Shoes for Nepal (Nov 09)
A short introduction by Patricia Lee:
Just a simple charity idea from the philosophy of recycle regift reuse. As avid runners ourselves, me and Ching Yee are aware of the potential for used but good condition running shoes from our local running and triathlete community to be donated to people in developing or third world countries.
On my trip to the summit of Kilimanjaro in Sept last year, I was acutely aware of the plights of ill equipped mountain porters/guides/etc on my trip. So when I knew I was heading to Nepal in Oct, I decided to take the opportunity to use my PPS frequent flyer extra luggage allowance of 50kg to bring shoes over for the porters and guides.
For Nepal we contacted the Porter’s Progress http://www.portersprogress.org/PPUK/Home.html who identified KEEP “s Porter Clothing Bank http://ippg.net/porter-clothing-banks/ as the recepient for our shoe donation. Both are non profits focusing on porters and guides welfare.
While we understand that boots or winter clothing would have been a preferred and more ideal donation item, the appeal would not have as great a response as there are huge numbers of runners in Singapore compared to hikers/trekkers/mountaineers. We believed that the running shoes will be of benefit to the porters/guides who sometimes undertake the treks in slippers due to the lack of money just to buy a pair of shoes.
To get things started, we only had to sent out emails to running groups and did facebook blasts. People dropped off the shoes at our houses. Ching had a car so she went on collection rounds. I went to Raffles Place in person to collect shoes.In less than a week we collected over 150 pairs of shoes. After the collection was done, we went thru them to pick out only suitable and good condition shoes. Due to our limited weight allowance, we had to be selective to bring only the best over. We then packed them in boxes to be checked in for our flights to Kathmandu.
In the end I brought over about 35kg of shoes. A group of 6 Singapore trekkers heading to Everest Base Camp heard about our efforts and helped us with collection and brought over 20kg of shoes as well. Another friend of mine brought over 10kg. In total we managed to bring over about 90 pairs of running shoes. At first I thought I would only be able to collect a dozen pair of shoes! Never did I imagine such an overwhelming response.
After this successful little project Ching & I would like to continue collecting running shoes and with the help of Singaporeans or singapore residents who want to make a difference in their travels.
We are open to ideas of how to do this better with any organisations/schools/adventure clubs/socially responsible friends. We know we can do this better and bigger with the right planning and more organisation.
So please let us help you!
Best
Patricia & Ching
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