Boots That Delivered

charity unicef boots

If these boots could talk, they would tell you an amazing story. Worn by Canadian Nigel Fisher, they have visited thirteen countries and have trekked over 100,000 kilometres during thirty years with the UN and UNICEF. They have walked through deserts, mountains, tropical rainforests, jungles, sandstorms and torrential rains. Nigel’s footwear brought emergency and vaccination programs to millions of children.

These boots navigated through the perilous rubble of Port-au-Prince after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. They witnessed negotiations between the Afghan government, the opposing Northern Alliance and an international coalition to ensure a polio vaccination campaign could proceed following the bombings when war broke out in 2001. Nigel wore them when he visited a UNICEF-supported shelter for girls in Bunia, Democratic Republic of Congo, who had been brutally raped by militias, some of them captured for years, many with babies.  The stories go on and on, just like the boots did.

Canadian humanitarian Nigel Fisher’s life-saving boots were inducted into the Bata Shoe Museum in 2012.

http://www.unicef.ca/en/video/the-story-of-a-pair-of-boots

https://secure3.unicef.ca/site/SPageServer?pagename=about_boots&s_locale=en_CA

http://www.unicef.ca/en/press-release/canadian-humanitarians-life-saving-boots-inducted-into-the-bata-shoe-museum

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Weathering the Walk: On Thirsty Land

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It is difficult to walk the dry, barren land

Dust kicks up with every steeled toe step

The land bore fruit in better, wetter days

Now there are empty burden baskets.

Drought – land parched to the perfection of pottery.

California’s once lusty farmland is thirsty.

A dust storm is blowing hot breath on the horizon.

 

Key words rearranged from article and source of photo:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/21/business/energy-environment/californias-thirsting-farmland.html?_r=0

Weathering the Walk: After Record Rain

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It is difficult to walk in the mud that covers an Oso sad town.

Glacial grief in the valley of the shadow of Slide Hill.

The search-and-rescue crew walks single file,

Mud suctions every step.

Trying as they might not to sink up to their waists,

Throwing down plywood to create walkways

Slowly moving muck, as heavy as fresh concrete,

Electronic detectors, beeping.

Hoping to find someone that found a bit of air.

But … when they discover human remains,

Working feet stop and the silence is absorbed by the mud.

Then a chorus of chainsaws resume.

 

Key words rearranged from article and source of photo:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/sifting-through-the-wall-of-earth/article17727555/