Snow slows down barefoot walker

A BELGIAN woman has arrived in Almeria on her 1,000+ kilometre walk to raise money for children in Nairobi.

Ilse Longuet set out from Barcelona more than two and a half months ago for her latest fundraising project: to walk the Spanish Mediterranean coast barefoot and carrying her two-year-old daughter Helinah.

The 34-year-old explained that she spends one month every year in Kenya and also does different things to raise for the children of the Kibera district of Nairobi.

“Many of the houses there are made of cardboard and people are in a very bad way. There are children who have no water, food, clothes, shoes… nothing,” Longuet said. 

So far her initial goal of €4,000 has been raised and more is expected through ‘the 1,000km barefoot walk’ on Facebook and GoGetFunding once she arrives at her finish line in Gibraltar.

Originally Longuet expected her challenge to take 100 days, however the recent snow slowed down progress. The mother and daughter cover between 10 and 20 kilometres per day, largely depending on Helinah. “She wants to play too and there are lots of parks and children’s playgrounds here,” her mother commented.

“I wanted to walk barefoot this year and decided to come to Spain because it’s colder in Belgium,” said Longuet, who has found people she has met along the way very generous. Some invite her to spend the night at their homes, and she met a retired French man, Antoine, in Denia who decided to accompany her as far as Malaga and provides logistic support with his caravan.