Freed in Cambodia Summer 08

T-shirts, Photoshoots and wrap parties.

2008-08-01T01:54:00.000-07:00

Friday 1st August 2008, 15.56pm, Equinox, Phnom Penh.

Hello,

I thought i'd better update everyone on the last couple of weeks progress.

We had quite a tough week last week, due to illnesses, we ran out of fabric, hardly any electricty and the silk screens all decided to break.

But, we prayed and carried on, solved the problems as they came, and got on top of everything in the end.

Now things are soon ending for us out here, it is even more crucial that we finish well, for us it is about maintaining momentum and preparing ourselves and the girls for our departure to the UK for 10 months.

Our relationships with the NGO Daughters and the girls have really flourished and we are quite confident in their ablity to continue making fab t-shirts while we are in England.

We got a grant of £2000 from EDP Bridge 2, which is amazing and totally an answer to much prayer.

We both are a little nervous about our return to the UK, for both of us , Rosie (i) needs a house to live and Jen needs to get a job! But hey, Jehova, God will provide.

SOoo anyway, the fun bit. We had a fab fashion shoot with some of my Khmer mates and English mates so check out the pics on Facebook and eventually the website.

Better go, we taking the girls out to KFC (!!???!!!) as a thank-you so better go and get ourselves looking half mint.

See you on the other side of the world soon..

Love you all so much, thanks for reading, God Bless

Reebok and Jeff. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Week 5 in the freed fashion house...

2008-07-14T22:17:00.001-07:00

Bonjour! ma petit poisson.......
Its Rosie here, the mad one.
Well, where to start.....?

I guess i should tell you a little about how Freed came about. Basically, i got the idea when i lived here (Phnom Penh) last year, seeing the garment industry and girls kindof made sense to me...i had dreamt about starting an ethical fashion business since i was 17 when i started to get big into my fashion, and i'd always had a heart for Cambodia. When i finally came here for the first time in 2006, i loved it. I came out again about 8 months later with a team from World Horizons, i was here for about 5 months, in my spare time doing re-cycled fashion projects with Mode Samram and working on a rosie-style business plan (mostly doodles), i began to dream.

Made a few t-shirts (literally i think it was 10) then came back to the UK. Me and Jen went to the zoo, which we always call 'our first Freed date' and she jut kept asking me about Freed and stuff. If it wasn't for her encouragement and friendship all this would still be a dream for me. We decided , in the words of Richard Branson, to 'screw it, lets just do it!'. And so.....Freed Fashion began....

These last few weeks we have been able to let the girls work alone for the first time, which has been great because we have to work on the business, but also it's been amazing to see the girls work so hard without us there, and achieve above and beyond their daily targets.

We start the day early...8.30am, and work through till lunch at 12. We have a nice long lunch and start again with coffee at 1.30pm, through till 4.30. The girls are great, each has their own unique talents in construction and they work to their own strengths naturally. We have one girl who speaks good English so we can see her taking on the role of leader when we leave.

We bought them a CD player, which blasts out Khmer music, which is craazy, but i'm starting to like it now :)....

Me and Jen are more like sisters now, as living/eating/working/sleeping together 24/7 can take it's toll (espically when my hormones are through the roof) can be hard on us, we have learnt 1.not to talk b4 bed, just sleep, tiredness=pointless arguments 2.It's not personal, its business 3.To love each other and extend grace 4.To kiss and make up quickly 5.Get Rosie to pay for a weekend away ....

Starting a business isn't always New York Cheesecake, but really, as Jezz in Peepshow said 'I never thought about it before, but now i have, this is what i want to do more than anything else in the whole world!!'.......

We are now in the stage of working on stuff, i.e how we are going to sell 2000 t-shirts, and ensuring our girls are really happy etc.......We are loving it basically.

Websites up, so check it out again.....Also, heres some more pics.

Thanks to:
The Girls - chnom sro lang ne!
Andy Fu - websites lookin fab
James Locke - for his love for Freed
Jayke Szabo - being a hot daddy to be.... and helping wit the launch plans
Ruth and Samuel Elliot - for believing in us
David Skews and the guys at bridge 2 : Support and business advice.
OUr FAmilies and FB Friends ....... its an oscar moment.........sob sob..........cheers.
Jethro Mckenzie and Ben Ryan - T-shirt designs
So pi Vi - fooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooood .....nam bi??

Better Update ya...

2008-07-03T05:52:00.000-07:00

So we've been here under two weeks now and its literally crazy how we've managed to set up our project. Its been really really hard emotionally some days, really really hard physically other days and so exciting all the time (and two massages and a pedicure in a week does help)

Our first week we managed to buy all of our machinery, equipment and fabric that we needed for the training and production. A lot of the time we did it without a translator which was great. We even got to spray paint the walls of our studio in florescent green, yellow, pink and orange. I won't bore you with the ins and outs of our first week, Rosie worked her arse off every day sometimes from 8am till midnight making the T Shirt patterns just right - she's amazing - while I texted my boyfriend a bit.

Our second week has probably been one of the most emotional times for us. Meeting the girls and getting to know them - theres 4 of them - has been so fun, they're all very unique and are so talented that they are actually better than Rosie at making the T Shirts haha! We both find ourselves wanting to cry, its been a hard year for us both and to finally see our vision coming into fruition is probably one of the most significant things we've ever experienced. Starting a business like this has been hard for us in a lot of ways but really if you think about it its also been so easy too. More people should do this, its not that hard you know, you just need the passion to get it done. Haha sorry about that, I just had a moment there...

So a little bit about what we've been doing every day during training with the girls.

Monday: The morning started with us meeting the girls, a couple of them speak English which is good but they aren't fluent enough for us to converse with eachother so we had our friend Samuel help us out. I gave a short introduction about the business and what they would be helping us with. I wasn't really sure how they took it, they all seemed quite shy so it was hard to gauge how they really felt. In the afternoon Rosie trained them in pattern cutting, we began to see how the girls worked together as a team by putting them into pairs. They worked really hard and were showing us how precise they could be.

Tuesday: More pattern cutting was done on tuesday, this lasted the whole day so that they would have enough pattern pieces to make 4 t shirts each during the training. It takes a surprisingly long to do these well.

Wednesday: This was a scary day for the girls, they had to start constructing the T Shirts. A couple of them took a few tries on the machines before they felt confident, the others were just naturals and were showing that they could produce a t shirt suitable for retail without much help. Garment construction took all day.

Thursday: Well thats today actually. This morning we all went out in a tuctuc to a market that sold EVERYTHING where we bought of few bits and bobs for finishing. It was a sweet time to get to know them and for them to get to know their new bosses (teehee!!) and as they will be running the business while we are in the UK they got to meet our suppliers and find out where things are sold. We also got them a CD player so they could play their Khmer music (one of them actually likes Nora Jones so we let her play that cd haha!) This afternoon we continued with garment construction, the girls getting better and better each time, they have amazing skill and are so determined to make quality garments which is really encouraging for us.

Friday: We are gonna make some more garments tomorrow morning and in the afternoon will move on to silk screen printing our designs onto the t shirts. From monday we are hoping to go into production for our first 200 t shirts, we'll let you know how that goes.

So I'm gonna try and upload some photies to this in a minute, if you see them up then I've succeeded, if not then I probably couldn't be bothered in the end. I look a mess half the time, there's no point tryin here. Rosie sends her love ('Peace to the homies') and we are both really looking forward to saturday which will be our first day off. We will use it wisely haha.

Love yas!
Jen xxx

We're here!!

2008-06-21T23:16:00.000-07:00

So we've arrived, we're tiiired and so excited about starting our project in Phnom Penh. The 13 hour plane journey wasn't the greatest - worse turbulence either of us have experienced, some people screamed it was that bad, funny though looking back, not so funny at the time when you think you're gonna die haha.

So at the moment we're just chillaxin. We need to buy an adapter because neither of us thought to bring one... also Rosie has to buy shampoo, conditioner, showergel, trousers - she hadn't realised it would be hot so only brought woolen ones - and thats about it really. We're both desperate for coffee now so we're gonna pop to a cafe for a couple of hours and try to plan our first few weeks here.

We'll try and get our piccies up on here and on our facebook group asap but for the time bein you'll just have to get used to me droaning on. Phnom Penh is just beautiful and I hope we can really capture that for you all.

Right, must dash, need caffeine quickly!!!

Love you aaall!!!

Jen xxx

8 Days To Go

2008-06-12T11:41:00.000-07:00

Hi you!

Well its mad how it's only 8 days before we jet off, it still feels a little unreal but thats just normal isn't it. I suppose you might want to know why we've decided to spend two months in Cambodia.

Over 120 million people today are slaves. The sex industry combined with the garment industry are the leading growth industries in South East Asia. Garment workers can have very little rights and there are reports of unsafe working environments.

So there's a few reasons why we wanted to go to Cambodia and try out our idea.

Our idea is this...
We want to train young women, who have been victims of the sex industry, in the production of T Shirts. Our place would be a really creative environment, we want the girls to feel as though this is an environment that they can flourish in and develop over their time with us. They will be paid a good fair wage with extras and bonuses and things like that.

When we get back we're gonna be selling our T Shirts at Harvest Festival in Northumberland on a stall first off. We'll be their from 14th till the 18th August. I think we will be selling them at £20 each but we'll keep you posted on that nearer the time. We will also be going live with sales on our website pretty much straight after we get back from Cambodia. So keep a look out there!

Anyway, teas ready so gotta go.

traaaa,
Jen xxxxx