New Balance gave Goducate their unsold “old models” of shoes to give to charity.
We decided to give some of them to our Sabah Literacy Centers’ students as most of them do not own a pair of shoes. Rubber sandals is the usual footwear. Since they hardly ever leave their village for fear of being arrested as “illegal aliens,” there is hardly any need for fancier footwear.
However, as they are getting educated and are able to read and write – and therefore read road signs and other signs they come across – they have more confidence to leave their village. More importantly, as we hope that some of them will one day be able to get responsible “white collar” jobs, it is important for them to know how to dress and behave accordingly. Learning to wear the right type of footwear is a first step in this direction.
When I arrived last week with the shoes at #1 Goducate Learning Center, the teachers had arranged a volley-ball match on their newly constructed volley-ball/basketball court (which is now the pride and center of their village).
The usual team sport in Sabah is soccer but as the communities Goducate serve are stateless (and therefore landless), soccer-size land is usually unavailable. As I watched the rather high quality of play between the two teams, I thought to myself “Maybe one day some of our students will represent their adopted land in volley-ball.”
After the game, the players lined up to receive their shoes. Though most of the shoes were several sizes too large for them (the smallest size given by New Balance was size 8), they eagerly chose their shoes and wore them. A little cloth stuffed into the front of the shoes would be all that was needed when they dressed up for the visit to town!
Hopefully, this will help them to dream of the day that they will have a responsible job in town!
