Footloose

Loose, footloose
Kick off your Sunday shoes
Please, Louise
Pull me offa my knees
Jack, get back
C'mon before we crack 

Sometimes on Facebook or here I link to blogs or information on aid work and discussions about improving aid.  Here on my blog I tend to talk about what I do, on Facebook I try to steer my friends toward information on good giving. Today's post sort of connects the two.

One of the blogs I've shared before, "Good Intentions are Not Enough" from Sandra, has started a blog campaign to counter a silly advertising campaign. This post is in response to her call to arms. I suggest reading the whole thing, and the comments at the bottom are worth a gander as well.

But here's a summary of the counter campaign from her page:

"It’s time again for TOMS Shoes’ annual advertisement (awareness raising activity) called A Day Without Shoes. Every year TOMS gets celebrities and college students to walk around barefoot so that they are more aware of the plight of people without shoes. And of course, what better way to put shoes onto the feet of these shoeless people than to purchase a pair of TOMS Shoes.

As you’ve probably guessed, I’m not a fan of this annual event. So this year I’m proposing a counter-campaign called A Day Without Dignity.

On or around April 5th – the same date as A Day Without Shoes – we’re asking aid workers, the diaspora, and people from areas that receive shoe drops and other forms of charity to speak up in blogs, on twitter, or at school."

* * * 

Dr. Strangeshoe or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Shoe Shopping

I come from modest hippy roots, ripe with barefoot, naked, free-loving childhood memories. After a teenage bout with Guess? jeans, hairspray and make-up (my form of rebellion), I returned to my roots, joined the Peace Corps and wore nothing but home-made clothes and Chacos. When I got a paying job as a professional aid worker, I expanded my wardrobe (peace-drobe, as my uncle says) to include NGO/donor branded t-shirts, flip flops and gum boots.

As I moved up the ranks and out of the bush, I had a "need" to look nice for donor meetings, coordination meetings and "representation". The dirty aid worker look wouldn't hack it. So, for my highest goal of saving the world, I went shopping.

I was a big spender. I bought red Converse low tops from the rasta DJ for ten bucks. I bought wooden wedge heels from the fat mamma on the corner for five-fifty. I bought basic black flats from a nondescript guy for a dollar. Despite haggles, I am sure I paid the "muzungu price" (foreigner price), probably twice of normal.

"Have I sold out?" I asked myself, as I put on black linen slacks and name-brand button up shirt.
"No, it's for the children." I justified to myself, as I tied the laces on the super-stylee red Converse. "You're gonna wow those donors! You're contributing to the local economy, feeding those people's kids," I added to really convince myself. I added a locally-made red beaded necklace to complete the look.

* * * 

 You're playing so cool
Obeying every rule
Dig way down in your heart
You're yearning, burning for some...

So, what's wrong with TOMS barefoot "awareness raising" (advertising) campaign? Isn't it cute? Not really. I'll just point out two things:


It perpetuates the image that poverty stricken people live undignified lives of squalor and need any handout they can get. "Those poor African children don't even have shoes!" Um, Maybe they don't even want shoes.

Generally, if you're really trying to help people - giving money is better than giving stuff. Even if you're dead set on shoes, send money to buy them locally - it's cheaper and more efficient and the person you're trying to help can choose the stylee shoes she likes herself.

The issues and debates are long and complicated (and really interesting!), so I encourage you to look around Sandra's Good Intents site, as well as the other blog posts participating in this campaign.

It is sexy to give in these "trying times" of earthquakes, tsunamis, droughts, floods, epidemics, civil wars, revolutions, ongoing conflicts etc. So do. But also have a good conversation over dinner about it. Disagree with me. With whoever. Just ask questions. And keep your damn shoes on.

Everybody get Footloose.