Cape Town - Two young men from Woodstock have started a campaign to put shoes on the feet of people who arguably spend most of their time walking around the city - the homeless.
Charlton Fezi, 20, and Dylan Cairns, 21, started the Youth Redemption organisation in December 2014 to help empower young people across the city.
They soon realised their feeding scheme would not be enough to address all the needs of the homeless. “The people on the streets do not only need food, so we started working on ideas that would work in helping those people,” Cairns said.
“That is how the idea of collecting shoes came about, and we gave it a name: Kick Game Grind.”
The men started their organisation with the aim of empowering the youth and sharing life skills. Youth Redemption gives young people a platform to showcase their talents.
It is not only focused on helping homeless people. It motivates young people to do better things in life - achieving more, not only for themselves, but for others.
In their first “sneaker drive”, the pair collected 1 700 pairs of shoes with the help of various radio stations and Gardens Commercial High School. The shoes were distributed on March 19 in Woodstock.
When the Cape Argus visited their workshop, there were still boxes full of sneakers of different colours and designs. A pile of broken pairs laid in a corner as part of the team’s sneaker exchange programme and a few pairs of black school shoes laid on the roof of a car in the garage.
The goal is to collect 2 500 pairs of shoes by the end of the month to hand out to schools in disadvantaged areas.
So far, 250 pairs have been collected.
Fezi and Cairns are appealing to the public to donate shoes. Fezi said it is important to remember that homeless people are also human beings.
“There is a lot that a person will learn from people living in the streets. Those people told me things that I did not hear from rich people” he said.
“These people are very wise and they mean more than just being homeless. We don’t just give them shoes but also create relationships with them. Now our people here know us by name.”
Youth Redemption aims to expand its reach to local communities in its bid to “change people’s lives in various ways”.
“We would like to go out to less fortunate schools, not only to donate but also to speak to the learners on how to engage with different challenges that we as youth face each day,” said Cairns.
Fezi said they had faced rejection by corporates when they ask for support.
“If we could get sponsors or recognition from the government, we would manage to achieve more in helping people and building better places for all.
“Anyone who would like to be involved can like us on our Facebook page, Youth Redemption.”
Cape Argus