The photos Dave Leman brought back from his tour of rural schools in Tanzania and Kenya told the tale of why a group of international students was walking barefoot Thursday around the College of New Caledonia.
Last August, Leman visited one dimly-lit Tanzanian classroom built for the Maasei people near Tarangire national park. The classroom had a dirt floor, unfinished window openings and a couple of wood planks to seat the students during lessons. A skipping rope and a few soccer balls were the extent of the school's gym equipment.
The students in that tribal school are among 300 million people all over the globe who go without shoes every day. But based on the photographs shown to the crowd Thursday at CNC Gathering Place, those kids seemed to take it in stride.
They live in a village in without electricity, and Thursday's fundraiser at CNC and UNBC will be used to buy Socckets, soccer balls which store enough kinetic energy in 30 minutes of being booted around to power a plug-in light for three hours.
"It's a new product being developed [by Harvard University engineering students] and the company hopes to have them out in August for distribution," said Leman. "They are well off the beaten path. It's a small community and the people have next to nothing. One hundred per cent of the proceeds will go to the two schools and be spent locally."
It was the Day of Thankfulness, as proclaimed by Mayor Shari Green and city council members, who doffed their footwear to find out what it's like to go without. The project involved 14 international studies students at CNC, including 20-year-old engineering student Nick Ning, a native of China.
"When somebody showed us the soccer ball we were amazed about that and that inspired us to create the day of thankfulness," said Ning. "We can't help all people in the world, but our purpose is to let people feel how poor children feel when they live in poor areas without electricity, without shoes, and let that be an example of things we take for granted."
Soccket balls purchased with proceeds raised in Prince George this week will go to the Tanzanian tribal school, a physiotherapy clinic in India and a rural school in China.
The college's international studies program requires students to develop meaningful projects that encourage leadership abilities and benefit the quality of life of people, locally and globally. The students made their presentation to city council on Monday.
"They wanted to do something that makes people stop for a minute and be thankful for what they have, and what better way than if they went to the leadership of Prince George for help to be an example of being thankful, and the mayor and council embraced that," said Sabreena MacElheron, co-ordinator of CNC's student leadership/ambassadorship program.
"The students chose Socckets because soccer is a universal sport and people speak that language everywhere, but they also wanted something that promotes studying in rural areas, and that does because it generates light so they can study in darkness."
All of the students in the group are from China. All arrived in Prince George nearly two years ago speaking very little English but are now fluent conversationalists after studying in CNC's English as a second language program. They'll transfer next semester to the University of Victoria.
