The PeaceMaker - The Art of Dignity

“If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other’  Mother Teresa

For Kath and I peace is an absolute experience, it naturally arises when you choose to create from non-judgement. We move peacefully between many diverse communities, none more apparent than our own in Sydney and that of the streets of Jaipur, and the simplest journey towards peace always occurs when we move from our heads (which judges everything) to our hearts (which joins).

“Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal. We must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means’ Dr M L King.

Our work to support I-India with the development of their vocational education and training programs has opened us to a way of peace. Our latest design is called The PeaceMaker and we are delighted with the way this beautiful jacket materialised the ‘peaceful means’ of our purpose.

Because our products are designed to transform people’s thoughts about ‘possibility’ there is nothing rational about our means of planning, design, construction, production and delivery of our slow clothing products. And although we have very limited resources in terms of money, time, equipment and materials, we are abundant in the most valuable of resources, the creative worth in all we work with.

When you trust the worth in everything, anything is possible.

International Women's Day, Barzura Cafe Coogee.

We met the incredibly talented pattern maker Emily Hundt, founder of InTheFolds, Emily is passionate about sharing her knowledge and skills and created a technical pattern for The PeaceMaker which we took to our team in Jaipur. We then worked with the kind hearted teachers of I-India who help train the youths and women to make our products.There have been so many extraordinary individuals who are willing to experiment with new ideas or share their insights and experiences and this has allowed us to source unique saris and develop original prints that we absolutely love. And when it comes to marketing our products at home, we are grateful to be supported by organisations that are willing to embrace our heartfelt ways of doing things.

 “Income is not the opposite of poverty, dignity is’ J. Novogratz

Our path of peace is this, we honour the dignity in every human being. We have a fundamental belief in the worth of every person we meet. Whether you are a highly skilled pattern maker, a teacher in the slums, a former street child or an impoverished mother who never went to school – you are a person of worth, a person born with dignity. When we forget to treat each other with dignity, we have forgotten that we belong to each other. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights venerates this truth in it’s opening lines by recognising that when we honour the inherent dignity of each other we naturally promote the essential foundations of  life – freedom, justice and peace, these also happen to be the cornerstones of our social justice work.

When you think of the great peacemakers of the world, from Mother Teresa to Nelson Mandela, from Ghandi to Malala Youzafzai their transformational ideas were embedded in a belief that everybody was worth it, and every situation must be treated with dignity. It is when we lose sight of this truth, when we forget our own worth and the worth of others that peace is unrealised. Even,and especially, in the darkest of experiences we must look to act with dignity.

By valuing the worth in each other we have been able to create so much with so little. We truly believe this is an attractive way of addressing all social  justice issues and we are so grateful to our collaborators and supporters who have helped bring our ‘art of dignity’ to market. We prefer to say that our work helps to support a dignified life for people. It is time to move the dialogue surrounding ‘living wages’ into the much greater arena of creating systems that acknowledge the inherent dignity of all. Our PeaceMaker embodies the art of dignity.