Gavin Rajah - A South African designer, who shows in Paris and South African Fashion Week. He has made several appearances on Americas Next Top Model (As Himself, and Clothes), and worked on projects with Nike, just to name a few of his accomplishments. His most philanthropic accomplishment we believe was when UNICEF in August 2007 appointed him as a UNICEF Goodwill ambassador. In his work with UNICEF, Rajah champions child protection, focusing on the care and protection of orphans and other vulnerable children like those in child-headed households, and for their right to grow up in healthy, safe environments, free from the scourge of violence in South Africa.  

Gavin Rajah himself will be blogging on FashionAfrica.com to virtually take us on his 3day UNICEF field trip in hopes to inspire us to always give a lending hand whenever we get a chance. So strap on those seatbelts and BE INSPIRED!

- Wadami. 

Preamble from Gavin Rajah:

Travelling South Africa is inspiring and more often than not your heart will be warmed by smiling faces in the midst of adversity. You don’t travel South Africa; it travels you and penetrates the very fiber of your being. Tomorrow is the start of my travel in South Africa to visit children in need of help and as usual it will end up like my other field trips that are forever imprinted in my mind. Reading my briefing kit prepared by the UN office is often depressing as it is peppered with latest statistics relating to children in our country. Sadly not the statistics one wants to hear. My trip this time is visiting kids that are in ‘vulnerable’ areas and who are facing some harsh realities prompted by abuse, HIV/AIDS and a host of other social evils. Not really Sunday type winding down stuff? On these trips we use the word ‘vulnerable’ loads – it’s a blanket word used to describe a multitude of things affecting kids. Poverty, health issues and education are three predominant categories that are covered by that one word. These kids remain vulnerable to all the attendant negative influences that these three aspects have on their lives. It’s a far cry from dealing with my regular work day which is adorned with smartly dressed and well heeled people buying beautiful garments; their only vulnerability is having too much of everything and not being able to be grateful for what they do have! So my mind does stray whilst trying to get through my briefing document… 

South Africa is made up of such a diverse community of people and given their history I really find it difficult to understand how very little people care. The very fact that we are human is reason enough that we should care or show compassion at the very least to those less fortunate then us. What we have at the moment is a whole load of armchair compassionate people who talk but really do nothing. Our continent has been severely criticized for always needing outside help and not doing much for ourselves. If anything South African history should have taught us is that we need to be more compassionate and learn from our past. I look at kids around and wonder if they are being taught about responsibility or what it means to be a ‘vulnerable’ individual in the world? Do parents actually take the time to teach their kids about sharing, charity or compassion? Are we breeding another generation that will focus on themselves and exclude those who are in need? Don’t get me wrong I do think that there are many young adults and children that do have a sense of the reality that many South Africans face each day but generally most have no idea what goes on outside their comfortable bubble. Do they even know what a child headed household is? 

Anyway be that as it may, I remain positive and must say that I am finding these field trips rather rewarding and in some way it makes all the other things in my life pale in comparison. Fashion can often make you look at the world with rose tinted lenses, making everything exceptionally bright and pretty when the reality is far more harsher. Tomorrow I am visiting schools in really impoverished areas. These schools have child feeding schemes (most of these kids only have one meal a day and its at school) and I am hoping that a huge SA corporate will be able to see the benefit of supporting these schemes. Other things which I want to follow up from my last visit are kids who have been orphaned by parents who have HIV/AIDS and who are now left to fend for themselves. Think a young girl of thirteen having to raise and look after her siblings of 4 years and 6 years old…………whilst still having to go to school! Not sure what this world is coming to but I suddenly remember why I am declining most offers to dine out at expensive places………I just cannot bear the thought of such excess when people are starving out there. It tends to hit home harder when one sees this for oneself. Don’t get me wrong I still love the fine things in life – its just that they have not become as important to me as they perhaps once were. So tomorrow is the start of another field trip which will leave me sad maybe but overall far more fulfilled in knowing that I am trying to do something for kids so that they may create the change we all want to see in the future. I hope that wherever you are that you will take the time and do something, it does not matter how small, for a child that is less fortunate than you are and who may be in need of your help.

Try it – it will do wonders for your soul…………and maybe make those Gucci shoes you wearing a lot more comfortable. 

- Gavin.