USED SHOES TO PROTECT AFRICAN PEOPLE FROM BUGS|舊鞋救命! 募集舊鞋傳愛到非洲

Throughout the world millions of quality shoes are thrown away every year! However, do you know those shoes can actually be reused in providing protection for those who are suffering from the infection of jiggers in Africa? An Internet--based campaign initiated by Taiwanese has been sending unwanted second hand shoes, clothes and bags from Taiwan to rural areas in Africa. They have successfully sent over millions of pairs of shoes over for the past two years. Let's take a look. Taking each pair of shoes out of the box, making sure they are intact and wearable, then sorting them into different bags Lastly, sealing the bag and putting them on top of each other Then they're ready to go into the shipping container. A whole warehouse worth of discarded shoes, clothes and bags will all be donated to Africa. ==CHEN PO-ZHEN, warehouse volunteer== We usually send two containers over to Africa every month. Each container consist of 30,000 to 50,000 pairs of shoes. Which means we send almost 1 million pairs of shoes to Africa every year. If you're interested in donating, just a friendly reminder, children's shoes, closed-toe shoes and sneakers are all perfect for donation while high heels, winter boots or even wooden clogs are not. ==CHEN PO-ZHEN, warehouse volunteer== We hope that when people donate, please think of it as if you're sending a present to Africa. Please clean the shoes and check if they are still wearable before donating. In some African countries, people who live in rural areas live in poverty and cannot afford shoes. Therefore, these used shoes from Taiwan can help protect them, especially the children from a bug called jiggers. ==YANG YU-JEN, Step30 campaign initiator== So he showed me a couple pictures of the kids that have been affected by this thing called jiggers. It's basically a parasite, that buried themselves into your feet, and start to cause all kinds of infection, possibly death. Inspired by his father-in-law, a retired Canadian missionary, who has spent quite some time in the remote area of Kenya, Africa, Yang Yu-Jen launched an online campaign "Old Shoes Save Lives", also called Step30, two years ago. Ever since 2014, they have successfully received at least 1 million shoes and have sent all of them to African countries. ==YU JEN YANG, Step30 campaign initiator== I remember the very first time I went to a village to give out a bunch of shoes. I made sure, I made sure everybody had a pair of shoes, all the kids. And as I was going out the village, I turned around and I still saw a lot of kids without shoes. So I called the pastor over and then he was like well see here's the thing. It's the end of November now, so next month they will have Christmas. So all the moms just put their shoes away, to wait for that time to come to give it to them. It just dawned on me that how precious they actually view those shoes. More than providing shoes, the container that are used to transport the shoes, will be left in Africa and turned into classrooms for the children. ==YANG YU-JEN, Step30 campaign initiator(Photos provided by Step30)== From that we have Love binti, it's reusable sanitary pads. Living water project, that's for clean water. And then Kuku project, kuku means chicken. Giving them chicken, teaching them how to raise chicken. Chicken egg chicken egg that kind of cycle, so help them to be sustainable. The internet campaign became a huge success with more than tens of thousands of participants each year. Yang hopes this can serve as a platform for young people to connect with other, to help more people in the world. TRANSLATED BY：STELLA TU 把一雙雙舊鞋，從紙箱拿出來，折一折確保完好無一，檢查完後分類，再裝入塑膠袋中。最後密封好疊起來。就可以準備上貨櫃 海運到非洲。滿滿一整倉庫的舊鞋，舊衣，舊包包，都是台灣民眾的愛心。 ==倉庫志工 陳柏甄== 我們平均每個月會出兩個貨櫃過去 平均一個貨櫃會有 三到五萬雙的鞋子 所以等於我們一年是將近 一百萬雙過去的 新鞋舊鞋全都收，不過要提醒大家，這裡大多需要的是童鞋、布鞋,還有包頭的鞋.而像這樣的高跟鞋、雪靴甚至木屐，不但不適合捐到非洲，反而會增加志工們整理的時間。 ==倉庫志工 陳柏甄== 希望大家捐物資過來的時候 是以一個送禮物給非洲朋友的心態 把東西就是清潔完了之後 鞋子清潔好 然後檢查一下鞋底有沒有破損 再把禮物送到非洲朋友的手上 在肯亞與烏干達交界的山上，有80%的孩子，每天必須赤腳走一個多小時上學，其實,只要一雙舊鞋，就能幫助他們，遠離沙蚤的折磨 ==發起人 楊右任== 沙蚤這個東西 牠可以影響範圍非常的廣 有人可能就是腳癢 嚴重的狀況就變成說 腳整個潰爛掉 到小腿 到有需要截肢的狀況 甚至到有小孩過世 就是有其他併發症引發的 娓娓道來在非洲所見的真實狀況，他，是活動發起人，楊右任。原本是美語老師的他，岳父是一名加拿大牧師，由於長時間在非洲幫助當地居民，非常清楚那裡的需求與狀況，進而鼓勵楊右任，從2014年開始，在網上發起''舊鞋救命''的活動。兩年多來，已經成功募集到上百萬雙鞋子到非洲。 ==發起人 楊右任== 我記得第一次去一個村莊去發鞋 大家都發完了 回頭看 還是有很多小孩子沒有穿鞋 然後牧師說 因為你現在11月底來 12月他們就是聖誕節 快到了 所以媽媽都會把 鞋子都把他收起來 然後聖誕節的時候 就好像我們的過年一樣 發這個聖誕禮物 所以你可以想像到在台灣 可能是 大家覺得說 是舊的鞋子 可是在那邊是一個非常珍貴的禮物 除了將舊鞋舊衣送到非洲，運送的貨櫃，也留在當地改成教室，希望運送物資之外，也能在當地透過更多的計畫，協助非洲小朋友改善生活。 ==發起人 楊右任== 接下來就是愛女孩計畫 就是女性衛生棉 教育他們的女性價值觀 生理期所需要用的產品布衛生棉 然後"一旗助學" 就是台灣選舉旗 商業旗 這些旗子都是要銷毀掉 我們是找志工把它做成背包 然後送到我們學校裡面去 從簡單的一個想法，到現在，每年上萬人響應的活動，楊右任希望，這裡能成為年輕人的一個平台，一歩一腳印,造福非洲民眾，進而造福全世界。 記者 涂恩晨 陳彥霖 桃園報導