UEL fashion student highlights child poverty

Fashion business student Louisa Moody has launched a campaign to highlight the issue of child poverty in her home country of Wales.

Louisa Moody is a well-known Welsh fashion designer who mixes activism with fashion and art to create socio-political projects.

She is currently enrolled on the MA International Fashion Business programme at the University of East where students are encouraged to use their studies to make an impact on society at large.

As part of her master's degree, Louisa was encouraged to formulate her own project and devised The Forgotten Twenty-Three Percent - the title of her campaign and her documentary which refers to the 700,000 people in the principality living in poverty. That's three in 10 children living below the poverty line.

Now living in east London, which is similarly deprived, she is no stranger to living in forgotten communities, seeing and experiencing first-hand the daily struggles that many people are facing.

Louisa designed slogan t-shirts for this project and uses them to make her point about social justice.

She said: "Using the power of art and activism, the aim of the campaign was to create a protest towards the government which is failing the people in these communities, almost emulating protests we've seen recently but also those of the miners' strike in 1980s.

"My images use placards photographed in quintessential Welsh valley towns that are sadly becoming run down and derelict. These run alongside a film that documents the injustice and failure of government."

As a designer, Louisa wanted to make a difference by fundraising for the charity Children In Wales which supports children and young carers as well as encouraging career opportunities and hopeful futures.

She created a Go Fund Me page where people can donate and win one of her statement t-shirts or tote bags.

Louisa's campaign has started to create media interest and she has featured on InterCardiff where she talks about politics and social justice.