A slipper-making project creates much-needed income for families living below the poverty line. The scheme has been backed by Vivobarefoot and is part of its wider remit to support communities through indigenous shoemaking. 

For a mother to leave her child tied to a bed with a rope while she goes out to work demonstrates the sheer desperation poverty and hunger can cause. Tibetan Buddhist leader the Venerable Panchen Ötrul Rinpoche, hearing this child’s cries in a Mongolian shanty town during a visit in 2001, was so horrified at the circumstances he set up the charity Asral to help these communities. In Mongolia, often the poorest households consist of females with their children; many cannot find work or afford clothes or food, making survival in sub-zero winters difficult.

Mongolia’s economy collapsed after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, causing overwhelming levels of poverty. Combined with animal famines, thousands converged on the capital Ulaanbaatar and three decades later, almost a third of the population is living in poverty, according to the World Bank. Asral supports children with a hot meals programme, supplies books and funds education, buys medical supplies and provides aid. Part of this is the Made In Mongolia (MIM) project, a slipper-making business that trains workers to produce comfortable traditional shoes using local wool, providing income, education and purpose.

MIM came to the attention of footwear brand Vivobarefoot, which has worked with indigenous communities for several years, first as a way of learning about biomechanics and foot health, but latterly investing in projects in Namibia, Canada and Norway. Launched in 2012 by Galahad and Asher Clark - cousins and members of the UK’s Clarks shoes family - Vivobarefoot’s philosophy is based on creating as close to a barefoot experience as possible, allowing the foot to flex naturally and feel in contact with the earth. Learning shoemaking from different cultures feeds into its own designs, knowledge and desire to help people work their way out of poverty.

Back to nature

“When we started, we had to learn about foot health and what it means to move naturally,” Dulma Clark, impact investment and storytelling lead at Vivobarefoot, tells World Footwear. “This led us to indigenous communities who still move that way and still make footwear in a traditional way, usually using local materials and natural dyes.” 

The team travelled to the Kalahari Desert in Namibia to work with the San Bushmen, a “lifechanging trip”, but discovered the footwear-making skills were dying out as younger generations chose non-traditional work and wore donated Western trainers. Vivo set up workshops to help preserve the knowledge and pass the skills on, eventually producing sandals that had the consistency of quality to be sold through the brand. “It’s not the normal way of manufacturing with professional managers, it does take a lot of time to make sure products look and feel the same, quality-wise, and the sizing is correct,” says Ms Clark. “If we take the Namibia project, it started in 2016 and only now are we finally getting the cadence right.”

She used the experience in Namibia to launch Livebarefoot Fund, which finances innovation and advocacy, and expanded the research into other communities - to Northern Scandinavia, India and Canada. “In collaboration with indigenous communities, we’re preserving the traditional craftsmanship, at the same time we’re making modern interpretations, performance wise, of technical products that can sustain us in extreme environments – jungle, desert, Arctic tundra and forests. We’re also exploring remaking original bison boxing boots in America.”

Orphan support

Ms Clark was born in Siberia as part of the Buryat indigenous community. As a child, she wore similar wool slippers as outdoor shoes, as the climate there was cold but dry. A pre-pandemic visit to Ulaanbaatar to see the shoemaking workshops ignited the desire to add wool slippers to the range – albeit in a slightly Westernised design – and after an initial order of 2,000 pairs, Vivo has now ordered an extra 6,000. As well as supporting the workers, schools and healthcare provisions, funds raised will support 100 children in three state-run orphanages; Vivo is forgoing profits so the money feeds back into Asral. 

Dulma and the team will be heading back to Mongolia this summer to check on progress and learn more. The next idea is to boost these projects by setting up “mini expeditions”, inviting stakeholders and journalists, or perhaps the wider public, to visit the workshops and learn more about traditional footwear making. They are currently recruiting “knowledge holders” and potential expedition leaders in each of the communities they work with, who can educate on a wide range of local skills and traditions. “The idea is to  connect all these locations not just from a craftsmanship perspective but offering 360-degree nature reconnection experiences.”

Dulma has ambitious plans to grow these areas of the business, with a strong focus on indigenous support. In 2022, Vivo set up a fundraising initiative with campaign group One Earth to support Rainbow Fiber Co-operative, a wool group that preserves Navajo methods; the Agroecology Fund, which is reviving indigenous farming practices in Ethiopia; and Amazon Frontlines and the Ceibo Alliance, supporting indigenous-led conservation in the Upper Amazon. It has invested in multiple partnerships, and also set up the Sole of Africa shoe manufacturing project, in partnership with tannery Pittards, in Ethiopia. 

In 2022, Vivobarefoot sales increased 20% over 2021 to 750,000 pairs of shoes, bringing in revenues of around £50 million, demonstrating its social conscious and philosophies are striking a chord with consumers.

Next, Dulma wants to create a dedicated section on the Vivo website through which all the indigenous collections will be sold. It will become a space for consumers to learn about the projects, hear the stories of the workers and understand how the profits support families and nurture the skills. “I would like to increase the orders and make it more stable throughout the year, so we can support more people,” says Dulma. “That’s the idea.” 

The project has employed around 50 people, putting money back into the charity and helping to support families.
ALL CREDITS: MADE IN MONGOLIA/ VIVOBAREFOOT

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