Sandals with interchangeable straps designed by NUS students, made by amputees in Jakarta, will be launched in Singapore today.
“When I heard about the plight of the amputees in Jakarta, I decided to start the sandals project there and give the amputees jobs.” said Robin Low, CEO of Greenyarn. "After getting them to make some samples, I realized that they are trying very hard and they do a very good job."
Amputees and former lepers beg on the streets as none of them managed to find jobs. However, since a crackdown, public order officers have been catching them and sending them to West Jakarta. Many people, and even their own families reject them, and without jobs, these amputees and former lepers have no choice but to beg for alms.
"They are often treated like dogs, with the public order officers hunting us on streets." Said Sudarman, an administrator at Sitanala Hospital. “The people just don’t accept these amputees and former lepers.”
The Rotary Club at Jakarta Sentral District 3400 has started a program to buy simple machines and train these former Lepers and amputees to support themselves. Several projects are identified and one of them was the interchangeable sandals project.
“These sandals are very interesting and trendy. I’ve never seen sandals with changeable straps, and my daughter thinks they are very cool.” Said Christian Schild, a rotary member overseeing the sandals project. “We can pay 8 amputees a salary if we can sell a few hundred sandals a month. I hope this project takes off as we can easily put more amputees on board and scale up the operations to benefit more amputees.”
Currently, the sandals are selling at Kinesis Physio & Rehab Pte. Ltd. at SMU and is now available at the NUS Coop. Any retail store interested to carry these sandals can contact Robin Low.
