TOMS Blog

Because of the incredible organizations that distribute TOMS to children, the One for One movement is helping create a lasting impact on communities around the world. It is through our Giving Partners’ diverse integrative programming that TOMS is able to participate in responsible and sustainable giving. 

In El Salvador, TOMS Giving Partner Save the Children distributes TOMS Shoes to add value to their work, in areas ranging from early childhood development to school health and nutrition. They’ve learned that by involving community members in ways to help children thrive, its work is more likely to be carried out successfully by communities for years to come. 
 

Save the Children’s team in El Salvador works every day to empower people to take on leadership roles. They encourage and equip local volunteers to identify the issues standing in the way of their community’s growth, and find their own solutions.

Raúl, Sponsorship Manager for Save the Children’s El Salvador team, explained this Giving Partner’s approach. “Volunteers are the engine of the community and we [at Save the Children] are just a catalyst to keep things moving.” 

At the start of any program, Save the Children holds meetings with regional boards and city councils to identify local leaders, and enlist their support to help development programs take root in their community in a sustainable way.

Save the Children also nurtures change at the ground level, by engaging children and youth. 

Raúl shared, “[Through conversations with students, parents and teachers at schools], we discovered these groups of young leaders — and every community has them — who are trying to be local actors of change .”

Within each school, Save the Children’s El Salvador staff train “brigadiers,” volunteers as young as 11 years old, to educate their peers and the community. This training is done under the school health and nutrition program, the initiative through which TOMS Shoes are distributed. The brigadiers start with peer-to-peer education, which extends, often organically, to conversations with parents and siblings on topics like hand-washing, good hygiene practices, keeping their schools clean and other small ways to affect big change. 

By empowering children through its programs, Save the Children reports that children in El Salvador have higher self-esteem, improved basic health and better grades. 

“In the end, the student volunteers and leaders in the community…are the ones who are actually making the positive changes,” Raúl said. “They know they are capable of changing things; that it is not because someone else will come to solve the problem; it is a problem that can be solved with the help of everyone.”
 

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