Triathletes for Africa

In 2007 Triathletes for Africa and Triathletes for Hope collected over 2000 pair on new and like new running shoes. Those shoes went to South Africa, Sudan, Kenya, Uganda, Peru, local Rescue Missions, Room in the Inn programs, and refugee resettlement programs in the United States.

MISSION STATEMENT:

Triathletes For Africa exists to bring hope through ongoing advocacy, education, and charitable giving to those who are impoverished, oppressed, sick, or live in fear.

VISION STATEMENT:

Triathletes for Africa is a charitable arm for the triathlon community across the globe. Triathletes will provide comfort and hope to those in need, especially those who are orphaned, widowed, or who have been traumatized as children being forced to become adults too soon through charitable giving.

Triathletes for Africa is an IRS recognized 501c3 non profit charity run by triathletes seeking to get fellow triathletes involved in bringing hope to impoverished populations in Africa.

Our first initiative will be to deliver gently used running shoes to areas of need in Africa. TFA believes that proper footwear for African peoples in areas of need will help reduce diseases and infections that spread by bare feet. We hope to spread this program across the continent.

We’re looking for:

* adult sized running shoes in good condition. While we appreciate the thought, please don’t bring shoes with holes in the them or that are ready for the trash can.

*children’s and toddler sized shoes in good condition: CROCS, tennis shoes, etc.

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
- James 1:27

We will collect your old running shoes at triathlons throughout the spring and summer season at various races. See our calendar on the “Calendar” page.

Contact: triforafrica@gmail.com

I’ve heard it before…and so have you: “You can’t change the world.” I used to believe that. It was a miserable existance. I found myself not too long ago in a “funk” – that’s a euphamism for the much scarier sounding term: depression. When I looked deep inside to find the problem I found out some things about myself, and about my society, that I didn’t like. I was self centered. I was jealous of people with enormous wealth. I felt sorry for myself. All of this despite having a beautiful wife, a daughter who is my whole world, a comfortable home, nice paid for cars, etc.

One day while having coffee with a friend at Starbucks I noticed a copy of Ishmael Beah’s A Long Way Gone. Just the picture on the front cover of the young boy toting an AK-47 wearing a pair of “blown out” flip flops broke my heart. I read that memoir of children being turned into soldiers in Sierra Leone and it changed my life. God opened my eyes to larger issues beyond my own accumulation of stuff here in the USA. I’ve dug deep into issues plaguing Africa: genocide, corruption, AIDS, famine.

I knew I was being called to do something. It popped into my head one Sunday during my weekly long run. I could combine my passion for Africa with my passion for multisport. I ran home as fast as I could to tell my wife what we were going to do. Her heart had ached for the AIDS epidemic in Africa long before mine. I had always brushed it off. I’m sorry for that now. The truth is, I wanted to brush this idea off as well at first; I didn’t have the time or the energy to “do something”. God kept telling me that I did have the time and I did have the energy. As always He was right….I do, so I am.The fact is, you CAN change the world. My 3 year old daughter sings along with Ben Harper when he sings “I can change the world…with my own two hands. Make a better place…with my own two hands.” Join us in making this small difference for those in need. 3 Sports…ONE LOVE.

Chad Nikazy

Founder of Triathletes For Africa