[New Zealand's] Hamilton woman goes barefoot for Cambodian kids

Published: Saturday June 01, 2013 
Source: Fairfax 

http://tvnz.co.nz:
Watch the video here:  http://tvnz.co.nz/breakfast-news/living-barefoot-six-months-video-5450860

After going without shoes for six months a young Hamilton woman is finding it hard to get back into them.

While Katie Boom, 22, was working in Cambodia last year she met many children in the slums who could not get an education, and wanted to help them.

Because she used to watch the kids scamper around barefoot, she decided to take her own shoes off - for half a year - and raise some money in the process.

From the first of November 2012 until April 30 this year, her soles were exposed to gravel, rose thorns, heat, cold, mud, broken glass, and more.

Since then Boom has not been in a rush to get back into shoes, especially not high heels.

She recently sent off her first $2200 through Care for Cambodia and hopes to raise far more, because just $20 can buy a year of schooling for a child.

"A pair of cheap shoes here ... it's a whole year of education, and that blows my mind."

And shoes are one of many things New Zealanders take for granted.

Advertisement

Boom befriended a Cambodian family with six children, all of whom were living in a house far smaller than her own bedroom.

"They couldn't even fit lying down in their room at the same time. They nailed up a sheet in the corners ... and then they put the babies up in the sheet to sleep."

Until Boom and her family organised to lay some concrete, the house had no solid floor, just coconut husks and marsh.

Many of the children Boom met in the slums wanted to go to school, but could not because there were not enough school supplies or money, and their parents needed

them to sell items in the street.

Back in New Zealand, shedding her shoes did not stop her from taking anything on.

Despite a bit of pain after a barefoot trek up Mt Manaia in Whangarei, she said her feet were in good condition, and any thick skin naturally wore off.

But the girl in a nice dress with bare feet got funny looks in downtown Auckland and in Cambridge, at weddings and classical music performances.

She even worked with 800-kilogram bulls in cattleyards with her farm consultant father.

Boom said she was lucky New Zealanders were relaxed about bare feet because they had a stigma of poverty in many cultures, including in Cambodia.

"That's part of the reason, too, for what I'm doing ... giving the kids the feeling that they are not lesser, or people aren't looking down on them."

Her next fundraising push will be at Frankton on June 8, where she will hold a shoe sale at Cafe Agora in Kent St, from 11am to 3pm.

All proceeds will go to Shoeless. For more information got to facebook.com/shoelessnz.