Banu’s Story

Banu is a 35-year-old woman born in Istanbul. Due to the special situation of her family, she had quit his education life early. Banu has a family to take care of. She should support her family especially financially. Therefore, Banu worked in various business sectors where she had not received her education. There are employees from different countries. Especially Syrian employees. Banu is a little disturbed by their way of speaking, manners and actions. She has prejudices against them. She is also disturbed by what she feels for them. It's been quite a while. It is announced that in the company where Banu works, there is in-service training on "global competence" and the field in which she works.

She insists on attending that training. She has been looking for various opportunities to improve himself for a long time. She starts training and she finds what she's looking for. "Global competence" training is about the issues that she is uncomfortable with. Thanks to this training, she improves herself, gains different perspectives, realizes that she needs to respect different cultures and gains critical thinking skills. One day she realizes something like this.In her course, she learns about industrialisation and economic growth in developing countries, and how these have been influenced by foreign investments. She learns that many girls of very young age work in poor conditions in factories for up to ten hours a day, instead of going to school.

Her trainer suggests that each trainee bring one piece of clothing to the course and examine the label to determine where it was made. The most clothes were made in Bangladesh, which startled her. She is curious as to how her garments were created. She examines the websites of a number of high-street brand stores to see whether they can provide information on their manufacturing standards and procedures.She learns that some clothing firms are more concerned about human rights in their factories than others, and that other clothing brands have a long history of horrible factory conditions. She reads a variety of journalistic pieces on the subject and watches a YouTube documentary. She begins to buy fair-trade clothes and becomes an advocate for ethically responsible production as a result of what she learns.