Scheme closed so no further updates
July 2012
It may not look like it, but this was the batch of shoes, donated at church, school and pre-school. They were collected by Damian who works for the UN and has contacts to help deliver the consignment to Kenya. With thanks to Linda Samuels who coordinated our collection.
SHOE RAFIKI
In 2008 a mother passed her child’s outgrown shoes to a friend who was working in Kenya to pass on to a child at a local school there. Thinking this was a great way to recycle the unwanted items she contacted her local Catholic school and asked if they would like to adopt the idea. They did and the Shoe Rafiki project was born. Rafiki means "friend" or "pal" in Swahili.
At St James’ parish some parishioners are attempting to register for the CAFOD LiveSimply parish award scheme. The motto is “live simply so that others may simply live”. We are looking at a variety of initiatives including environmental issues such recycling. We are asking parish groups and St James’ School if they will support us in this.
Shoe Rafiki is one such initiative. We are asking that when buying your child new shoes you keep the old ones, for us to forward to the Rafiki project. Messages from your child can be put in the shoes if they would like to.
We collected the first batch of shoes from church on Sunday 22nd April. 180 pairs of shoes were collected. 21st Feb 2013: Sadly, problems delivering more shoes to Africa, and potential import duties, has meant that the Shoe Rafiki organisers have closed the scheme.