affected by the climate crisis.

At the same time as I was researching, I was loving sewing and friends and family started asking me to make things for them. One of my friends was always posting about her sister’s mini business and I realised this was something I could do. I started simple, selling hairbands, then in the summer I made bucket hats galore and now I’m all about the dungarees.

I make my clothes out of old items. My patchwork dungarees, for example, are made from old jeans. People from my church soon realised what I was doing and people started to pop round all the time with bags of materials or old clothes for me to cut up. My granny turned up one weekend with an entire suitcase full of old curtains! I ended up taking over the spare room in my house for all my materials – much to the dismay of my parents. But in my defence, we can’t have guests at the moment!

I started using Instagram as a way to show people what I was making and it also became a huge source of information as I found so many other small businesses to follow and sustainability influencers to follow and be inspired by. One such influencer is @lesswastelaura who put on her story one day that she was looking for Christians who would be interested in helping with a fast fashion event. It was a ‘bingo’ moment where I realised I could bring my faith and my interest in climate justice together, and that Jesus would’ve cared so, so much about the exploitation in the fashion industry and its impact on the environment.

I messaged her straight away and we were able to chat. She told me that it was an event for alumni of Tearfund’s course ‘Emerging Influencers’ and I realised that God had been working through all of this. I’d previously been working at a pub, but left the job to make time for my theatre and church groups. Had I not left that job I wouldn’t have been able to do the course! I was on the ‘activism’ stream, learning about how theology and activism go hand in hand, as Jesus was an activist and a huge advocate for justice!

I organised my first clothes swap in September and (Covid restrictions permitting) I am hoping to organise more over the course of the year, to raise awareness for circular fashion and raise money for charity. However, the rest of my gap year is very uncertain. The Tearfund course was only 6 weeks and I’m hoping to go to A Rocha Canada in the summer but still don’t know whether this will be possible. But I do now realise how valuable this time has been for me to learn about climate justice and sustainable fashion and God knows how it will work out so I just need to trust in that!

Podcasts I can recommend:



What on earth? (Hubbub)

Climate Queens

Together podcast (Tearfund)

The Hopeful Activist

The HopeCast

I also recommend the Good On You app for researching sustainability of fashion brands.

You can find me Instagram @flosgemz

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