Meg and Gab, Gab and Meg - Walk Sew Good
Last July, I had the great fortune to speak with Megan O'Malley and Gab Murphy. Below is the Cooee! podcast I recorded with them via Skype from Luang Prabang in Laos.
Gab and Meg walked a swag of kilometres (more than 3,500 in all) in 2016-17 across 4 SE Asian countries to raise awareness of sustainable fashion - they wanted to know who made their clothes. During their epic journey, they were touched, time and time again, by the wonderful humanity of the people they encountered along the way.
I've never met Gab and Meg in person - I hope that changes sometime soon - but I find everything they've done to be so inspiring. It's not just the walk - amazing enough - it's their approach and attitude to the whole thing. In March last year, they were interviewed by Tanya Perdikou who subsequently posted a cracking article about them on Huffington Post. I wish I'd written it! Here's the link. Do read it if you have a moment. Tanya says that having met Meg and Gab, she now has two new amazing role models in her life and she lists these five reasons:
Reason #1: They're doing this to raise awareness of ethical fashion
Reason #2: They're taking a positive approach. It's contagious
Reason #3: They're scared (well one of them is). And they're doing it anyway
Reason #4: They have a wicked sense of humour
Reason #5: They are advocates for humanity
That pretty well sums it up for me too.
If you want to learn more about their adventure - they're done now, both striving to settle back into life in Melbourne - you really MUST visit their website - Walk Sew Good.
Do read the blogs, do watch the videos. You'll get a great chuckle - they're VERY funny! In Australia, they'd be certified as "dags", a wonderful term of endearment. But they convey serious, positive and uplifting messages, crafted from their firm belief in doing what they can to make the world a better place.
I'm always inspired by the people I chat to on my Cooee! podcasts but Meg and Gab take the cake.
And P.S. Gab and Meg joined my cobber Michael Pescott on November 15th last year to kick off my Movember Global Relay with a 50km hike on Melbourne's Port Philip Bay. It was great to have them with us.