BENGALURU: Last year when there was construction activity taking place near Sia Godika’s house in Koramangala, she spotted workers who were working barefoot, thereby leaving their feet cracked. “And it was the same with the young children. These were images that have remained in my mind ever since. During the lockdown, I saw many pictures of barefoot migrant workers, and as I researched further, I realised that there were millions of people without foot cover,” says the 13-year-old student of Neev Academy, who then went on to take up the initiative, Sole Warriors.
Through this, she is collecting usable shoes, refurbishing them if needed and will now give them to the needy. Backed by a network of ‘sole warriors’, as she calls them, including Plog Raj (founder of Ploggers Army), she hopes to make this a nation-wide initiative.
“One of the United Nations sustainable development goals is good health and well being. How are we going to manage this when people are unknowingly getting diseases just because they are barefoot?,” she questions. From personal experience, she also knows many have shoes at home which they never use. “Millions who don’t have shoes suffer from foot diseases and allergies. But there are millions more who throw away shoes, which are in a usable condition or they store it at home and never wear them,” she says about her initiative’s tag line ‘Donate a sole, save a soul’.
The initiative accepts all types of footwear (school shoes, house slippers, sports shoes). As Godika explains, for someone without footwear, wearing a pair of “house slippers” on the road would also be a great alternative. After collecting the shoes from apartments/schools, the team takes them to cobblers. Once the shoes are refurbished, they transport them to NGOs who in turn distribute the shoes among people who need them. “Over 1,000 shoes that have been collected will be distributed in Jayanagar, Koramangala and Marathahalli on July 8 and through the next week,” she says. To get in touch, visit
thesolewarriors.com