The York Anti-Trafficking Society (YATS) commemorated the Modern Slavery Act’s 2nd Anniversary on Thursday the 16th of March with The Rose Project. The event consisted of fairtrade cake, music, and a formal ceremony that bloomed into success.
Professors Gary Craig & Saul Tendler planted ‘The Modern Slavery Rose’, a breed of peach-tinted rose first conceived for the 2015 Modern Slavery Garden in The Chelsea Flower Show, with hopes that it will help future YATS campaigns to blossom.
“It’s good to see it all come together”, and “it’s nice to see so many people to come out and support it today” said Rachel Sterling, Chair of YATS, 2nd year Psychology in Education.
YATS believe small positive changes to York’s environment will sprout awareness of how little everyday actions can benefit the whole community.
YATS Events Coordinator, Amy Cobbett, BA Environmental Sciences 3rd Year told Vision: “The more we can start to bring people’s attention to Modern Slavery the better.
If we have a beautiful rose and a beautiful plaque hopefully people will start to think about their actions and their consequences.”
Emily Duff, YATS Events Coordinator and MA student in Culture and Thought After 1945 added: “Next term we’re writing to MPs, if we get people talking about The Modern Slavery (Transparency in Supply Chains) Private Member’s Bill, which builds upon the 2015 Modern Slavery act to say that supply chains rules should apply universally, then it will make ethically product sourcing a natural part of our culture.
Globalisation is happening and it’s so easy to get cheap labour that exploits people, this legislation is the only way that you can make sure that you are putting checks on where products come from.”
Write to your local MP to help support the campaign, and learn more about Modern Slavery.
Why do you oppose Modern Slavery? – Tell us at @YorkVision & @UoYATS using the hashtag #RoseProjectUK.
All you people who said i woz dead… Your boy is back baby. Back like a chiropractor. I’ve been laying low since uni, done some time but it’s minor though. I ain’t no snitch (apart from dat one Quidditch fancy dress rave) so i ain’t gonna go into what happened but what i will say is that the horse has been re-homed and is doing better apparently.
Anyway so why is your boy back? Cos of this pure madness blossoming above me in this article. You guys are tripping like acid heads with undone shoelaces. You think your gonna stop slavery by planting some rose? That’s like defeating Isis by pruning your peace lily. All these big corporate bosses, like Lord Andrew Sugar and that, you think theyre gonna be like “oi nah better not exploit this peasant child cos some hippies did some gardening”. You delusional baby.
Baby you need to listen to your boy. You ain’t shit. Plant as many roses as you like, you guys are still pricks. Baby.