A Day Without Dignity
Posted on April 3, 2011 at 8:57 am
Girl in the Peruvian lowlands - photo by Amy Rorke
Update: A Day Without Dignity 2012 – Local Champions page is now up. Click here to see all of this year’s entries.
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A Day Without Dignity is a counter-campaign to TOMS Shoes A Day Without Shoes “awareness raising campaign” (commerial). On or around April 5th – the same date as A Day Without Shoes – we’re asking aid workers, the diaspora, and people from areas that receive shoe drops and other forms of charity to speak up in blogs, on twitter, or at school. Full details of this counter-campaign can be found here.
As posts or videos are submitted they will be linked to below with the most recent posts at the top.
The video for A Day Without Dignity is now up!
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Its hard, but essential, to question intentions in philanthropy – Social Media in Africa – Discusses how things aren’t always as they appear.
TOMS Shoes: An opportunity for “Bad Aid” to generate “GREAT Aid” – Lessons I Learned – Discusses the need to work with organizations like TOMS shoes to help the spread the word on practices that have a real impact.
“A day with handouts is a day without dignity.” – Gabrillephant – Shares thoughts on socially conscience businesses.
Shoes in Gulu - Photo by Elizabeth M.
TOMS: A Discussion on Bad Aid – A Personal Diaspora – Lays out a detailed argument against handing out shoes and provides alternative ways to help.
Day without Dignity: Awareness raised, now next steps… - Going International – Provides five suggestions for what people can do based on recommendations provided throughout the Day Without Dignity posts.
a day without dignity: shoes in karamoja, uganda – kiss the joy as it flies – Discusses interviews with 13 schools as to their needs. None of them said shoes.
Shoes for Africa? An interview with an African – Somewhere in England – The author talks with a teacher about what prevents students from going to school. What would help them the most.
Good Intentions vs. Good Results - Tactical Philanthropy – Discusses the change in philanthropy from focusing on intentions to focusing on results and the challenges this entails.
Shoe shopping in Gulu - photo by Elizabeth M.
A Day Without Dignity – Time Given To Us – Talks about the “Three D’s”: Donor Driven, Demeaning, Detrimental. She’s also the person that created the Day Without Dignity video.
a day with chris jordan, but without dignity or shoes. h-5inc. – “if you’re buying them because of the whole “buy one give one” thing then you should stop, go buy some real shoes, and donate some money to an aid charity. because the developing world does not really need shoes.”
A Day Without Shoes - Somewhere in England – Discusses how the cost of TOMS shoes could pay for a year’s worth of school fees AND buy shoes for a child.
Shoes for sale in Ghana - photo by Binnu Jeyakumar
A Day Without Dignity – Binnu Jeyakumar – Untapped Markets - Discusses the difficulty of getting shoes to market and how it’s the distribution challenges that need to be met, not sending free shoes.
A Day Without Dignity – Shoe Repair – Untapped Markets - Talks about the shoe repair business in Malawi and how jobs and access to markets is what’s really needed.
shoe shopping in Gulu – truths about elephants – Takes readers along on a shoe shopping trip in Gulu and has a great suggestion at the end for what you can do that raises more awareness then walking around barefoot.
A Day Without Dignity - miserere nobis – “I’ve been learning a lot in the past year that it’s okay to be an “Aid Elitist” as Tales from the Hood puts it. There are thousands of people coming up with all sorts of ideas on how to creatively help bring the rest of the world out of poverty–but the bottom line in aid is that good intentions are simply not enough.”
Final? update on the TOMS Shoe v. Dignity flap – Humanosphere – An update on the debate.
The problem with TOMS shoes & its critics – Kelsey Timmerman – “If you give a kid shoes,” she told me, “they wear out or they grow out of them, and then what do they have? If you give the kid’s parents a job, the whole family will always have shoes.”
Uganda - photo from Siena Anstis
Aidwars: TOMS shoes vs dignity - Marshall Birkey – Talks about the current debate and asks how we can make our charity not about us.
TOMS = SWEDOW = FAIL - Two Happy, Crazy Mormons – Talks about the problems with the TOMS campaign and donated goods.
Do You Cause More Harm than Good by Giving TOMS Shoes to the Poor? – Zacstravaganza! - A previous post from a Peace Corps volunteer’s perspective.
YOU THINK YOU KNOW, BUT YOU DON’T KNOW – Penelope m.c. – Tells the story of an attempt to help that didn’t turn out as expected.
A Day Without Dignity (SWEDOW) – Kat in Tanzania – A good run down of the problems with donated goods and how many people still keep doing it.
A Day Without Dignity – James Shelley – Discusses how all our stories about aid center around the well-off white person as the hero, while the real heroes are the local people helping out in their own communities.
Shoes for sale in Ghana - photo by Don D'Souza
Barefoot on Broadway (Warning: gross feet pics) - Aid Watch – One of the Aid Watch staff participated in A Day Without Shoes and reflects on the experience.
A Day Without - Manna Project International – Discusses how organizations often neglect to talk about the contributions of their local partners and others helping their work be successful.
TOMS shoes and A Day Without Dignity - Hands Wide Open – A post aimed at a religious audience discussing the event and TOMS style of charity.
Day Without Dignity - An Unforgivable Hell on Earth – Discusses an alternative to TOMS shoes.
The Golden Rule Is Flawed (So Are TOMS Shoes) - Brigid Slipka – Talks about how the Golden Rule and TOMS shoes are both based on the needs and perceptions of the giver not the receiver.
Kids in a parade in Kenya - photo from View from the Cave
Limitations of Gifts-In-Kind: A Day Without Dignity - The Invisible Architect - “Haitians don’t lack shoes to buy, I pass a dozen or so shoe-sellers every day on my way to work. Yes, Haitians need shoes to stay safe from the trash and disease on the street. Yes, children need shoes to be allowed to attend school. But shoes are attainable for the vast majority of the maléré, the poor. Most of the women I see wear pretty little sandals that wear out in like a month!”
One Day Without Shoes – One Day without Sense… - Diary of an African Entrepreneur - Takes Arianna Huffington and TOMS to task for the amount they spent on the advertising campaign.
A Day Without Dignity – Finding Shoes in Accra - Untapped Markets.ca – Trying to take a photo while avoiding explaining to the shop seller that westerners think they don’t have any shoes.
Once I gave a man my shoes – La vidaid loca – Fairly powerful story about one man’s life and the likely unnecessary gift of a pair of boots.
A Day Without Dignity – Photos from Erin – Untapped Markets.ca - More photos of shoes for sale in Ghana.
Shoes for sale in Ghana - photo by Erin Antcliffe
A Day Without Bickering – love.explore.question.risk – “So friends, please stop for a minute, and learn to listen. If we can all stop bickering with each other for a few minutes, I bet we could learn a lot.”
A Day Without Dignity: TOMS and Qualms with Shoe Giving - Along Red Dirt Roads – About how giving stuff leads to dependency and takes away dignity.
Put Your Shoes Back On, Privileged Techies – Gawker – Gawker joins in, sort of.
Walk in Someone Else’s Shoes - The Social Change Collaboratory – Talks about the natural urge we have to help by providing donated goods. And the impact those goods have on the children and their community.
How Bad Aid is Stripping Africa of its Dignity - I wonder as I wander – Discusses the impact of nonprofit marketing on the average person’s understanding of Africa.
Shoes at a local church in Uganda - photo by TMS Ruge
A Day Without Dignity – Photos from Jolly Ann - Untapped Markets.ca – still more photos of shoes for sale in the local market place.
Check out my new TOMS Shoes – A satire video
TOMS Shoes are So Not Cool… – Stratosphere – Talks about a businesswoman’s reaction to One Day Without Shoes and her struggles to start a small company.
Shoes: the least of our problems - Project Diaspora - A personal reflection of life growing up in Uganda and what the real issues are.
Shoes for sale in Malawi - photo by Duncan McNicholls
Update: Shoes vs. Dignity Day – Humanosphere – And update of this differences between A Day Without Dignity and A Day Without Shoes.
A Day Without Dignity – Photos from Don – Untapped Markets.ca - Absolutely great photos of shoes for sale in the local marketplace.
A Day Without Dignity – Wanderings – “So that is why today is a Day Without Dignity – a speaking out against the consumer driven objectification of TOMS ad campaign which deprives people of their dignity. It is the counter-campaign to TOMS.”
Shoes for sale in Haiti - photo by Tales from the Hood
A Day Without Dignity – Duncan McNicholl – Untapped Markets.ca – Great photos of local shoe stores and a discussion of the local shoe market.
Why not walk without fear? – Away & Home – Talks about the much bigger issue of landmines.
Development Without Dignity – Water Wellness – Discusses how we represent people in charitable advertising along with sample photos of how it works.
A day without dignity – listening – KM on a dollar a day – Provides a great list of resources to help people learn how to listen to those they’re trying to help.
Un día sin zapatos, o sin dignidad? - Notas y Noticias
The forest, the trees, and the shoes (of course) – Shotgun Shack – “The community was animated. They were in a tough situation, but they were moving ahead. I felt really motivated. As we drove away, I looked over at my colleague. She was in tears. ’Oh! Did you see the children?’ she said. ‘Some of them weren’t wearing any shoes!’ Talk about missing the forest for the trees.”
Playing around in Kenya - Photo by A View from the Cave
A day without shoes, more days without dignity – Short Sentences – “For Western do-gooders, a day without shoes seems meaningful, sympathetic, and selfless. For those people Westerners want to help, days without handouts would be much more effective, lasting, and dignifying.”
Shoes, Shoes, Shoes... – A View from the Cave – A poem about shoes with great photos for A Day Without Dignity.
Reminding Ourselves: A Day Without Dignity – Project Diaspora – “What about this culture of reminding ourselves of difference in a way that objectifies others and makes gross generalizations- all in the name of awareness?” Asks whether awareness raising campaigns aren’t all about “us.”
A Day without TOMS – africatech – “TOMS shoes is at it again* with a campaign that is at best useless, at worst, detrimental to real aid efforts by perpetuating the myth that “it’s so easy” to do aid work.”
a day without dignity – Texas in Africa – Explains why she prefers Habit for Humanity’s model for assistance over TOMS shoes. “By focusing on a partnership model, everyone becomes an equal contributor, giving dignity and pride to homeowners and volunteers alike.”
Kids riding a bike in rural Thailand - photo by Saundra Schimmelpfennig
A Day Without Dumbassery – Tales from the Hood – Talks about all the things that happen in the marketing of aid that are not in the best interest of the people we’re trying to help.
A DAY WITHOUT DIGNITY – HAND OUTS AND DEPENDENCY – Erin Cagney - Discusses how handouts lead to aid dependency.
Mbuyuni Development Youth Group: A Contribution to A Day Without Dignity – USALAMA – Talks about her experience with a community based organization in Mombasa. Relates how the local people are working to solve their own problems and how they know what their needs are and what assistance is the most helpful.
Shopkeeper in Indonesia - photo by Marissa Nobauer
A Day Without Dignity: The Power to Shoes – Wanderlust - Suggests alternative ways TOMS could use their skills, knowledge, and expertise to help. This would give local people the power to shoes for themselves.
“Raising Awareness” towards what goal? – Going International – Discusses different awareness raising activities and their impact or lack of impact.
Shoes and Bees - About The Bees – Suggests other ways to help.
A Day Without Dignity – Lifting the poverty curtain – Reflects on the right to dignity and the desire of people living in poverty to have control over their lives.
A Day Without Dignity – a rant on celebrity driven sexy imperialism – thoughts of a madwoman – “No, these limelight seeking twits prefer to send containers of shoes that do NOTHING to support and grow local economies. Shoes that damage local shoe makers and repairers businesses. Shoes that strip the dignity of work from people.”
The boy's shoes are made from used tires and sold in the local marketplace - photo by Emily Tanner in Kenya
Will the rebuilding effort in Japan be about the survivors or about the nonprofits? – GiveWell – In their contribution to A Day Without Dignity, GiveWell asks why organizations aren’t just handing out cash to allow the survivors to purchase whatever meets their needs the best.
@JonVWest suggested including this article, which was published yesterday. Study: Cause Marketing Lowers Donations - Marketing Daily – “Consumers appear to realize that participating in cause marketing is inherently more selfish than direct charitable donation, reducing their subsequent happiness (versus a direct donation),” Krishna says. “Unfortunately, this doesn’t prevent them from substituting it for charitable giving, which reduces the overall charitable donation.”
@jasontgoodrich forwarded me these three investigative articles on Soles4Souls:
- Soles4Souls sister charity lent $900,000 to CEO; some loans violated law
- Soles4Souls’ Elsey’s salary among tops for social service group leaders
- Some Soles4Souls shoes sold overseas
I was interviewed for these articles months ago, and am quoted in one of them. It is fitting that they were published on the eve of A Day Without Dignity.
Girls school shoes waiting to be washed and shined in Kenya - photo from Emily Tanner
Small Business in the Rural Zone. A video that talks with a shoe repair man in Cameroon (for English subtitles click on the ‘cc’ in lower right-hand side of the screen and choose English). This video was not made for A Day Without Dignity, but recommended by @meowtree as it relates to the topic.
Breathing meaning into sustainability talks about a local project that gives local women dignity and control. And Shoes: Not Really Making a Difference! a photo of local shoes in support of A Day Without Dignity – both posts by SIENA ANSTIS.
Tomfoolery - a video by Lisa S. that contrasts the people going One Day Without Shoes with local cobblers.
Shoes for sale at the market in Thailand - photo by Shotgun Shack
Making ends meet in Zimbabwe – Kubatana.net – Photo of used shoes for sale in Zimbabwe
Footloose – The Path of Trayle – Discusses purchasing shoes as an aid worker and her thoughts on A Day Without Dignity
Shoes outside a school in Bangladesh - photo by Rachel Zack
An Autoethnography – Humanitarian Aid and Education – “My Day Without Dignity reflection on feeling like I had a RIGHT to help, and could and should help and how wrong I was.”
Fellow Rosebell Kagumire offers a comment for “A Day Without Dignity” – McGill Blogs - Ugandan multimedia journalist working on peace and conflict issues offers her thoughts. “These children and women don’t need anyone’s shoes. They need to be empowered to buy their own things which fit their needs.”
Baby Cody & A Day Without Dignity - Women of Kireka
A Day Without Dignity: A Counter Campaign – Huffington Post
Woman selling shoes in Haiti a few weeks after the earthquake - photo by Tales from the Hood
Please sponsor an unemployed, middle-aged, white American guy by giving to the International Human Fund – a spoof of sponsorship advertisements.
Call for a Day Without Shoes & Without Dignity – Humanosphere
A Day Without Dignity – Mara Gordon’s Blog - “drop the ineffective and patronizing foreign aid, keep the fabulous glitter?”
TOMS and the Day without Dignity – The Theology of Joe
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Guides by Good Intentions are Not Enough
Good Intentions’ Guide to Holiday Charitable Giving
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« Interesting articles, posts, and papers from March • The Day Without Dignity Video »
Here’s my photo and my two cents from my experience as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Benin: http://jessunderafricanskies.blogspot.com/2011/04/day-without-shoes.html
[...] want to thank everyone who participated in A Day Without Dignity. So many of you shared thoughtful posts and touching photos. Your contributions have been [...]
[...] sort of guerilla campaign against TOMS’ Day Without Shoes program, she lead a social media fueled Day Without Dignity campaign that resulted in the video below being [...]
As a follow-up, I interviewed a Beninese educator about whether shoe donations help poor kids in Benin: http://jessunderafricanskies.blogspot.com/2011/04/shoes-for-africa-interview-with-african.html
[...] (a response to TOMS shoes “Day without Shoes”). Day Without Dignity entries – http://goodintents.org/in-kind-donations/a-day-without-dignity Untapped Markets: Day Without Dignity (click through to see other APS entries) – [...]
[...] so, I proffer to you the counterpart to One Day without Shoes– A Day without Dignity. The blog “good intentions are not enough” is amazing in and of itself, but I ask you [...]
[...] April 10, 2011 a day without dignity: shoes in karamoja, uganda Posted by thera under Uncategorized | Tags: a day without dignity, adaywithout, good intentions are not enough, in kind donations, shoes, TOMS shoes | Leave a Comment this post is my small contribution to good intentions are not enough’s “a day without dignity” campaign. [...]
[...] A Day Without Dignity [...]
[...] Then I came across the “A Day Without Dignity” counter-campaign. [...]
Wow. Really?!
I think you’re missing the point here. TOMS is a company. It’s not an NGO or any sort of aid organization. It’s a company that makes shoes. Shoes are what it has to give. TOMS can not offer employment to all the people who need it. That’s not what the company has set out to do.
By all means, read books like _Dead Aid_, _White Man’s Burden_, and _Lords of Poverty_. There is a lot wrong with how we tackle “development issues.” Think about all the ridiculous things that have always happened with basketball courts being built by aid organizations in communities where people don’t like to play basketball. Those spaces are converted into things like marketplaces by the community. No one bothered to ask them what they wanted or needed in the first place. I guess I’m somewhat confused why you’re choosing to target a socially-minded for-profit business instead of aid organizations who sometimes seem to cause more harm than good. At least TOMS works with local partners who help identify the greatest need and facilitate the distribution of the shoes. One hopes that this maximizes the impact and minimizes any unintended harm.
If you’re really convinced that it’s worth spending time creating a campaign like this, wouldn’t it make more sense to go after a shoe company (or any other type of company) that isn’t even trying to give back in some small way?
The numbers you present in your video are interesting (though they all come from a book about Nigeria which is not a place where TOMS even donates shoes). When I see those numbers, my mind immediately jumps to all the old clothes that aren’t “good enough” for the American Goodwill and Salvation Army shops. Those items end up being sold in bulk by weight to “brokers” who take them to African countries, the Philippines, etc. I’d venture to say TOMS is offering a bit more dignity than that by giving away brand new pairs of shoes that fit properly. You brought up the issue of shoes having a limited lifespan. From what I’ve read, TOMS goes back to the same communities again and again. That means that children are given new shoes as they outgrow their old ones.
The bottom line? I think it’s sad and unnecessary to create a campaign like this one. We all have something to give. Let’s focus on that instead of wasting time attacking each other. I think you are absolutely right that we all should educate ourselves more. We should not donate as blindly as most of us do. We should take the time to research things and make our own informed decisions about how we can help with our money – and with our time. I will continue to buy from TOMS shoes because I vote with my dollar. I’m mindful of everything I purchase, and while I don’t own a lot of shoes in the first place, I’d rather buy them from TOMS than from some random company that is doing absolutely nothing to try to improve the world.
Julia,
This is just not me, as you’ll see from the 70 posts and videos made on the topic that there are many issues with both how the assistance is given and the false impression their advertising creates.
One of TOMS “local partners” is World Vision, which itself has been the focus of criticism from this blog and others for their rampant use of gifts-in-kind. While this helps World Vision lower their overhead ratio, World Vision has not been able to prove either the need or the impact of the gift-in-kind programs.
And there are other shoe manufactures with socially conscience programs that I think are far better than the BOGO model.
Thanks for your thoughts. There are definitely people on both sides of the camp. I certainly don’t support World Vision or any organization has a religious ethos, but that’s just my own personal lack of belief in organized religion that informs my choices in that regard! I fully agree with what you have stated about everyone taking it upon themselves to be informed about how an organization spends its money. I have a very small list of organizations that I will support with monetary donations, and they remain on my list because I’ve looked up their financials and because I believe they’re doing the best job they can. Having said that, not every NGO is going to be able to keep its non-programming expenses as low (and its impact as high) as MSF!
I look forward to reading up on the shoe companies you have listed. I know Oliberte but do not know the others. Oliberte is doing with shoes something similar to what Madecasse is doing with chocolate. It’s certainly wonderful to manufacture in a given country rather than just pulling raw materials out of it.
At the end of the day, the fundamental reasons for existence of NGOs and of businesses (socially-minded or not) are so vastly different that I don’t believe we can compare them as the same “beasts.” Their aid efforts can’t really be held to the same “standards” because businesses exist to generate profits (which usually entails a ton of marketing) and NGOs exist to serve social needs (which also sometimes entails marketing).
I personally don’t feel deceived at all by TOMS’ marketing. It’s obvious to me that they have clever marketing folks on their team, but I have never felt like they were proffering false impressions. Have you approached them directly to make your suggestions for how their campaign could be improved?
I think we just sit on different sides of the fence. I worked for several NGOs before I got disillusioned with the inefficiencies, so I’d probably be more inclined to write a blog post or create a campaign targeted at the problems I see with NGOs rather than socially minded businesses. I left the non-profit world for business school where I focused on economic development, and I found myself working in the Amazon where I saw how simple flip-flops made a huge difference in the health of the indigenous tribes for whom I worked. Sure, you can say that the Havaianas donated to us were altering the culture or make all kinds of arguments against their use, but like it or not, those formerly nomadic people had been settled in one spot by the Brazilian government. They were facing health problems stemming from sanitation issues and “dirt” issues that they had not faced when they were nomadic. Havaianas did not create any sort of marketing campaign around its donations, but I did see how fruitful it can be when cause marketing is carried out in a thoughtful way.
We all have a lot to learn about how to get things right, but I think we all have the same ultimate goal of improving people’s lives in some small way. There’s room for everyone in this debate. I personally hope more and more businesses carve out ways in which they can give back to the world in some meaningful way. And, like you, I hope those businesses choose partner organizations carefully.
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Thanks for the plug! That was a follow-up to my previous (original) post that specifically analyzes TOMS: http://www.gabriellephant.com/2011/03/28/toms-shoes/
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Hi, I was brought here by Talesfromthehood, and I’m really thankful that you placed all of these amazing posts in on collection.
I feel like I’ve learned a lot ; these posts have really educated me in terms of what types of aid have been empirically proven to worsen communities in developing countries. I’m sharing this information to my high school classmates through a presentation I’m giving in a month, and this collection has made researching much more convenient!
Just in case you ever feel like you’re not reaching people on those blue days – You (and J) have inspired me to really get interested and educated about the development industry. Thanks!
Jess,
Thanks, there definitely are those blue days when you wonder why you’ve sacrificed so much. So it’s great to hear we’re having an impact.