History of our Foundation

In the early 1980’S Mr.Willem Struijs was approached by the spouse of an orthopaedic surgeon from Rotterdam, who just returned from Congo Brazzaville (the former French Equatorial Central Africa) where he operated on polio patients at the request of Terres des Hommes, with images of the crippling consequences of polio fresh on his mind: these children suffered from serious paralyses.

Her request of Willem Struijs was if he could make special shoes available for these children, as he had a very broad knowledge in this field.
As his spouse, Bertha suffered from Polio as well, his positive reaction was obvious, however he first wanted to take a closer look at the situation and see for himself....

When he returned from this trip, he was deeply moved.....

It was Willem Struijs, who then infected Meüs van de Poel with his enthusiasm. Meüs is an orthopaedic shoe specialist. He continues to be a member of our Foundation and an active member of the medical teams, which also include Pim Mulder, an honorary member of our Foundation as well. Together they have made several trips to Congo Brazzaville. Within a short period of time, they began the supply of machinery for the production of “Congo sandals” (sabots) and braces.
It may seem like a small activity, but the first steps were made!!!

Guests at the Rotterdam Home for the Elderly “De Schutse” were impressed with his presentation about “his” Congo Project and became so excited that at the end of the presentation, not only did the collection plate hold a large sum of money, the guests also convinced the manager of the Home, Mrs. Joop Stolk (President of our Foundation till early 2004) to organize an annual fancy-fair from which all proceeds were to be donated to our Foundation.
These fancy-fairs have collected an amount of Hfl. 150.000, - (€. 70.000,-) over the years!!

Once money started to come in regularly, the three friends did not consider it to be feasible anymore to organize this work without having a statuary status.
This is the reason they founded the Foundation “Stichting Op Gelijke Voet” on June 13th. 1984.

More volunteers were sought after. Until early 1990, every year a medical team was sent to Congo Brazzaville. The team included a medical doctor, an orthopaedic shoemaker and an administrator. Cooperation with the Dutch Physio-therapists, sent out by Terres des Hommes, was established and extremely helpful.

After that, a Dutch nun Soeur Ancilla, who was in Congo with two catholic brothers, made her entrance. She did a very good job on the spot in guiding and helping out polio patients.
Consequently, Soeur Ancilla became a very helpful and trustworthy intermediate for our Foundation at Congo Brazzaville.

During the past 10 years, our Foundation in Congo Brazzaville has been represented by Mrs. Hilly-Anne Fumey – van Baggum. Due to her previous positions there (i.e. Dutch Representative for EU at Congo Brazzaville), she maintains excellent relations with important people in Brazzaville, who can help to break down the barriers, which might otherwise be in the way of making the work of our Foundation a success.