Old shoes refurbished for poor children - Fusion - WeRIndia

Many people discard their old shoes without much thought. But, do you know that now there are people out there who can use your old discarded shoes to make new ones? When you discard your shoes, there is a good chance they will be left there for ages polluting the environment.

Professional athletes Shriyans Bhandari and Ramesh Dhami have come up with a unique way to make sure discarded shoes are put to good use. They themselves used to discard around three pairs of shoes every year. When they realized that they need to be put to good use, they came up with an environment friendly and economical use for the shoes and even help the poor.

That was when they started GreenSole. They refurbish old shoes into comfortable and new footwear for hundreds of children who walk to school.

Initially, they wanted to refurbish their old shoes for personal use. However, it soon turned to a social business venture. They decided to help underprivileged children who cannot afford shoes.

At present, GreenSole has 17 corporate partners supporting it. They conduct collection drives in their offices and pay GreenSole to refurbish the shoes. These shoes are then donated in villages. That is not all, they also conduct collection drives across the country on their own. They reached out to many schools and colleges for that sake and even installed drop boxes in public places like parks.

GreenSole has a manufacturing unit in Navi Mumbai. Their team washes and disassembles the old shoes. They separate the soles and uppers.

GreenSole looks for villages which need help the most. They conduct surveys and find out how many shoes are needed and what size.

The core team of GreenSole is ten members. So far, they have donated footwear to more than 10,000 people. The organization also started retailing the refurbished shoes at low costs. People can help by donating money or shoes to them.

Image Reference: TheBetterIndia