It all started with the shoes

BY ELYSE AMEND

elyse.amend@transcontinental.ca

Five years ago, Kirkland resident and then Beaconsfield High School student Stephanie Dotto was inspired by a school presentation calling on students to make a difference. Today, Dotto is preparing for her fourth trip to Malawi, Africa, where her organization, It All Started With the Shoes, has made a difference in the lives of many. “It’s amazing,” said Dotto, now a 22-year-old human relations student at Concordia University. “I’ve seen people grow up. There’s this one little boy. The first time I saw him, he was about one-year-old. And it’s so nice to see how things changed there. It’s like going home, in a way.”

The organization’s latest project involves providing three goats each to 150 of the neediest families in Nchalo in southern Malawi, an area still recovering from a serious draught in 2005. The goats’ milk will provide nutritional support to the community, as nearly half of the area’s child population is under five years old. The goats will also provide organic manure to fertilize gardens, and will supply meat once the number of goats in the household is above five.

The families will also learn about how to take care of the goats, milking them, and nutrition. Providing a family with three goats costs $150, or $50 for each goat. “People are really enjoying the project. It’s really benefiting the people there,” Dotto said. “People over here also seem to like the idea that their money is going toward a specific project.”

It All Started With the Shoes began, quite literally, with shoes. When she was 16 years old, Dotto collected 1,200 pairs of gently used shoes to send to children in Malawi. “I just thought every child in the world should own a pair of shoes,” she said.

But instead of just directing the mission from afar, Dotto took up an invitation from the Montreal Sisters of the Immaculate Conception and a missionary couple, and set off to visit them in Malawi in March 2003. “When I went there, I saw they needed so much more,” Dotto said. Since its modest beginnings, It All Started With the Shoes has initiated a number of other projects, including sending medicine, renovating the kitchen at a rural hospital, and building schools.

According to her mother, Karen Dotto, she and her husband weren’t too thrilled when they first thought about their daughter going to Africa five years ago. “When she first decided she desperately had to go down, we, of course, said no. This was five years ago, and it was a very scary thought. Everybody was saying, what are you thinking about?” she said. However, she and her husband did end up supporting their daughter 100 per cent, becoming involved in the organization and even heading to Malawi themselves. Dotto’s father will be accompanying her on her trip in April, while her mother spent some time in Malawi in 2006. “It was an eye opening experience for me. I had heard the stories and seen the pictures. But until you actually see it yourself, you can’t imagine what life is like down there, and the impact Steph has made – the ripple effect,” she said, adding the community involvement and local contribution to the projects means nothing is ever just handed to them. For example, she explained the households receiving the goats needed to build the enclosures for the animals, and learn about how to care for them.

Dotto believes providing the people of Malawi with the tools to succeed themselves is the way to go. “Education is the answer,” she said. “I really think the way Malawi is going to improve itself is through education.”

To find out more about It All Started With the Shoes, or to donate, visit www.itallstartedwiththeshoes.org.