Students can help fight HIV/AIDS and poverty in Africa just by taking a walk.
Hanson, the band of three blond brothers who first rose to fame with the catchy song “Mmmbop” will bring its Take the Walk campaign to UCLA Saturday. The Undergraduate Students Association Council’s General Representative 1 Office is hosting the event.
In partnership with TOMS Shoes, Hanson will lead a one-mile walk through campus to raise awareness about AIDS, poverty and the thousands of shoeless children around the world.
For each person that participates in the walk, the band will donate $1 toward one of five areas, which include donating shoes and drilling water wells in Africa. The campaign surpassed its original goal of walking 24,902 miles, the distance around the world, and is closing in on 35,000 miles.
Blake Mycoskie created TOMS Shoes in 2006 after befriending children in Argentina and realizing they had no shoes to protect their feet. The company is founded on the One-for-One principle: For every pair of shoes sold, a pair is given to a child in need. TOMS has given more than 150,000 pairs of shoes to children around the world.
Walking is the main form of transportation in developing countries, and children are able to walk greater distances with shoes as well as prevent cuts and sores from walking barefoot. Podoconiosis, a debilitating disease resulting from walking on silica-rich soil, is preventable simply by wearing shoes. Additionally, many children are restricted from attending school because shoes are a required part of the uniform.
TOMS Shoes start at $44 per pair and will be available for online purchase at a $5 discount at the event.
Jason Tengco, USAC’s General Representative 1, said he always wanted to plan an event with TOMS Shoes, because he really believes in the benefits of the cause. The stars aligned when Bruce Leewiwatanakul, a TOMS Shoes representative for UCLA, happened to apply for a position with USAC and mentioned the Take the Walk campaign, Tengco said.
Leewiwatanakul landed the position, and he, along with the Charitable Causes Committee, began publicizing the event through a Facebook event invitation and by fliering on Bruin Walk.
“It’s really about breaking down apathy,” Tengco said.
The campaign’s walks are normally barefoot, but due to UCLA’s concerns about the safety of its students and issues of liability, walkers are asked to wear their shoes, Tengco said.
The Take the Walk campaign began in 2007 and has been successful at universities across America. Isaac Hanson, the oldest of the three brothers and the band’s guitarist, said a member of a university’s marching band assembled one of the largest walks, totaling about 600 people. The walk began one mile away from the stadium before a football game and the entire marching band and many of the student body participated, he said.
“We are the privileged, not the disadvantaged. We are so much better off than a huge majority of the world,” Hanson said. “We have the opportunity as a generation to literally save our generation across the ocean.”
To see change, economic partnership rather than blind charity is the ultimate goal, Hanson said.
Referring to the children who lost their parents to AIDS, Hanson said, “It’s really about these kids at the end of the day. The reality is, it’s about saving an up-and-coming generation from becoming the largest generation of orphans ever.”
Registration for the walk begins at 11:30 a.m. on Saturday at the Kerckhoff Hall patio and ends with an acoustic music session by Hanson at Meyerhoff Park.