Headlines (FOA Update)

Expose your toes: ACT for Change!

March 7, 2010

On Future of Africa’s Journey for Change 2009 (Arua, Uganda), Tk (a JFC participant) decided to walk to one of our projects to count the number of children and youth who were walking without footwear.
 
In a scope of about an hour, he counted 87 children and youth without shoes. Putting this into perspective, during the most active 12 hours of the day, that will be approximately 1044 children and youth without footwear.
Many of these children and youth walk all day, on the hot ground stepping on hazardous materials such as stones, nails, broken bottles etc. selling food and other stuff to support their families, going to school, playing, and the list goes on.

Children and youth stand great risks of getting infected by so many diseases by walking bare footed everyday. A child who sold samosas all day on barefoot once told Tk that his friends made fun of him for wearing ripped clothing and walking bare footed. It was very sad considering how many children and youth who had to go to school and face this humiliation or stand the risks of getting injured and/or infections. These are basic needs that people should have access to.

It is not ok for children and youth to walk bare footed and we need to ACT to make a difference. Tk bought slippers for the child selling samosa for 1000 shillings (47 cents) and it does not take that much to change situations around.

Future of Africa is hosting a demonstration as a way of creating awareness on children and youth walking barefoot everyday in various countries in Africa and other developing countries in the world. We will be collecting donations to buy shoes on our Journey for Change 2011 (look out for more info on that soon) and collecting shoes all year long (now till the end of next school year). The best collections will be auctioned and the rest might be taken with us depending on transportation.

Feel free to Join our demonstration (click link below) on Tuesday March 23, 2010 to create more awareness and to get people involved in this initiative.

It is not enough to think about change, we need to ACT for Change as well!