One Day Without Shoes -a barefooter's opinion.

April 8, 2010, TOMS Shoes is holding its third annual 'One Day Without Shoes' campaign, to 'experience what millions of children endure every day'. They give a pair of shoes to a child in a third world country for every pair of shoes they sell.

Now I have gone barefoot by choice for fourteen years, and I am very happy with healthy, strong feet. I can tell you that going barefoot for a single day when you've spent a lifetime in shoes is NOT anywhere NEAR experiencing 'what children have to endure'. YOUR feet are going to be extremely tender and soft, you're going to wince at every pebble, shy away from every rose bush or thistle you spot, you'll probably get cold toes. You may even get sore calves because you walk differently from what you're used to. But THEIR feet are tough, calloused and leathery, they can handle much larger rocks without noticing them, they are only occasionally bothered by particularly nasty thorns. Many of them live in warmer climates, and they won't get sore calves because their calves are used to walking that way. I walk across broken glass, have cleared out thick bramble bushes wearing gloves but no shoes, have dug up parts of the garden using a regular shovel, been on hikes and recently taken up running, all without any trouble. In fourteen years, I have never yet had a cut, and even (glass)splinters and thorns happen only very rarely and leave no sores when they're picked out. When you're habitually barefoot, your feet get MUCH stronger than people who regularly wear shoes can even begin to imagine (it surprised me too, although I never thought that going barefoot was extremely painful or I wouldn't have started doing it).

Now don't get me wrong, in an ideal world going barefoot should be a choice, not necessity. I would like every child and adult to *own* shoes so they could wear them if and when they wanted. However, this isn't an ideal world and the children this 'shoe charity' is trying to reach lack MANY things that you and I consider 'necessities'. And in that case, I strongly believe footwear is not on top of the list of priorities to give to them. Apart from the fact that their feet are pretty tough, let's take a look at the list of facts from the charity's website.

Fact 1: In some developing nations, children must walk for miles to food, clean water and to seek medical help..'
And those shoes are going to last how long if they have to walk those many miles every day? Think of how long your kids' shoes last, and they don't walk a fraction of what these kids do. Wouldn't it make more sense to provide them with a well, starting equipment for farming, animals for raising, and more medicine? What's even better, the entire village benefits from that, not just the children.

Fact 2 is 'Cuts and sores on feet can lead to serious infection.'
Blisters from worn-out and out-grown shoes can also lead to serious infection. At least as bad or even worse, as blisters are known to be prone to infections, and the bacteria growing in old, smelly sneakers are of a particularly nasty kind too. Oh, about those nasty bacteria that live in closed shoes... do you think they'll wear these shoes with socks, and how often are they going to wash those? Old, sweaty shoes worn without socks (or with crusty, dirty ones) are worse than most of the things they step in barefoot!

And related to this, how much choice are these children going to have, are they going to be fitted correctly & how often are they going to get a new pair? Ill-fitting shoes are worse than no shoes, if they walk on shoes too small for them that's not going to do their feet any good! Apart from the obvious blisters (and possibly infections), here is an article showing that even in our Western world, many children walk on shoes a bit too small for them and it's causing foot damage like Hallux Valgus: http://newsblaze.com/story/2009031807190200001.tf/topstory.html So if that happens here, where we have shoe stores in every town, then what do you think is going to happen when you give a single pair of shoes to a third-world kid? Is anyone going to keep up with them, checking their shoes often enough and providing them with a new pair if they've outgrown them?

Fact 3 'Often, children cannot attend school barefoot.'
This may be the case in some places, but I know from various sources I trust that in many places in Africa and Asia kids are allowed to attend school barefoot. The teachers, when asked what was needed most, answered 'pencils, paper, books...' Sometimes more general things like food and safe water were named. Shoes were NOT mentioned to ANY ONE of the people who have visited third world schools & whom I know personally. I am sure some schools require footwear but I would replace the word 'often' with 'occasionally', and in general concentrate on school supplies when donating for the children's education.

Fact #4: 'In Ethiopia, approximately one million people are suffering from Podoconiosis, a debilitating and disfiguring disease caused by walking barefoot in volcanic soil.'
Fact #5: 'Podoconiosis is 100% preventable by wearing shoes.'

Okay, in some areas/circumstances shoes are higher on the list of priorities, if the donations are going there I support them. Same as to cold climates where children are kept from going to school in winter months without footwear and warm clothing! But send them there and concentrate on more important things elsewhere. If they concentrate on such areas, I also think it's more likely TOMS can keep the donations frequent and prevent the problems I named above, caused by outgrown and worn-out footwear.

I will go barefoot April 8 (as I do any other day) and ask people to donate to groups who help people in small villages with wells, farm equipment and animals, and medicine. Suggested charities:
Water/wells:
http://www.charitywater.org/
http://www.letsbuildwells.org/
Mosquito nets:
http://www.nothingbutnets.net
Livestock:
http://www.maasai-association.org/goat.html
http://www.sendacow.org.uk/
http://www.heifer.org/site/c.edJRKQNiFiG/b.204586/
Many, many items to chose from:
http://donate.worldvision.org/OA_HTML/xxwv2ibeCCtpSctDspRte.jsp?section=10389
(note how this last organization has a *huge* list of different things to give, including clothing... yet I don't see shoes mentioned specifically. Hm, wonder if this is an oversight or maybe a large charity organization might have more of an idea what is needed than TOMS? ;-))