Shoes4Africa, Inc.- from an idea to a global nonprofit

Today, I am to write about what marked my life for two years, developed my interpersonal skills and helped me learn more about myself, my aspirations, my dreams than I thought was possible. Today, I write about what woke me up, what pushed me in the race of life, what got me somehow to where I am today. Shoes4Africa, Inc. is a campaign that started as a simple idea in the summer of my sophomore year in high school with my best friend Joel Wiznitzer, and overnight, turned to a globally represented, media-covered and multinational-organization funded nonprofit corporation.
As an immigrant I have had the opportunity to view the world through many lenses. When I lived in Venezuela I was aware that many people suffered and had to struggle to sustain their families. Arriving in the United States, I knew that I would not be able to eradicate these images from my mind.

I lived for 13 years in an underdeveloped country where injustices and societal flaws were covered up by the fraudulent action of the powerful few. These most likely were the ones who hired the team of criminals who kidnapped my brothers and me, leaving us with painful memories. After this harrowing experience how could I not do something to change the world in which I live?

In the summer of 2006, reviewing the life experiences that haunted me and the impoverished living conditions of many in my homeland, I wanted to change some of those problems. The inspiration and the idea that I had the power to start something, however big, came from my father. In my sophomore year at Dr. Michael M. Krop Senior High School in Miami, Florida, I had the opportunity to attend my older brother’s, Abraham Akinin, Silver Knight Award Ceremony. On the ride back from the ceremony, all my father talked about is how I had to start something, a project- “thinking big, thinking small, thinking of your community and the global spectrum, start something that you like, that puts your skills to practice. Those kids did it, you can do much more!.”

Thinking big to start small, I came across the idea of world poverty. I saw it with my own eyes in Venezuela, but I read about it and studied it thoroughly since coming to America. As a student in an AP Human Geography course, I was exposed to the economics of West Africa, from cocoa production in the Ivory Coast to populations below the poverty line. Later I took International Relations at Florida International University, which widened my knowledge of contemporary Africa and made me fall in love with the cause. Joel and I sat in a room one day for 6 hours and stopped talking about what we wanted to do when we grew up, as our usual conversations would go, and decided to talk about what we were going to do then.

Through this research we found that being barefoot is not uncommon, nor is it healthy. We realized that shoes would help in the fight against poverty. This was my chance to get back at some of the injustices of the world and bring about a positive change. We founded a nonprofit organization and started collecting shoes at school and storing them in every corner we could fit a box. What better place to start than my own closet?

Shoes4Africa, Inc. (www.help4africa.com) collects shoes in cities across the U.S. and eight countries around the world to be shipped to people in Ivory Coast, Nigeria, and other African nations where so many walk barefoot and some have never owned a pair of shoes. Wearing shoes helps in the fight against environmentally caused diseases, cuts, scratches, and parasites (such as hookworm larvae), as well as progressing in terms of world development.

The first steps are often the most difficult part of founding an organization or starting a campaign, but to me those were the easiest. First we launched the website, which I designed myself that same day. The project began small, but as people heard what we were doing, it grew.
We collected shoes from our families and close friends. We had by the end of a week, a couple dozen pairs. That’s when we got ambitious.

Holding leadership positions in our school’s French Club, Future Business Leaders of America, and student government, I was able to encourage student participation in the drive. In less than one month the whole school became involved, and hundreds of shoes piled into boxes and bags. These results gave us an idea that was the turning point of our campaign.

Joel Wiznitzer and David Akinin talking to volunteers at the Aventura Chabad in South Florida

There are two key factors to leading a successful community service project or philanthropic campaign: the accessibility of your goals (in my case how feasible was it to collect shoes, store them and ship them), and networking. Networking is essential because it widens the spectrum in which your project is undertaken, it gives you the resources to learn from others who are doing similar things, and ultimately makes you take your project more seriously as all the people you’ve networked with are counting on you. I started networking with local organizations, companies, and schools. Soon, eight schools in my area were participating. Shoes4Africa partnered with the local Jewish Community Center, where we volunteered as teen ¬program counselors, and Step by Step Foundation, which provided storage space for the shoes. The local Jaycees, a networking organization for young businesspeople, introduced me as their only teen member and helped in the process.

Networking essential: a business card!

This community and Internet exposure gave me the motivation to set up a global structure for my organization. At Harvard Summer School I met professors who put me in touch with an African nonprofit I’d been working with to send the shoes to Africa, African Embassy, Inc. I made friends all over the world who were just as motivated and inspired as I am, and who have taken the campaign to their cities and countries. By then, I served as the global co-director, and we had eight country directors, city directors, and 34 school liaisons. Giving a teen the opportunity to feel like a leader is all the motivation necessary to change the world. Amy Omar in Akron, Ohio was in TV interviews and countless journal publications spotlighting her leadership and work through Shoes4Africa.

Amy Omar from Akron, Ohio

With Florida International University, Shoes4Africa undertook the “Walk in My Shoes” campaign to increase awareness of sexual violence and bring an end to it, while using the campaign as a means of collecting shoes for the needy. Each pair had a story of rape attached to it, and surprisingly, many anonymous volunteers brought shoes with their own stories attached.

No long and ambitious task comes without problems. One year after having founded Shoes4Africa with the mission of solving the barefoot crisis in Western Africa “one shoe at a time”, viciously expanding our ideal globally, and starting chapters throughout the US, Canada, Sweden, Nicaragua, Guatemala and Venezuela, I was threatened of being sued by Shoe4Africa’s legal counsel. A counsel for another NPO in NY, undertook legal actions against me as they learned of our success in collecting thousands of shoes. Although they managed to shut down the website, S4A, because they threatened the hosting company, we kept expanding and collecting. We simply switched from www.shoes4africa.org (which is still blocked) to www.help4africa.com (which we have started building again).
“The world needs one hundred organizations like ours,” was my first and last response to them. I grew older than I did in 17 years, that day, when I digested the irony in their actions, the coldness in the hearts and their pocketing intentions. Feeling alone in a fight- combating the goliaths without a rock, and managing to continue on with my aspirations, to learn and comprehend from those incidents, have made me grow taller inside.

Teaching about Africa and its problems at an elementary school

To raise money to pack the shoes that would be shipped free by UPS (another partner), Shoes4Africa launched “Shoot for a Cause.” Fifteen teams, 45 players, pizza, snacks, and drinks made up a wonderful Friday afternoon fundraising event. Each player paid a $28 fee to compete in one of the wildest basketball tournaments of the year. In addition, we received private donations from individuals all along the two years that helped us purchase many of the supplies needed to store our boxes for over two years of the program. Storage was a huge problem when it came to finding it for free! My mom wasn’t too pleased with the idea of having thousands of pairs of shoes in her front lawn for month. We reached out to a local nonprofit headed by Liliane Stransky, Step by Step Foundation, which donated storage space for several months.
Joel and I would leave school early, or even wake up 3 hours before school started, because we had to move hundreds of boxes from one storage space to another, as the companies that lend us the space needed to vacate from time to time. In the last months of the project we had over 4,000 pairs of shoes stored in Milan Kitchen’s storage space in South Florida.
Shipping? We had no idea what we’re going to do until the last months of our project. I had called, mailed, emailed, stalked everyone possible; we had gotten rejection letters from everyone, and worst of all everyone in the community was on our tail about the status of the shipment. Frederick Smith, the president of FedEx sent me a personal letter saying he couldn’t help at the time. But pushing down the scale, I found success with Tiffany Bryant, a Branch Manager for FedEx, who helped us out and allowed us to close a deal with FedEx.

At FedEx Miami, shipping over 4,500 pairs

Interview with Nani Montero

Shoes4Africa has been published in countless newspapers, magazines and online resources. We’ve even had TV and radio interviews regarding our work.

Not only has Shoes4Africa ameliorated the conditions of the needy by providing shoes, but it prevents the spread of diseases that come with being barefoot. Moreover, the project created young leaders in over 20 cities and eight countries who are now in charge of an important campaign in their schools and communities. It inspired local campaigns in many places, and made leaders out of third grade classrooms like Mrs. Landman’s class at Sinai Jacobson Academy. It made the world more aware of the harsh conditions of others, inspired teens like myself to start their own campaigns, and most importantly, changed my life!

Mrs Landman's Class and David Akinin, at Sinai Academy in Miami, Florida

This is truly a short version of two and a half years of sweat, experiences, learning and growth. Feel free to reach out to me to learn more.

Founders, David Akinin and Joel Wiznitzer

Joel Wiznitzer

David Akinin

Visit http://www.dosomething.org/project/shoes4africa-inc-aka-help4africa to view our project
or www.help4africa.com
or www.zimbio.com/shoes4africa.org