Soles for Change is a relatively new company that launched in 2016 and is helping change the lives of talented Colombian artists that create beautiful shoes.
These shoes are made from sustainable raw materials and are created by artisans of Santander that include single mothers, young apprentices, and senior artisans that make each handcrafted pair of shoes.
In the past, there has been a lot of big corporations that purchase these beautiful designs and then recreate them for a huge profit. This organization’s goal is to help these artisans lead a better quality of life.
Laura Viveros is the mastermind behind this project and it all started with a visit to Colombia in 2015. She was very tired from sight-seeing the city and stumbled across an artisan with these beautiful shoes. Shortly after her trip, she couldn’t stop talking about how comfortable and well-made these shoes were, so she decided that she needed to do something.
“We were always trying to find a way to help Colombia, and we were just walking on the street and saw a woman who was selling the shoes that we sell today. We asked her about them, and she said that she and a few other women made and sold them and that their company was close by. We decided that if we could show their product to the world we would help these women by providing a stable income and we would be offering consumers a shoe that is comfortable, trendy, and handmade,” explains Viveros to Latina.
These artisans put a lot of hours of work into these shoes and it’s only fair that they get their fair share of the profit. “The fabrics are all developed and made by them. It’s technique, first of all, that has been passed down from generation to generation, and we don’t want to lose that at all. What they do is use fique and weave it with cotton to make the fabric softer. The roots are still there, and that’s part of our project, which is to give lessons to the younger generations of artisans, so they know what to do.”
Right now they’re still working out all the kinks and are using Kickstarter to help raise funds for new machines that will help facilitate the process faster. “We just want to help, by contributing to fulfilling their dreams, by making their jobs more efficient and by supporting them,” she says.
