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.
The Journey of a Sole Hope Shoe:
1. The shoe uppers are cut at Sole Hope Shoe Cutting Parties all over the United States, Canada, The UK, and even Australia. Generous people gather to learn about Sole Hope and cut the uppers from old jeans. We send everything you need to know to pull this off. The pieces are pinned together and sent to our U.S. office in NC.
2. The shoe uppers checked and sent to Uganda.
3. Sole Hope Tailors sew the uppers together to make the top of the shoe.
Sarah working on sewing shoe uppers from the U.S. {photo: Katie Jameson}
{photo: Katie Jameson}
{photo: Katie Jameson}
{photo: Katie Jameson}
