It began with a simple act...

In 1995, a runner was living and training in Africa. Though sponsored by a major sportswear company who provided him with state-of-the-art gear, he saw that many other serious runners in Kenya had no suitable shoes. Immediately, he began giving away his extra sneakers, and passing on his old pairs instead of throwing them out. When runners he'd given shoes to began breaking records and winning medals at important races, he realized that something as small as a single pair of shoes could completely change a person's life. It was then that he began reaching out and asking others to donate their own used shoes, and Shoe4Africa was born.

'Leaving Kenya after seven months everything was left behind in terms of the luggage I arrived with. Travelling to the airport the driver of the taxi was a runner, he was anxiously eyeing my running shoes, "Are you leaving Kenya and taking those running shoes with you? I am a runner, but I don't have shoes."

Walking barefoot into Nairobi airport at midnight the thought was to buy a cheap pair of sandals in a clothing duty free store. Unfortunately all the shops at the airport were closed.

Unfortunately in Paris, on my way back to Sweden, I had to switch planes. I thought I could buy some shoes at the Paris airport. However, leaving the customs I was arrested as a vagrant (for being barefoot). To make matters worse my luggage was a bundle of wattle tree sticks I planned to burn to use as charcoal to make the Kenyan traditional milk (Mursiik/maziwa lala), and some unsifted unga (flour). Instead of being able to buy a pair of shoes in the Paris airport I spent the entire time in an interrogation room where the French Officers finally let me go after the police dogs had sniffed through the flour bags, and the sticks had been confiscated. They never understood the shoeless bit.

Arriving at Arlanda Airport snow was falling as I stood outside the terminal waiting for a taxi. A woman stopped in a car and asked, "Are you okay? WHere are your shoes?" When I told her the story she not only gave me a ride back to Stockholm but I left her car with her pair of shoes, "Please send these to Africa..."

Shoe4Africa has that viral effect on people!'