Are TOMS the Best Way to Help the Poor?

From suburban teenagers to urban hipsters, the TOMS brand has established itself as the “good samaritan” brand. They have made people believe that purchasing a pair of TOMS is a serious contribution to the global fight against poverty.

There is only one problem, it isn’t.

TOMS and founder CEO Blake Mycoskie have adopted the BOGO (Buy One, Give One) model. So if you buy one of their pairs of shoes then they will send another pair to a child in a third world country. This will fix poverty right? Wrong. I can understand how TOMS is trying to give out a good message by helping these children out who do not have shoes but this is not the way to help out the poor in these countries.

One of the problems with this is that TOMS is relying on the Western world to give these children shoes. Now what will happen if the economy begins to go down (as it is today) and people can no longer afford these $50-75 pair of shoes. What will happen to the children who have solely become dependent on these shoes? Will they not ever receive another pair? And how long do these shoes exactly last for? And is this truly helping the poor?

The other problem that I see is that they are directly affecting local shoe companies and peoples jobs. This is an issue because there are a lot of people who are losing jobs because these local shoe companies are going out of business. Yes, TOMS is doing a great job by giving away these shoes but are they really fixing the problem of poverty in a third world country? However, instead of TOMS “One Day Without Shoes” assisting the local companies by providing funding and other ways for their businesses to grow. TOMS has instead bypassed these local companies and have set them up for disaster.

I have personally never bought TOMS because I believe that if I am going to give to a charity program I would rather give them money so that they can buy food and water for these people. Yes, shoes are important but I do not think that they are as necessary as food and water.

Now I am not condemning TOMS in anyway. What they are doing is for a good cause, I just do not believe that this is the best way to help the poor. There are other companies out there who have use a more effective way to help people out of poverty. Like SoleRebels, this is a company based out of Ethiopia. I believe that one of the greatest ways to get people out of poverty is to find someone a job and give them dignity. SoleRebels 100 employees are paid about 300% more than other workers in Ethiopia.

So let’s say that every worker at SoleRebels has about five kids (the fertility rate in Ethiopia). These workers send their children to school to get an education which in the future would lead their children to have better jobs then being a shoemaker. This would lead to those families becoming more wealthy and making sure their kids go to school, which if you look 100 years down the road this impacts thousands of people. Now imagine this, what if SoleRebels sold as many shoes as TOMS did. This would not just affect the community it would affect the entire country. This is the kind of stuff that fights against poverty and can really turn it around. The young women who founded SoleRebels had a discussion about TOMS.

“If you give a kid shoes, 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.”

We often forget that those within a community, with the right resources, can transform their own community.

Check out both of these companies websites:

SoleRebels : http://www.solerebels.com/

TOMS : http://www.toms.com/

Homeschooler in the Real World

Emma Folts, a sophomore at Wheaton College, shares her experience about her transition into college and how homeschool has both helped and hindered her.
How has your homeschool experience benefitted you, especially in your transition into college?
I think the one thing that homeschooling did that was really helpful as I entered college was that it taught me time management. As a homeschooler I had the same freedom as a college student has to put things off during the day and go see a friend instead. Since I had that experience, I knew the cost of that.
Also, personal responsibility and accountability with assignments. I feel like a lot of the other students had more expectations for gentler grading and that the professor would give them retakes or extensions, but that wasn’t something that ever happened to me in school. That learning curve wasn’t added because I never had it the other way. I think another thing was that because I was homeschooled, I was familiar with the format of teaching and then studying on my own.
Did you see any issues with your transition socially?
I think that homeschooling had two ramifications for me socially. One was helpful, one was hurtful.
It was really helpful because as a homeschooler, I had spent a lot of time realizing and developing who I was as a person and learning to recognize people who were being themselves, and those were the people I sought out as friends. Friendship as a homeschooler takes a lot more investment. I knew I was choosier with my friends which made me a lot less anxious and a lot more content.
The only real negative impact of the social bit was that I was really used to getting to choose the time I got to spend with people. As a homeschooler I spent a lot of time with people, but that time was controlled by me. As a college student, I found that you can’t really control the time you spend with people and alone time is not really available. Learning to deal with that was a lot harder than anticipated.
Any last comments on homeschool and how it has affected your college experience?
I think homeschooling is really helpful, however it does take a slightly increased amount of advocacy with your peers when you’re entering into college. I think a lot of people come in with certain assumptions about homeschool, especially students. You’re going to get a lot of, ‘oh my gosh, you don’t seem like a homeschooled person!’ [You can’t] take that too personally and explain your experience so that friends can understand it’s an important piece of you, though it might not look like the homeschooling that they’ve seen.
My encouragement to anyone who is a homeschooler transitioning into college is to realize the benefit that you have having been homeschooled, and to realize that the bit of advocacy and explaining that you need to do with your peers is totally normal and that it’s not a big deal. Once they understand your experience, it’s not something I’ve experienced being looked down on for.