Indosole Blog & News

Saturday 16 November was Indosole’s moment to pause, take stock of a decade of innovation and share its 10th birthday celebrations with the community at its flagship store in Canggu, Bali.

28 teams, 36 matches, over 1,000 balls sunk & two winners; welcome to the 2nd Annual Community Assist 3-On-3 Charity Basketball Tournament presented by Indosole, raising funds for Pulau Plastik for a sustainable, plastic-free Bali. 

A few months ago we were contacted by Joshua Shuckman, who runs "Social Change Nation" -  a site and podcast dedicated to promoting cause minded organizations and businesses. We finally got Kyle Parsons, Indosole's founder and president, on the phone to do an episode of Social Change Nation and the results were  pretty awesome. So if you want to hear how it all got started, the ups and downs of running a socially conscious business, and everything in between go ahead and listen to part 1 of Kyle's interview here: https://socialchangenation.com/029-part-1-kyle-parsons-of-indosole/ If you need it on the go, Social Change Nation is also available for download on Itunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/voices-social-change-social/id921408507

“Welcome to Bali, do you have any plastic bags to declare?” After a year of campaigning, Pastika, the Governor of Bali, has met 12 and 13 year olds Isabel and Melati Wijsen from the Green School in Bali. Finally he has signed the Memorandum of Understanding to take measures that will see the use of plastic bags minimised on Bali by January 1st, 2016. Pastika said he was touched by the social initiative of the “child led action” that had gained such attention on Bali and around the world, following their recent talk at INK India. “I am not a hero, it is part of my job,” replied Mangku Pastika. He said he not only sympathized with the project, he loved it and wanted to support it. The Bye Bye Plastic Bags campaign began in 2013 when the two Green School students attended the GIN conference and decided to follow their role models to take action to make a change in the world. Since then, the girls have gathered a team of kids from local and international schools around the island to support them and have managed to collect over 60,000 signatures for a petition [www.avaaz.org/en/bye_bye_plastic_bags_on_bali/?rc=fb] to ban the use of plastic bags on Bali by 2016. At the meeting today, Melati told the Governor of their dream that one day all those visiting Bali would be greeted at the airport with the words: “Welcome to Bali, do you have any plastic bags to declare?” “It won’t be easy” said Isabel,“ but together, working with the Governor, and all the kids from Bali, we can return this island to the beautiful paradise it was.”

The Bye Bye Plastic Bags Girls, Isabel and Melati Wijsen, are putting plastic where their mouths are in a bid to force a meeting with the governor of Bali to highlight the plight of their campaign to rid the island of plastic bags. On November 24, the girls will begin a food strike as added leverage to get the governor, I Made Mangku Pastika, to meet with them and put a timeline on a law that will ban the use of plastic bags on Bali. The girls, who have just returned from India where they were met with standing ovations at the INK Conference in Mumbai, have been gathering widespread support for their campaign in a bid to ramp up more support for the Bye Bye Plastic Bags (BBPB) petition to raise a million signatures. "It is now time for Pastika to meet with us," says Isobel. "We and the team have done a lot of hard work to get our campaign noticed and it is only fair that Pastika takes the time, like many prominent people have now done, to talk to us about how we are going to stamp out the problem of plastic bags in Bali," says Melati. "If we have to go on hunger strike to get his attention, then so be it," says Isobel. BBPB is a social initiative driven by children, local and international, living in Bali between 10 and 15 years old who are committed to preserving the beauty of Bali by banning plastic bag use. The initiative was founded by Green School students, Melati and Isabel Wijsen, in late 2013 and is now made up of a dedicated team of 25 children, with more joining from around the world every day. So far BBPB have raised nearly 65.000 signatures for their petition through AVAAZ, spoken to more than 3500 students across the world in three different languages and is running a plastic bag-free program in a pilot village on Bali, with local authority’s approval, as well as raising general awareness at markets, events and festivals. The group have already garnered significant support for their lobbying of national and international media and have met and received the support of Jane Goodall and her Roots and Shoots program as well as the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki moon. This week the team won Bali Yak Awards and received a nomination by The Role Foundation for Green School to become a role model high school for 2014. The BBPB team have sent many letters to the government and Governor but he has still not made any effort to respond. With all the publicity surrounding the campaign the girls have decided to act now to speed up the process. They will NOT stop drinking but WILL refuse solid food from sunrise to sunset from November 24 until they have this meeting. On November 28, the girls are asking their school and all those on Bali aware of their campaign, to join them. For more information contact; byebyeplasticbag@gmail.com sign their petition here https://secure.avaaz.org/en/petition/Byebye_Plastic_Bags_On_Bali/?aDjcKgb

It’s time to get personal! As we know, Indosole would be nothing without our super hard-working team over in Bali so we thought we’d share a little about two of our ‘Indo-Family’. Meet Komang, our factory Manager from Denpasar, Bali. Komang is 28 years old and has already been making shoes for 10 years – 5 of those for Indosole! Komang is the brains of the Bali operation and we are so glad to have her on our team! Komang likes to rock her favorite pair of black Kelapa’s each day when coming to work at the Indosole factory and who can blame her? They look great! Thanks Komang!! Meet Dodi... He is our upper construction worker who has been part of the Indosole team for 3 years and already a household name around the Bali factory. Dodi is originally from the city of Surabaya on the island of Java and is married with a one-year-old baby. His favorite shoe is the black Prahu so enjoys being able to make them too! Komang and Dodi are what we simply call “Great Humans” and want to thank them for all the hard work they put in to make the Indosole dream a reality. With Komang, Dodi and the rest of the crew in Bali by our side we are well on our way to saving 1 Million waste tires in Indonesia and making what we call “Soles with Soul!”

Indosole represents a lifestyle of resourceful creation. Each year, over one billion waste tires end up in landfills worldwide. We are on a mission to salvage discarded tires and give them new life as soles for our footwear. So far, Indosole has prevented over 30,000 tires from ending up in landfills and have turned those tires into over 60,000 pair of shoes. As a whole, Indosole features a toxic-free manufacturing process and does not use fuel powered machinery to make its footwear, just strong hands and minds. While based in San Francisco, CA and Bali, Indonesia the company's ethos is to take care of their people while chipping in to protect the environment's bottom line. We've partnered with organizations that contribute to the planet's well being and often conduct beach clean-ups, give backs, and community based events. B Corp is a natural fit for Indosole as it represents the values of our brand's integrity. Together, we believe we can produce high-quality products with a conscious effort to take care of our people while making our planet a better place to walk on.

Today we happily announce our newest team members Vivien and Louie! Vivien will intern with us in Bali supporting our Bali crew's daily missions for the rest of the year. Louie is stationed in San Francisco supporting the SF crew. Here's a little something from each of them... Vivien Hi there! I’m Vivien from Germany. I’m 21 years old and study International Business in Nuremberg. As an IB student I have the opportunity to study and intern abroad for one semester each. Since I love travelling and experiencing new cultures this fit perfectly into my plan. So far I’ve managed to live in the US for a year, spent my last semester in the beautiful city Cádiz in Spain and chose Bali as the perfect place to take my internship. When I started looking for an internship a couple months ago, my last but not least priority was that I wanted to intern for a company on a mission to do good. After all my research for the perfect company, I immediately felt connected to Indosole because it sounded like such a simple, yet so genius idea. I applied right away and – lucky me – got accepted closely after that. Cheers to a wonderful couple of months in Balifornia! Louie Hello everyone! My name is Louie and I’m the newest Intern here at the San Francisco office of Indosole. I’m 21, originally from London, England and am currently a third year at Northeastern University in Boston. I have just moved up from living in LA for the last few months and expect a completely new and different experience in the city by the bay, and whilst I know very little about baseball, GO GIANTS! As part of my degree I am spending a few months with Indosole to help out with any day-to-day work and hope to learn more about a growing start-up, along with sales, advertising and brand management. I'm having a great time selling Indos and Cocos at all our events so far, and love being able to be a part of such a great story!

Ombak Bali teamed up with La Plancha a bar and restaurant in Seminyak, for the fifth year in a row. Together they hosted South East Asia's only International Surf Film Festival. Their collaboration is a perfect fusion of surfers paradise and outdoor cinema, and taking it to another level. Colourful bean bags scattered all along the sand, a big screen hooked up to a sound system just in front of the water, and food and bar service from La Plancha, all made it the perfect Bali weekend hangout. While aiming to promote environmental and social issues through raising awareness, Ombak Bali is mainly a platform for national and international surf film and documentary makers. Giving them the opportunity to showcase and expose their work to like minded people, Ombak are keen on those artists who are exploring surfing beyond the barrels and the waves. The festival featured films like "The Old, The Young and The Sea" and "Out in the Lineup" and were showcased over a full three day period of two films per day. The festival is an ever-growing event with the likes of Ripcurl, Bilabong and Surftime as their partners, among others. They are already taking applications for 2015, so any surf film or documentary makers out there you might want to jump on board!