Barefoot children caught the attention of Betty Mae Agi and her sister, Brenda, when they were doing volunteer work in Angola. The trip to the country on the African continent was an exchange: they gave up the Biomedicine course graduation party and went to work as biomedics.
Betty was born in Brasília and lives in Anápolis (GO), daughter of a Mozambican father and a Brazilian mother. Working in the area of parasites and worms, the sisters noticed that children died, among other things, from contact with open sewage in very precarious situations. The year was 2010 and, according to Betty, no one was looking at this issue.
Upon returning to Brazil, they used the old social network Orkut to publish a photo album combining ballet and flip-flops. The objective was to collect 250 pairs of flip-flops to send to Angolan children. The campaign reached 17 states and, on the second day, the goal was achieved. At the same time, requests arrived from Brazil, India and Haiti, which gave them the scale of the problem.
“At the time, according to UN data, 300 million children lived barefoot due to lack of options. And this is a health problem, a problem of dignity, mobility, security. Imagine in the middle of the civil war and you are barefoot. How much do you run? Where can you go”, asks Betty Mae Agi.
The NGO Compaixão Internacional was born from the distribution of slippers, which has already fitted shoes for 60,000 children in 23 countries.
“The pair of flip-flops today, for the public we serve, is not just that piece of rubber that we are suddenly embarrassed to use in Brazil. It is a means of transport. It is what will determine whether a child will enter school or not.”
Betty also points out that barefoot people suffer from the stigma of lack of hygiene and draws attention to the racial aspect of the issue: according to her, 80% of people who don’t have shoes are non-white people.
“It is urgent for us to resolve this. Because we say that humanity is moving towards the future, but how is it moving? Some have an electric car, others are barefoot”, reflects the activist.
Speaker and autistic
Betty Mae Agi started work in Angola – Betty Mae Agi/Personal archive
In addition to being a biomedical doctor, Betty is a project manager, speaker and autistic.
The diagnosis of autism came when he was still a child. At home, he always had the encouragement of his parents, who talked about mission, purpose and the importance of having a career that was relevant.
Parents have also always followed their daughters’ school lives closely. And Betty says that it was a shock to arrive at college, at the age of 15 and in another city, when she moved from Brasília to Anápolis. Next to her, only her sister, also autistic.
Dealing with neurodivergence, she says she went through many difficulties, such as sensory crises and all the social anxiety typical of the condition. And what held her through college was knowing there was a purpose there.
“We were always intentional about what we were doing, because it comes at a very high cost,” he says.
She also says that she grew up hearing that her problem was not looking other people in the eye. And it took years of therapy to be able to look people in the eye without feeling too invaded.
“But our biggest gain was looking at people’s feet. Today I still don’t really look at people’s faces, but I look at their feet and that’s what’s making me walk”, he says proudly.
Walking, she became the winner of the speaking reality show “The Best Speaker Brasil”, on the 29th. Facing anxiety, lights, noise, colors and sensory dysregulation, she managed to overcome almost 36 thousand subscribers. On stage, she could be herself, she spoke openly about her diagnosis and was welcomed.
“What grounds me on this earth is a purpose. Maybe if it were something else, without purpose, I wouldn’t be able to do it”, concludes Betty.
