Because International has partnered with Lifting Hands International to distribute The Shoe That Grows to refugee children and families.

We connected with Carlissa Larsen, Director of Utah Operations for Lifting Hands International (LHI), to learn more about the work and passion of the nonprofit.

WHAT DOES LIFTING HANDS INTERNATIONAL DO?

Carlissa: Very simply, we help refugees, at home and abroad, in a variety of ways. We reach out to refugee populations and the organizations that serve them to learn what they need and then do our best to meet that need.

In Greece, that means we run a refugee community center just outside of two Yazidi refugee camps where we teach the refugees language classes, music classes, trauma informed yoga classes, have women’s safe spaces, a library, distribute fresh fruit, vegetables and humanitarian aid, and manage a community garden, to name a few.

In Jordan, we provide a special breed of milk goats to Syrian refugee families. Each screened and vetted family gets two goats (male and female.) The goats provide milk that allows the refugees to make butter, cheese and yogurt, providing needed nutrients to their diet. This particular breed of goat is known for having twins or triplets when they give birth, which allows them to raise a herd and sell the milk products, creating a source of income.

In Utah, we run three programs where we provide aid to refugees both overseas and locally. We have partnered with amazing organizations in every location that we ship to who are on the ground and tell us exactly what the refugees need. Then, we collect and ship what is needed. We have shipped aid to refugees, asylum seekers and internally displaced people in Jordan, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Somalia and various locations along the US/Mexico border. We’ve also sent emergency relief aid to the Bahamas in the wake of Hurricane Dorian. Locally, we have provided school kits and other needs to the Granite Education Foundation, where the aid has reached resettled refugees who are in the Granite School District. The district houses 70% of the resettled refugees here in Utah.

WHAT DOES A TYPICAL AID SHIPMENT CONTAIN?

Each shipment is different because each shipment is customized to the needs of the refugees that will receive the aid.

Even if the container is going to the same place we’ve shipped before, their needs have changed and so what we ship changes. No two shipments have ever been exactly the same. In general, we get asked for diapers, feminine hygiene products, blankets, school kits, clothing, shoes, hygiene kits, towels and linens, and other basic household items. 

WHY DO YOU THINK THE SHOE THAT GROWS WILL BE A GOOD SOLUTION FOR THE REFUGEES WITH WHOM YOU WORK?

Due to governmental processing, most refugees are not allowed to work until they are granted residency somewhere. This process could take years, or possibly never come to fruition. So the purchase of shoes, or anything else for that matter, becomes difficult, or near impossible.

When refugees are faced with the option of purchasing shoes or food, they choose to go without shoes. To make matters worse, many of the refugees are not living in conditions that will be kind to bare feet.

The Shoe That Grows is an excellent solution because not only does it provide a shoe, but it provides five different sizes.

WHERE WILL THE PAIRS OF THE SHOE THAT GROWS BE GOING?

We will be sending shipments to Bangladesh, Tanzania and Afghanistan. Each of these areas are requesting shoes. Besides those locations, we often get asked to send additional shipments on sometimes last minute notices, for instance, last year we sent a shipment to the Bahamas after Hurricane Dorian created so many internally displaced people.

WHY WILL SHIPMENTS BE HEADING TO BANGLADESH, TANZANIA AND AFGHANISTAN? WHAT ARE THE CONDITIONS THERE?

Bangladesh is the home to the largest refugee camp in the world. It contains Rohingya refugees from Myanmar, who are considered the most persecuted refugees in the world today. Since August 2017, the number of refugees that have flooded into Bangladesh is estimated around 744,400, and that’s just new arrivals. The total number is estimated by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to be around 915,000. And even before the arrivals of refugees, Bangladesh was Asia’s poorest country, so the need for aid is immense. 

Tanzania is a country we haven’t shipped to yet, but plan to this year. According to the UNHCR “The majority of refugees and asylum seekers [in Tanzania] are from Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Chronic underfunding has resulted in serious gaps in the provision of humanitarian assistance." Due to widespread militia activity and violence in the DRC, over half of the Congolese refugees are children arriving at the borders of Tanzania unaccompanied or separated from their parents. The UNHCR has also stated that "Existing camps and sites in many asylum countries are saturated, and available basic services are stretched to the limit."

Refugees in Afghanistan are mostly from Iran and internally displaced.  Some of our aid goes to orphaned children there as well. Afghanistan is second only to Bangladesh as Asia’s poorest country. Refugees and internally displaced people (IDP’s) lack adequate shelter, food, water, healthcare, and opportunities to pursue education and employment. Among other things, our distribution in Afghanistan helps to protect them from harsh winter conditions and different kinds of sickness.

WHAT IS UNIQUE ABOUT LHI? 

We are an organization that is run by almost 100% volunteers. The three programs in Utah are run by all volunteers. We have discovered that so many people want to help refugees, they just don’t know how. We provide the how. Anyone can help through donation of their time, service, humanitarian aid supplies, or cash.

I saw a video of an interviewer talking to a young Syrian refugee girl. She must have been about 10 years old. They were standing outside in the middle of winter and she was wearing a beanie hat, pants and a long-sleeved shirt. Her hands were bare to the elements. The interviewer asked her “How are you doing?” She said, “I’m doing good,” but then her voice cracked and her hands, red from the cold, came up to her eyes to hide her tears as she began to sob.

 “What’s wrong?” the interviewer asked. “Why are you crying?”

 “It’s just so cold,” she said. “I just don’t want to be cold anymore.”

We might not be able to provide refugees with a warm house, and we cannot send them back to their country safe and sound, which is what they really want.

Most refugees want to go back home to a time and place when it was safe. We can’t do that for them. But we can fix the cold. We can provide blankets and coats, and winter clothing. We can improve their health and enhance their employment opportunities by protecting their feet with shoes.

We can help to keep diseases at bay by providing them with hygiene kits and diapers. We can help them continue their education by providing them with materials necessary to do so, and teach them language and other classes. We can help them cope with horrifying experiences they’ve been handed to deal with. We can enhance their nutrition by providing them fresh fruits and vegetables, and milk goats. We can be their friend and their voice, especially when the news and the media is bored of the refugee crisis, and the world has seemingly forgotten that 1200 people are being forcibly displaced every hour.

There is a lot that we can do. That is the essence of what LHI does.

Thank you to Carlissa for sharing more about the work of Lifting Hands International. Support their humanitarian relief work by joining The Sole.