Sibusiso and Mandla were voted Lead SA Youth Hero’s for December 2016 for their charitable work collecting sneakers for children.
Sibusiso Calvin Zulu and Mandla Khumalo hope to collect enough shoes for an entire children’s home. They started the initiative in early 2015 and collected over 100 pairs of shoes for organisations such as Emmual Childrens Home, Skateistan SA and Twilight Childrens Home.
Growing up near a skate park and basketball court and not having access to appropriate footwear is where their passion for change bloomed. Seeing how it impacted the children around them, preventing them from being able to partake in activities is when it became a reality.
Determined to help the children they started collecting sneakers at events and distributing them to charities. Sibusiso and Mandla didn’t expect the first collection at a sneaker appreciation event to do as well as it did and from that moment they both realised they could make a huge difference in peoples lives.
“Seeing the sneaker culture and the industry, we thought it’s so big and has so much influence in our community, why don’t we use it to change the community?”
They discussed the psychological impact not having footwear has on people, how it changes the way people walk and carry themselves.
“It is difficult for a person, when you lack footwear, to associate with the outside world… You lack the full expression that you can be as a person. It’s deep”
Sibusiso and Mandla have now launched their first collection drive of 2017, Soles Of Soweto. The event is looking to collect enough shoes for all the children at the Barona Children Care Center in Diepkloof. The Center provides homework assistance and life skills training for children and youth as well as supplying breakfast and lunch for those in need.
If you have a pair of sneakers you don’t need and want to find out more about the event, check out their event here.
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