Yesterday, TOMS held their One Day Without Shoes campaign to raise awareness for children's health and education. I've heard about this day like two years ago. I actually remember how I first knew about it. It was my senior year and I saw this couple with no shoes on, but they had socks, and a shirt that said "One Day Without Shoes - TOMS" and I was like "Wow, that so awesome." So the next year (last year) I wanted to do it but I totally forgot about it! I was so upset so I promised myself that I was gonna do it this year, and I did.
To begin with, the whole reason I did this was because I was curious. This year in university I learned so much about third world countries, specifically in Latin America, and it moved me a lot to be informed with so much information about their lifestyle. You know, people are poor in the world. Like dirt poor. It's actually amazing to know people live in such terrible conditions this day and age. And yeah, we have poverty in the States but in my opinion, it's always gonna be worse in other countries cause their government barely give a shit about them (excuse the language). But seriously.
Being fortunate enough to have a roof over my head, a plate in front a me, and shoes on my feet, I decided to put myself in someone else's shoes (no pun intended). I actually did some reason on why this is so important, not wearing shoes. I mean, I saw how this affected health but I was confused about the who education part. So of course living in poverty, many children walk to and from school barefoot but this can cause then to get hookworm on their feet. From that 20% of children are less likely to go to school and 40% will earn less when they get older because of that (On a side note, I looked up hookworm too and if they get that and aren't treated, it will eventually end up in their digestive system and grow into adult worms where the person can then die from the infection) Back to what I was saying, it seems to be a cycle of poverty because not getting an education will affect children in the future.
Enough of me preaching and let me get to the point haha. So let me tell you, walking barefoot was beyond painful. My feet still hurt today. I was gonna back down and not do it cause I saw it was raining but I thought that this is probably the best opportunity since people walk barefoot through anything. As you can see, I was really committed to this (I even went to the gym with no shoes). And advice to anyone who ever do this, don't wear socks. I noticed that being barefoot all day then just having socks on is very different. My socks felt like clouds haha. So if you're gonna do, really do it - barefoot. I'm glad I did this too cause it's one of those humbling experiences were you're just so grateful to have what you do. And kudos to TOMS for doing what they do, I'm so pro-change for better lives.
