The Human Rights Tour is proud to report the successful completion of its first ever summer festival tour featuring 12 No Sweat Fashion Shows. The Tour was also able to garner up over 7,000 signatures for various Amnesty International, Genocide Intervention Network, and HRAT campaigns. The tour’s first stop was in Moab, Utah, where the No-Sweat Fashion Show was presented at Desert Rocks music festival on Saturday May 24^th. One of the many fun and innovative aspects of the fashion show is that models are recruited right at the actual festival, which creates a warm and energetic atmosphere among the festival attendees.  The No-Sweat fashion show is aimed at educating people about their role in purchasing clothing and other materials that are produced in sweatshop –free factories.  This means that workers are paid a liveable and sustainable wage, one that ensures their rights are recognized, as well as providing health benefits and implementing overall safe and sanitary working conditions.

                The next stop on the tour was Wakarusa music festival in Lawrence, Kansas. Our volunteer group of models managed to avoid slipping and sliding in the mud from the thunderstorm the night before, and pull off a lovely and colorful fashion show! At Bonnaroo the Human Rights Tour tent was placed in PlanetRoo with a group of other socially conscious organizations. We tabled hard all four days and still managed to pull off four incredibly enthusiastic fashion shows. The tour’s fashion show coordinator, Sara, a young peace activist and fashion enthusiast was excited to have a large venue such as Bonnaroo, as well as a stage to be able to raise awareness about two issues she cares deeply about, peace and fair trade.  At the fashion shows, Sara talked about each model’s  outfit, drawing particular attention to the tee’s with a message, such as the ones by the women-led peace group, Codepink, the anti-war and racism group, World Can’t Wait, and Revolve, a fair trade, socially conscious clothing company. She mentioned the importance of conscious consumerism saying, “Fashion can be very multi-faceted, you can choose to buy clothing that is fair trade, eco-friendly, as well as displaying a serious socially conscious message, AND look stylish in the process!”

                The tour’s founder, JR Corkery, did not miss an opportunity to talk on stage, giving several motivating speeches about human rights and direct action. “Just by signing a petition, writing a letter, or making a phone call, you can make a difference!”

We left Bonnaroo having met a plethora of amazing and highly influential people from across the country and various universities. Next stop on our list was a two day reggae festival in Kalamazoo, Michigan called Island Fest. The tour was immediately welcomed with a warm reception by the festival-attendees and participants. The No Sweat fashion show was presented to an audience of over 5,000 people, making it the tour’s most well-attended fashion show yet! We left Island Fest exhausted and weary from tabling and networking, as well as jamming to upbeat Caribbean tunes until the late hours of the night.

From Michigan we made our way down to the blistering heat of the southwest to attend The Warped Tour in Phoenix, Arizona. After experiencing a fair amount of bus trouble (Lenny, our veggie bus, doesn’t do too well in the extreme heat) we arrived at the Warped Tour ready to make some noise in the punk-rock, emo scene!

After Phoenix it was back to our home state of Utah for Groovefest Music festival in Cedar City. Again, we were warmly greeted and taken in by the locals, particularly Tom and Lisa, who were more than accommodating. The fashion show was a blast and the models, an eclectic group from all different backgrounds and ages, tore up the runway!  People were diggin’ the merchandise and tee-shirts we had to sell, all of which are sweatshop-free and fair trade. One of the tour’s members, Phil, aka, “Fair Trade Phil,” spoke about corporations using fair trade practices, and consumers purchasing fair trade goods, as being much more beneficial in the long term, than individuals sending checks to relief organizations. “It’s a pretty basic concept, essentially going back to that old Chinese proverb of, “Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”

After saying goodbye to our friends in Cedar City, we headed to Denver, Colorado for the last and final tour stop at Warped Tour. There we had the opportunity to table next to students from University of Colorado Boulder’s Amnesty International chapter as well as Iraq Veterans Against the War. We were invited by some of these groups to come back to Denver for the Democratic National Convention in August since many different environmental, peace and anti-war, as well as human rights organizations will be attending the convention.

Be sure to check for more updates as The Human Rights Tour will be on the road again starting on July 27^th for the second half of our summer festival tour.