This fall, ECCO Walkathon once again launches a series of charity walks, encouraging people to get together and walk for a good cause. ECCO donates €1 for every kilometre the participants walk, and the money raised goes to the SOS Children’s Villages and the Danish Heart Association.
This year, the SOS Children’s Villages will be using the money raised to help thousands of challenged children who live in the slum districts on the outskirts of Nairobi, Kenya. Every month, thousands of people move from the country to the big cities in the pursuit of a better life, and many end up in the slum districts where families live in homemade sheds. Thousands of children go without access to water, showers and toilets, and the poor sanitary conditions lead to frequent outbreaks of contagious diseases. Close to two out of three children receive no treatment for dehydration, and the child mortality rate in these areas is high.
New bio house is a meeting house, kindergarten, community kitchen and restrooms all in one
Together with last year’s donation, the money from this year’s ECCO Walkathon will be used to establish a new bio house in the slums of Nairobi, offering the families both safety and improved facilities to handle personal hygiene.
The new bio house will serve as a sort of meeting house and kindergarten and ensure safe day care for the children. In the slums, children are often alone while their parents are working, exposing them to the danger of being abused or kidnapped. To prevent this from happening, some mothers lock up their children while they are away. This means that without the bio house, many children would be left in the small, hot sheds for up to 12 hours a day.
Also part of the new bio house is a community kitchen designed to improve the families’ quality of life. A technical installation collects the disposals from the toilets and converts them into biogas which will serve as an energy source for the stoves in the kitchen. Whereas cooking is often done over open fires in the slums of Nairobi, the new community kitchen will also reduce the risk of devastating fires.
The construction of the bio house is initiated July 2019, and it is estimated that the local community can start using the facilities in March 2020.
If you want to support the children in Nairobi, join thousands of others for an ECCO Walkathon event in Denmark. Find your favourite location and distance, and sign up here.
About ECCO
ECCO is one of the world’s leading shoe brands, combining style and comfort. ECCO’s success is built on products with a great fit and top-quality leathers. ECCO is a highly responsible company that owns and manages every aspect of the value chain from leather and shoe manufacturing to wholesale and retail activities. ECCO’s products are sold in 99 countries from over 2,250 ECCO shops and more than 14,000 sales points. ECCO is family-owned, founded in Denmark in 1963, and employs 21,300 people worldwide.