TOMS UK hosted its annual Destination TOMS training experience in London, Manchester, Glasgow and Dublin. In the London and Dublin events, Magic Bus, as one of TOMS’ 90 Giving Partners worldwide, were invited to talk about the role of one (Giving Partner) in their One for One Business Model. Vic was our representative as the guest speaker for the London event while the Dublin leg was attended by Jenson.
Destination TOMS is all about sharing TOMS’ giving information to its retailers and highlighting the new Spring/Summer 2018 products that they will be selling in their stores. It also was about making them aware of TOMS’ aforementioned One for One Business Model where, with every pair of TOMS Shoes purchased, TOMS will give a new pair of shoes to a child in need. with every pair of TOMS Eyewear purchased, TOMS will help give sight to a person in need, and with every TOMS Roasting Co. product purchased, TOMS will help provide safe water to a person in need. So far, 75 million pairs of shoes have been given, and 45% of these Giving Shoes were locally manufactured in some of the countries that they give shoes in, which in turn has given employment to over 700 local people.
The work on the ground is done by TOMS’ Giving Partners, who are charitable Not-for-Profit organisations whose focus is on community development through sports, education, human rights and social development. There are 90+ Giving Partners that TOMS work with.
Magic Bus is one of these Giving Partners and ever since this partnership with TOMS started in 2013, TOMS have given more than 1.2 million pairs of shoes to support the Magic Bus Sport for Development program across 20 Indian states, and these Giving Shoes were tailored perfectly to suit the environment in which the kids play in.
By the end of 2017, Magic Bus has successfully ensured that all the girls enrolled in the Childhood Program are not married before the age 18 compared to the National Average of 27% getting married before 18. More than half of Indian girls are not in Secondary School (47%) while 98% of girls enrolled in our programs are attending Secondary School. 9% of Indian Youths go to college while Magic Bus has upped that number eight-fold to a staggering 71%.
Some people say life is filled with the numbers game. Well! Those wise people are not wrong, completely. These numbers hit us straight and hard to the face. TOMS One for One has played a massive part in our Childhood to Livelihood journey.
Not only are these shoes comfortable and prevent injuries, but it also ensures long term behaviour change. How? Many of these youths have never owned a pair of shoes and getting a brand-new pair of high quality shoes enable them to partake in the Magic Bus Childhood Program where weekly sports and activities are utilised to teach socio-emotional skills. These shoes are the reward of attending school and staying in school, in the program where they learn various life skills and eventually getting them higher education and a formal job. For these youths learning the importance of education along with the various social skills serves as the spark needed to light up a brighter future for themselves, their families and the next generation in their communities where all hopes have been thought to be down and dusted, and where the ray of hope have been forever dimmed by the evils of societal such as child marriage and the caste system. These shoes are also the symbols of a changing society where generational poverty can be eradicated through understanding, perseverance and cooperation from everyone. Most importantly, these are also the symbol of a Giving World.
We would also like to thank TOMS UK for inviting us to these events, where we got the chance to directly thank everyone who attended, who are retail sales staff, making sure that they now have realized the role they have played and are playing in this philanthropic movement and these massive impacts that they have contributed by their sales, to make the world a place where children and their families will move out of poverty.
