Charity or honesty

Two arti­cles in the Dutch news­pa­per Trouw caught my eye this week. The first was titled “Bill Gates and the British tack­le malar­ia with mega-fund”, about the fact that gov­ern­ments do not have enough bud­get for inter­na­tion­al devel­op­ment and are increas­ing­ly look­ing for pri­vate mon­ey. I have noticed that too in my own work; more …

Cheap labour

In April 2013 Rana Plaza col­lapsed, a ran­dom fac­to­ry build­ing in Dha­ka turned into a name that is engraved in the his­to­ry of Bangladesh. The day before the dis­as­ter it was clear that some­thing was wrong because cracks appeared in the walls. That is why the shops on the ground floor had already closed their …

Shoes

This week I final­ly earned my first Pounds ster­ling. For the time being, that mere fact is more impor­tant to me than the quan­ti­ty of pounds, which is a good thing. I have nego­ti­at­ed com­pet­i­tive­ly about this job, which is why my income is now below the min­i­mum wage. The job is in a shoe …