Consequences
10 minutes
Give each young person a piece of paper and a pen and ask everyone to sit in a circle. At the top of the page get them to write the name of someone in the group. Then fold over the top of the page to hide that name and have each person pass the sheet to the left. Everyone then writes the name of someone else before folding the paper and passing it round. Ask a series of questions such as where they met, what they said. Include a few silly questions before the final fold, saying, ‘and the consequence was…’ After a final pass of the paper, everyone should unfold the story and read it to the group.
Wink Murder
10 minutes
Sit in a circle and nominate a detective, who is sent out of the room. Then choose a murderer. Once the detective is back in the room, they stand in the middle of the circle to try and find the culprit while the murderer winks at others in the group. If winked at, the player dies a loud and dramatic death! The detective has three chances to guess the murderer. If they are right, the murderer becomes the detective.
Introduction
5 minutes
Say: These games explore consequences and how our actions impact other people. We’re going to spend some time during this session thinking about how one particular aspect of our lifestyle impacts other people and the environment. Ask the group to think about aspects of our lifestyle in the UK which have an environmental impact, positively or negatively. Prompt them with suggestions if need be (waste / recycling, transport, industry, green energy). What about our clothes? Have you ever considered that our wardrobes have an impact on the environment? The garment industry is the second-biggest polluter behind the oil industry. Don’t believe that? Let’s think about a simple cotton T-shirt…
Time Travel T-Shirt
15 minutes
Have a T-shirt with you as a visual guide. Say: we’re going to visit the past, present and future life of this T-shirt and plot its environmental impact. Write up each stage of the process so that everyone can see how much is involved:
- Where did I get this tTshirt from? A shop
- Where was it before that? A factory
- How did it get between those two? Driven in trucks
- What is the T-shirt made from? Cotton material
- Where did that come from? Cotton plants
- Did they grow naturally? No, they were sprayed with lots of chemicals to help them grow fast
- How was it picked? Perhaps by hand, perhaps by big machines
Pull out the processes that have an environmental impact. Fact: it takes 2,720 litres of water to make a T-shirt. That’s how much we normally drink over a three-year period. Say: just to get to my wardrobe this garment has already made a huge negative impact on the planet! That’s the past. What about the present? What impact does my T-shirt have now that I own it? I wear it and then I wash it. Again and again!
Fact: 75–80 per cent of our clothing’s lifestyle impact comes from washing and drying. When I’m bored with it, or outgrown it, what do I do with it? Throw it out? Give it to a charity shop? Then what happens to it? It might be worn by someone else, but only some of the clothes given to charity shops are sold. The rest either go to poorer nations where they are dumped on their markets and undermine their local garment industry, or they go to landfill. Once in landfill, the clothes release harmful toxins into the environment. So from the start of its life right to the end, my simple T-shirt has a massive impact on the environment.
Why does it matter? Let’s have a look at what God has to say. Read Genesis 2:15 and Psalm 95:1–7 and say: we can see from these verses that the Earth belongs to God and he expects us to care for his creation and not exploit it. We have a big impact on the environment and are contributing to Climate Change.
Watch
5 minutes
Watch the Detox flim clip, available here.
Back To The Bible
5 minutes
Read Proverbs 14:31, Psalm 82:3– 4 and James 1:27. Say: not only does God ask us to look after creation, he also asks us to care for the poor. We might give money to charity, but if our lifestyles are making their lives more difficult then it’s as if we give with one hand and take away with the other. Something needs to change.
What Can We Do?
10 minutes
If our clothes form part of our environmental impact, then are there things we can do differently to ensure that we aren’t using more than our fair share of the earth’s resources?
Go back through the life of your T-shirt and ask if there are things you could do differently. Gather answers from the young people but some examples could be: buy an ethical item, buy second hand or buy less. You could take care of existing clothes, wash them less, donate clothes to people who need them or organise a clothes swap. Use your voice: when buying clothes speak to the shop assistant and ask if they know about how it was manufactured.
Reflection
5 minutes
Take some time to reflect. Is there something your group can commit to doing differently? What might God want to say to us or ask of us? How can we pray about this issue, for ourselves and for others? Pray together as a group about what you’ve discussed. For further ideas on ethical lifestyle and fashion, click here.
Tara Devlin leads Tearfund’s youth work in Scotland.
