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TheirShoes .org – Walking Baja for Charity
TheirShoes.org was created as a website and organization to stimulate others around the world to do walks for whatever causes they desire. The creator of this idea is Benjamin Dawes and he has his own personal walk of 1000 miles to San Diego from Cabo San Lucas which is the whole of the Transpenisular Highway 1 of Baja California. He is planning on taking 3 months even though he could make the walk there faster; he plans on many side trips to areas that are not on highway 1 to see, film and photograph more of the smaller towns and lesser known areas of Baja California Sur and Baja California (Norte) which are the two states that makes up this fantastic peninsula of contrast.
Who is Benjamin Dawes?
Benjamin Dawes is a 30 year old Englishmen, city born and raised in London. He was a bit of a troubled youth as people would say and he then got into sports and activities, film school that eventually gave him a thirst to travel. He began an interesting and adventurous life having traveled Asia, Europe, America, South America and Mexico.
The idea of the walk came to Ben with the simple fact that he wanted to go to the United States and did not have the money to fly there; even though he could have bought a bus ticket he came up with the adventurous idea of walking to San Diego not only to purify his mind, body and spirit but to raise money for the children of the world by creating more publicity and support for the Children programs here in Baja, Mexico the U.S. and UK. He was volunteering here in Cabo with Steve Mills a soccer coach, also from England, that has been working with the children sports (soccer) programs of Grupo Apoyo Ray Thomas.
Benjamin felt this walk should also help create greater publicity for the children’s programs as well as the walk and for all the supporters of these Children’s programs. This walk will also help people see that Baja is a lot safer than the world media has made it out to be and help promote tourism. Benjamin being an experienced film maker he felt it would be a great to create a documentary of Baja as well.
The Team
Ben Has successfully created a team of people to help with getting assistance for the walk itself as well as filmmakers from around the world of those that are willing to volunteer their services to support this project with their varied talents. It is truly amazing to me how people from all around the world that have come forward with their own time and money to make this a very successful project for all.
Charities
GART; is a Mexico based non-profit known as Grupo Apoyo Ray Thomas, which provides sports, feeding and an anti-graffiti programs to schools and children of Baja Sur.
YES; is a U.S. based non-profit, which stands for Youth Educational Sports was founded by Ray Thomas as well, to help the poorer children of the U.S. to obtain sporting equipment and opportunities in sports.
Great Ormond Street Hospital opened in 1852 and is one of the largest and oldest Children’s hospitals in the world, located in London England.
World Peace Festival, which will be held in August 2010 in Berlin and www.Theirshoes.org is committed to helping raise the awareness of this major festival for people from all around the world via his walk and the publicity therefore created.
Benjamin has decided to start his walk in spring 2010 (actual date yet to be announced) for 100 day. His only deadline is that he wishes to be home in England in June to watch the world cup with his father. Benjamin is already thinking, after this short break back home in England, that he will probably continue on with walking after this first 1000 mile walk to San Diego.
How is Benjamin planning to make this walk…
One step after another…one foot forward and follow the highway…
As well with the assistance of others in the team that are helping on the project to create videos, photos, blogs, websites, use continuous social media and the creation of a documentary of the entire trek and most of Baja.
Side trips made by film crews and Ben on lay days so that he and the others can experience and capture the true contrast of the fantastic 3 sided island of Baja of Mexico starting in the tropics, passing through desert, mountains pacific ocean to the Sea of Cortez and back again as the sinuous highway flows.
Benefits for all
First and foremost the children that will benefit in 3 countries and hopefully encourage others to take up walks like these throughout the world for all kinds of cause and to help raise consciousness….better future for all
Obvious product and service publicity and tax right off for donors whether corporate or personal
Win-win-win….
Best described as a situation where at least 3 or more will benefit from the actions of one. For example while a donation is tax deductible for a business and they receive public recognition and or publicity the organizations themselves benefit and most importantly so do the children as well as society overall, benefiting from the fact the young citizens are healthier, more social and can be team players
Sports programs played an important role in Ben’s life as is it did in mine and in Ray’s; giving us greater discipline, showing us how to work and play together as a team and ultimately help us stay out of trouble and be healthier.
What can you do?
Sponsor the walk, the children’s programs directly or creation of the documentary by direct donations as well as offer to help wherever you are located, especially those in all parts of Baja. Help to promote the walk if by no other means than to share it with others via the www.theirshoes.org and or his FaceBook page at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Walk-1000-miles-in-their-shoes/201596467835?ref=sgm
you may also follow his progress on twitter at Theirshoes ( http://twitter.com/theirshoes ), Podcasts, Theirshoes (http://soundcloud.com/theirshoes ).
Please pass the word on and help support it in any way you feel you can and be sure to follow along as the walk begins in just over a month approximately.