SERVE Flip Flop Appeal to ensure people have equitable access to resources that will positively transform their own lives

Every year, SERVE holds its Flip Flop Appeal by selling Fairtrade flip flop pins in the month of May.

The flip-flop is SERVE’s logo, as it is the footwear of the world’s poorest people and during this appeal, we are symbolising that we are walking in solidarity with all the people we help around the world. 

The idea of the Flip-Flop appeal emerged from a group of SERVE volunteers in 2005, who worked with the Good Shepherd Sisters in Nong Khai in Northern Thailand.



Nong Khai is a very rural area in the north-east of Thailand.  Like many rural areas of its kind, it is highly dependent on its natural agricultural resources to provide food and income needs within the local area. With unpredictable weather and failing crops, there has been a common trend of outward migration, especially of young people, into the big cities, like Pattaya and Bangkok, in search of work.  The Good Shepherd Sisters, working in these cities, noticed this trend and were seeing young girls forced into prostitution as the only means of survival.  

The plan of the Good Shepherd Sisters was to provide alternative education and employment opportunities within these remote communities, allowing the young people to remain in their home villages.



Since March 1982, the Good Shepard Sisters along with the local villagers, have constructed centres for skills training and income generation projects for local women in different villages in North-eastern Thailand. Since that time, different centres have been opened for women to learn weaving and other handcrafting skills, and they began to produce and sell handicrafts to earn a dignified living.  

SERVE has financially supported these training centres through the last 20 years by directly purchasing woven fair-trade flip-flop pins made by these women and we sell them for €2 each.  

This is just one story about how SERVE works with a community in need to fight poverty.



SERVE has numerous more examples from the past 20 years, and with your support, we hope to be able to continue supporting projects like this in the future.  

Your donations to this Appeal will directly contribute to providing better educational resources and accredited skills training to women and young people. These are basic human rights which will help them gain the confidence to live with dignity and have their own financial independence. 



Your donation will promote gender equality and challenge stereotypes too.



Please help us to continue to ensure people have equitable access to the tools and resources that will positively transform their own lives.

Donate to Flip Flop Appeal today:

https://serve.ie/flipflopappeal-2023/