The Fathers New Shoe Making Project has been a project in the making for 12 months and the men are now making really good quality sandals.
The dump site where the men worked collecting plastic and cardboard for recycling closed late 2016/2017 and hundreds of men lost their already meagre income. It wasn’t long before the fathers asked us if we could start a livelihood project for them, they saw the success of the livelihood we started 13 years ago for their wives and young mums and we knew their expectation was that we could do the same for them!
After a few months of experimenting with different ideas we all decided the most sustainable idea is to make sandals and children’s school shoes from upcycled materials. After 7 months we raised enough to buy our own second hand machinery and rent a large workshop for the men. We came up with our first sandal made from leather upper and using the tyre from an aeroplane made into the sole of the sandal.
Since then we now can make the whole sandal using recycled leather from sofas, leather jackets, trousers and handbags, and also the inner tubes from truck tyres. The protype for the children’s school shoe is being perfected and we have already secured a small but regular order for our sandals in Taiwan and lots of interest in a school shoe!
Keep an eye on our shop (p-c-f.org/shop) we hope to have the sandals availabe to buy from July 2019.
