Steps for shoes

By Casey Neill
CHRISTINE Siddle’s six-year-old daughter has inspired her to take a Care Australia fundraiser in her stride.
The 41-year-old will take 10,000 steps a day from Friday 9 March to Friday 16 March in this year’s Walk in her Shoes challenge.
“I’ve always wanted to do something like this,” she said. “To help people in less fortunate circumstances.
“One of my inspirations is having a daughter and thinking about what it would be like if she was in another country.”
Mrs Siddle has been wearing a pedometer daily in the lead up to the challenge, and takes about 4000 steps in her normal routine. She said finding an extra 6000 steps a day would mean a very early morning start and a return journey from her husband’s veterinary surgery in Olinda’s main street to Cloudehill Nursery on Olinda-Monbulk Road.
“I am a little bit nervous because I’m not a morning person,” she said.
Mrs Siddle expects to be worn out and blistered by the end of the week.
“But it’s a minor inconvenience compared to what some people go through,” she said.
Women and children in the world’s poorest countries walk about 10,000 steps – roughly eight kilometres – every day just to reach drinking water.
Her fundraising dollars will go to Care Australia’s programs which aim to educate and empower women and children. “Educating women and girls provides the single highest return on investment in the developing world,” she said.
A $250 donation can provide a girl with an education scholarship that includes uniforms, travel costs and food for one year, while $500 can provide a simple rope water pump and maintenance training for a community.
Care Australia can use $1000 to provide animals, enclosures and training so that women can work closer to home and earn an income for their families, and $1500 can give malnourished children and pregnant women in remote areas community health services for one year.
Mrs Siddle said educated women were less likely to die in childbirth, more likely to have healthy babies, more likely to send their children to school, and better able to protect their children from HIV, trafficking and sexual exploitation.
She has so far raised $640 – well on the way to her $1000 target. She plans to participate again next year, and hopes more people will join her.
Visit walkinhershoes.org.au/christine_siddle to sponsor Mrs Siddle.