The choices we make should be a reflection of what we value.
In Brave Soles we value people, our planet and the legacy we are leaving long after we are one.
The false perception that we deserve to get everything cheaper and faster has a cost that we can no longer afford to pay as a global community.
In the end, it's the most vulnerable people and environments who pays the highest price for it all.
There are much more inspiring stories to live and tell than the race to the bottom.
We want to tell those stories to ourselves and the world.
Our story has been 12 years in the making. As the founder of an international youth humanitarian organization, Christal (co-founder and CEO) had been working and learning from a local community of garbage dump workers since 2005 on the north coast of Dominican Republic.
Every day she worked at that garbage dump was an adventure in laughter, connection, and the hard truths about our shared humanity. There were, however, also a heartbreaking amount of tires. They were a breeding ground for mosquitoes carrying deadly diseases and they were a toxic nightmare.
In 2010, an unexpected turn of events in Christal’s journey left her facing the fact that she was going to have to rebuild her life between two countries. She was now a single parent who was torn between Canada where her career was based and Dominican Republic where her adopted daughter couldn’t leave. Like many single parents around the world, she figured out a way to make it work.
But all the time, the question was still there: “What could be done with all the tires that are dumped everywhere?”
In early 2017, the idea struck for the first time. Why not use tires for soles on beautiful hand made shoes - and create a way to help the most vulnerable people in the process?
The ability to ask a different question has led us on this journey that continues to expand and grow. It's not just our story, nor is it a tire's story. This is the story of a lot of people like you: people who know they want to be proud of what the do and what they wear. People like us know that we can do better. We also know we can look great while doing it!