A huge desire of Sole Hope from the beginning has been to help and not hurt through our actions in Africa. We know that a major part of the fight against jiggers is closed toe shoes. Early on we realized that the people of Uganda don’t need American’s used shoes or a handout of thousands of pairs of Chinese manufactured shoes to disrupt the local economy.
Our founder (and my beautiful wife) Asher had a vision of hiring and training local tailors and shoemakers to craft the shoes that that go on the children’s feet after foot-washing and jigger removal clinics. And the Sole Hope shoemaker model was born. The old “teach a man to fish” proverb.
It has been a learning experience and has taken on a few forms over the past years, but the program has grown into an amazing and vital part of our Uganda operations.