Xolani, 11, puts a protective arm around his two younger sisters as they wait for lunch and a visit with a doctor at a free clinic in Inchanga, South Africa.

To get here, the children trekked barefoot for several kilometres over barren land. They are among the estimated 15 million children worldwide who have lost one or both parents to AIDS.  

In townships across this nation, the AIDS epidemic has forced children like Xolani to become surrogate fathers and mothers for their younger siblings. Traditionally, relatives and neighbors would raise all the orphans, but the disease has killed off many wage-earning adults in Zulu families, leaving the children to fend for themselves.

Rather than building separate, isolated orphanages – a cost-prohibitive gesture, given the high number of children without living parents – Canadian Rotarians are helping by opening centres that allow children to stay in their communities. The facilities provide holistic care for preschoolers, including education, meals, clothing, and minor medical treatment, and in the later stages, job training for caregivers and after-school programs for older students.

The effort is a collaboration led by Rotarians in Ontario, South Africa, and California, USA, along with Soul of Africa, a nonprofit conceived by sixth-generation British shoe magnate Lance Clark and the owners of Froggie Shoes in South Africa. The sale of shoes, soccer balls, and a new Next clothing line funds the bricks and mortar for the centres, while Matching Grants from The Rotary Foundation and other contributions cover everything else. Canadian Rotarians have gone a step further, leveraging additional funding through their country’s government.

Launched with a small investment in 2004, Soul of Africa and Rotarians worldwide have raised more than $2 million to help over 4,000 orphans in KwaZulu-Natal Province, the epicentre of the global AIDS epidemic. The Canadians have helped fund 28 of 42 centres. The project also creates jobs for about 80 AIDS-affected women, who hand-stitch the high-end leather shoes.

In 2007, a team of 32 Rotarians and spouses from Canada visited KwaZulu-Natal, led by David Martindale, a member of the Rotary Club of Kitchener and the effort’s Canadian coordinator. “There is nothing like firsthand experience, to see the devotion of the volunteers and the people operating the centres,” he says.

Inspired, the Rotarians returned home and started fundraising in earnest. The next year, Wilfrid J. Wilkinson, then the RI president, flew to South Africa to open one of the first centres, located at the Inchanga clinic. Rotarians in nearly two dozen Canadian clubs have raised more than $475,000 from a variety of sources, including the Canadian Rotary Collaboration for International Development, which matches contributions with funds from the Canadian International Development Agency. “We’re now completing a project that will help feed an estimated 4,300 kids starving along the highway north of Durban,” Martindale says.

Buy Soul of Africa shoes at www.zappos.com  or www.soulofafricacharity.org .