Would you go barefoot for a day? No, I don´t mean on a beach or in your garden, but on the streets of Munich, alleys of London, or subway lines of New York City? This is the question we posed to STYLIGHT employees to start the conversation about why one would walk barefoot for a day. In an effort to raise awareness for children´s health and education, we decided to partake in TOMS socially responsible initiative by working barefoot at the STYLIGHT office for a day.
Bare feet in the Atrium
Sick at home, but still joins in on the 21st May
STYLIGHT at Cannes, and there too we bare feet!
They´re not looking at their toes!
Advertising toes!
Swinging feet
At the coffee counter
Bare tootsies in the NYC office
New York feet!
Baring is caring!
Millions of children around the world grow up without shoes, at risk of infection and disease. Children lacking access to education and good health struggle to break the poverty cycle for themselves, their families and their communities. With the complex issues surrounding poverty, there is not one solution, but many working together. TOMS believes that shoes play an important role in helping keep children healthy, educated and moving toward opportunities for a better future. Some notable statistics to consider:
- Health – Podoconiosis is a debilitating disease that causes extremely painful swelling of the feet and legs. Podoconiosis affects more than 4 million people in at least 15 countries. (Who, 2013)
- Education – Providing children with school uniforms – which often include shoes – can increase school attendance by 62%. (Evans, 2009)
- Empowerment – When shoes are integrated into programs with larger community development goals, they empower children and their families to get the care and support they need.
In 2006, American traveler Blake Mycoskie befriended children in a village in Argentina and found they had no shoes to protect their feet. Wanting to help, he created TOMS, a company that would match every pair of shoes purchased with a pair of new shoes given to a child in need. The motto ´One for One®´was born.
If you missed the opportunity to go barefoot, you can shop a pair here and TOMS will match your order to give to those who don´t have.
A BIG thank you to all the STYLIGHTers who partipated simply through stripping away their shoes, showing some tooties, walking barefoot and capturing their efforts!! We got 52 pairs of bare feet which means 52 pairs of TOMS for children in need (total amount of shoes donated with this charity campaign is 295576).
The path without shoes: experience a path that millions of children walk every day.
| By Emily Ekong|
