Having been a student for quite some time at York University, I’ve been subjected to numerous student led social and environmental movements. What made me wonder about these movements is if anyone on campus helps these students in supporting their causes. As some of you may know, OPIRG is an organization that does just that.
OPIRG (Ontario Public Interest Research Group) at YorkU is a student run and levied organization that is a service group of social justice and environmental advocacy working with groups that engages students on topics of their interest. This organization at York gives students an opportunity to get involved and as Victoria Barnett of OPIRG stated, “…will hopefully allow them [students] to continue on advocating important social and environmental issues once graduating”.
What interested me most about OPIRG was their support in fair trade and sustainable purchasing on campus. I asked Barnett how OPIRG first got involved with fair trade at York and she let me know that OPIRG once had a group called the Sustainable Purchasing Coalition that supported and campaigned for no sweatshops, fair trade and ethical purchasing on campus. Not only did the SPC group support the purchasing of ethical goods but their “fair trade working group also discussed the topic of large corporate organizations using the concept of fair trade to promote their company products when it may have only been a single product in a line of millions of other items produced unethically”, said Barnett.
It was not always sunshine and lollipops for the Sustainable Purchasing Coalition, in 2008 the fair trade fair at YorkU was threatened and was put to a halt which set boundaries on educating the school community about fair trade and ethical purchasing. Barnett suggested that because of a published article in Excalibur the fair trade fair was able to be held (article can be found here). In the same semester of 2008 the SPC heavily campaigned for their no sweatshop movement hoping to legislate a no sweatshop policy at York University, where there was a 45 hour sit-in at the Office of the President that led to a successful agreement for a no sweatshop policy (more information can be found here).
Currently there are 8 active working groups at OPIRG, each in support of a social justice or environmental action issue. If you are interested in getting involved with OPIRG at YorkU, check out their website at opirgyork.ca! Don’t forget that you can always check-in with us at the RedZone every Thursday from 10:30-4PM if you have any questions!
Sustainably Yours,
Tami
