This is a common misconception. It is true that many poor people must live without footwear in many countries in the world. If no shoes are worn the feet will toughen somewhat with callouses thickening the skin but health problems can easily be the end result.
The unfortunate truth is that many health conditions can occur even in the toughest of feet. As the skin toughens and thickens large cracks can form. Also, parasite infections such as hookworm and threadworm can penetrate the skin while constant cuts and scrapes to the feet and ankles frequently become infected. Some of these infections can even lead to ulcers which can take a long time to heal. While the hazards are not necessarily apparent from the surface they can result in major health problems for those unable to access appropriate footwear.
link to PROLASA project page.
7 comments:
I go barefoot most of the time, my skin does not crack and I have never had worms or infections, what am I doing right?
Depends mostly on where you live and the terrain you come in contact with. The tropics have many diseases that other climates do not. You are not necessarily doing anything right you just live somewhere where life is not as harsh of an environment and have the luxury of wearing shoes when you need or want to.
I was just made aware of your efforts to send shoes to orphans in Africa, and I do highly commend you for your efforts in trying to help the less fortunate in our world. However, it seems to me that by providing shoes to children who normally go barefoot, and where going barefoot to school is common and accepted in their culture, it's doing more of a disservice to them than helping them. What children in poor countries really need most I believe are school supplies, food, and medicine. These are necessities. Shoes are not necessities, particularly in countries with year-round warm climates. But they soon will be, as we brainwash the children into believing so.
Impressionable young children in those countries who traditionally had enjoyed the health - and economic - benefits of being barefoot, will soon begin to look upon bare feet as some sort of stigma to be avoided at all costs. And once these donated shoes are worn out or are outgrown, who's to pay for new ones that they have now grown accustomed to. So where well-meaning but possibly misguided Americans apply their own standards to the rest of the world and feel that all children in the world must be continually shod like they are, traditional cultural norms and practices are being distorted or destroyed.
Someone once said, "Of course they'll be better off, because we know how to make someone 'better off.' We just make them like us."
The fact is, being barefoot is healthy and natural. People have done it for centuries in many parts of the world without ill effects. In fact, it's been found that societies that are traditionally shoeless suffer far, far less foot problems than those who wear shoes. Kids in America nowadays who are bombarded constantly by shoe advertising and parents' admonitions do not know the joys of running around and playing barefoot any more as kids used to do. A special shoe for every purpose in life is what they are taught now, and apparently we want to make the whole world believe that as well. What this does is put into the heads of the children that lacking shoes is some kind of disadvantage that needs to be remedied. So a need is created where none existed before. It's just wrong.
I am not just a misinformed American as I grew up where these children are living and I know exactly what they face.
You are entitled to your opinion.
But I feel it is spoken by someone who has had the luxury of choosing to wear shoes when they need to but chooses to go barefoot when it is comfortable.
But is it considered healthy and normal to turn a blind eye to medical conditions such as infections that are lifelong, lacerations, and other diseases just to satisfy your opinion that going shoeless is healthy? I choose not to do that and that is where you and I have differing opinions.
The children in this area who can afford shoes do wear shoes (maybe not all the time but when they need to). It is only those who cannot afford shoes that do not wear them.
Physiologically speaking as a physical therapist I understand that going barefoot on safe terrain like your home or places where the terrain is not jagged or dangerous is a healthy thing. But walking for several kilometers a day on rocks and rough terrain just to get to school or to get water and carry it back on their heads is not a healthy shoeless situation. You look at their feet and then tell me that it is healthy to go shoeless for those tasks. These children have callouses which I think are fine and a normal foot adaptation to terrain but they also have open wounds and old healed gashes and many of them have ring worm as well. Is that healthy and normal? These are not just occasional afflictions they are common and only in the children who do not have the choice to wear shoe when they need to.
When we chose to go barefoot it is exactly that we "CHOOSE" to do so but these children do not get the "CHOICE" unless we give it to them.
These children (orphans) have many necessities provided for them. They have been provided shelter, they have food and they have a school that has been built to provide them education and most of all they are provided with medical care. It was the orphanage director (a local man to their island) that sent a plea for help stating that shoes for these growing children was one of the hardest things for them to keep up with at the orphanage.
We are collecting enough crocs to keep these children in foot wear until they are adults and have educations and the ability to provide for themselves. This is a long term revolving project.
There is no brainwashing going on. We are merely providing them with shoes for the basic principle of infection and injury prevention.
If there was a "health - and economic - benefits of being barefoot" in this area then this need for shoes would not have been brought to my attention.
I think until you have lived in their environment that you cannot possibly understand the challenges and needs of these children. In a perfect world where infection and disease were not an issue these children could safely go barefoot.
I do not say that everyone in the world needs a pair of shoes but in this specific situation it is a simple solution to prevent foot diseases far worse that what we face in our lives.
Does anybody ask these children what they need most? Whether their greatest wish is really to wear Crocs, or if they have more pressing needs?
These kids greatest wish is for a roof over there heads and food on the table and a family to love them. That is what has been provided to them by Prolasa Canada and International Children's Care. This orphanage was established in order to provide homes for children who were left parentless and were living on the streets begging for survival. However some of the additional needs are great such as education, and medical care. These are also being provided by Prolasa. Then some of the secondary needs are things like bedding, clothing, water etc. These are also being taken care of on a donation basis. Recently I have heard that they are in need of sheets to cover the children at night. And I have been working with Prolasa to find out if that is a priority and or if there are any other more pressing needs.
But footwear was the first request from the orphans and orphanage that I chose to get involved with. The reason I got involved with it is because it hit close to home because I remembered having ringworm and Ivunga(larvae) infecting my foot along with cuts from going barefoot there as a child and I remember one friend who got bitten by a large larvae/caterpillar thing and had a huge ulcer and infection on his foot for months when we lived there. I remember him showing me what the larvae looked like when we were walking to school one day and came across it. I also have a Shoe obsession so I felt a calling to help where I had a passion.
These are personal reasons that I started this project for foot wear that was appropriate for this region. I felt a connection to this and it was a simple solution for prevention of foot issues as described.
I know that this is not THE MOST IMPORTANT ISSUE pertaining to these children. The bigger project such as keeping roofs over their heads and food in their stomachs is much more of an issue and if you would like to help with that by all means check out prolasa.org to find out more. But I felt as an adjunct to their food, shelter, education and medical needs that I would start a grass roots effort to collect used (or new) crocs to help with the orphanages challenge to keep foot born diseases at a minimum for these children.
Do they need other things as well YES. So feel free to help in any way you can. Starting this project is how I chose to help. Why not help out in another way that you feel speaks to you. Prolasa would be glad for anyone to take on new large and small projects. They are a small non profit organization developed by locals and supported by small non-profit organizations they approached for asiistance and support. There mission is to serve the needs of the people of this region in the Congo (they do not just serve the orphans as they also provide local medical care in villages all round the area and have started the first ever post secondary school serve this island).
These children are elated and thankful to have shelter, education and even shoes. Check out some of the other postings on the site to see the pictures of the first shipment of crocs to them. Not only did they receive Crocs but they were visited by a team of Medical professionals (Doctors and nurses) that helped with their medical care beyond what they are normally receiving.
My sister went on the last trip to the orphanage and met with the orphans to discuss their further needs.
The meeting that stood out in her mind the most was a meeting with the young girls at the orphanage who had specific questions on how to address their menstrual cycles as they currently do not have any sanitary pads and they end up staying home from school one week a month because of their period. They do not have any way to buy disposable pads and or properly discard them so disposable sanitary pads is NOT A SOLUTION to this issue. So what to do?... We are working on a solution to get them a sewing machine and tech them how to make cloth sanitary napkins so that they do not have to miss school one week a month. These are the basic type questions and needs that they are concerned with.
I welcome your opinions, dialog and challenges to the project as it allows me to re-examine why I chose to take on this project and hopefully allows me to clarify reasons that may not be apparent to everyone. Exploration of solutions for a challenging environment with minimal amenities has many different ways to take form. So feel free to suggest other solutions.
The reason I chose to use Crocs (or fake crocs) is that I see kids wearing them all the time in this country and you cannot tell me that they wear them out before they grow out of them so I felt many parents would be open to donating them to a third world country when their children are done with them (recycle them for a cause). Crocs do not have cloth components like sneakers so they do not disintegrate or rot in the warm tropical climates. They can be cleaned up and given to another orphan when one grows out of them. They last longer that flip flops which is what most donations had been up until this project. I chose Crocs as my choice (not the only solution) to these children's footwear needs is for the reasons described above and by no means do I feel they need to be name brand but to me crocs refers to a type of shoe.
Thanks again for your comments to this blog. I know that you have thought a lot about this and are passionate enough about causes you feel are worthy and appropriate to spend time eloquently stating your opinion. I only hope that I have clarified to you why this project is not a frivolous poorly thought through project. It was developed from specific requests of the orphanage and its children to help them provide decent durable footwear to reduce foot born disease.
One more thing that I feel sets this orphanage apart is how the orphanage is set up. It is set up of unique small houses with parents hired to help raise these children. In this area there are many single widowed women whose husbands have died in the unrest in recent years or have died from AIDS. So... many of the homes are run by widowed women who were homeless are raising their own surviving children and the orphans in these homes so that these children feel apart of a family or small group. These children are not raised as orphans in a large dorm like institution. The design has been to keep their upbringing (even in the orphanage) as similar to their culture as possible. They are growing up in an orphan village not a modern world dorm style orphanage.
This allows the widowed women to provide for their own children as well as for the others in their home. In this region it is very difficult and sometimes impossible for a woman to earn money on her own as a woman has no rights and with having no rights they do not have any legal rights to money. if they earn money it belongs to their husbands not to them and in the absence of a husband many are unable to work and provide for their family as no one will pay them. Many social and legal stigmas of the area have made the current times of unrest even more difficult than they used to be for survival of women and these house mothers are being taught how to manage (budget) money and how to provide for their family when it used to be the mans job to manage all of these things. None of this comes without challenges but they are all involved in making this orphan village work. And they are all given a voice to help in the solutions when challenges arise.
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