The Toms company, founded by Blake Mycoskie, is a shoe manufacturer who uses the “buy one give one” model to promote sales. The general basis for the buy one give one model is for every pair of shoes purchased a pair of shoes is donated to a family or child of a third world country in need. To the public mind this model gives the allusion that the company founded by Mycoskie is more of a charity than a for profit organization.  Upon review of the work of various journalist and photographic photographers. It can be found that the TOMS company is in fact stealing jobs from areas in Africa where jobs are lacking, and drawing attention to an issue that is negligible when compared to alterative circumstances such as unemployment, starvation, and poverty. As a marketing technique TOMS choses to show a meager example of poverty and advertise it a dire issue within all impoverished areas of the world such as Africa. The truth however, isn’t the lack of footwear or even clothing for that matter. What impoverished countries really need is jobs, food, and, medical attention. 

The TOMS company uses media to show a single side of the hardship that is experienced in Africa. Areas such as Ethiopia, Liberia, and Uganda contain villages who lack essential living necessities like clean water, food, and basic medical practices are being ignored and instead Are showered with cheap shoes that cost a mere four dollars to produce and sold for sixty dollars. The influx of TOMS sales and therefore donations is in fact crippling the advancement of underprivileged societies as it is taking jobs from people who need them and is drawing attention away from the donation of food, water systems, and health care for a better more prosperous society. The deception of TOMS as a charitable company is the primary cause for the ignorance of comparatively privileged people. 

Furthermore, the incursion of the TOMS shoe company not only choses to ignore the real problems but they also deceive the general public by creating the appearance that they are performing more good than harm to indigent societies. With carefully chosen photography the TOMS company is able to brain wash their consumers and establish the idea that a simple purchase of the company’s product is all that is needed to help improve the life of all people living in poverty.  With further analysis it can be uncovered that what the TOMS company considers charity is in fact a manipulation that feeds off of the emotion and empathies of the privileged population. Various Journalist and photographers who have toured impoverished areas in Uganda have captured the genuine dilemma with underprivileged villages. Illnesses like malaria and Ebola can be seen to have devastating effects on the lives of young children and their families. Starvation is characterized by the empty and boney shape of the children’s torso. Through comparison of images produced by journalist and similar images produced by the TOMS company the; truth that the donation of shoes does nothing more than take jobs and therefore wealth, from the population of underprivileged people, becomes apparent when citizens of the most oppressed villages are pictured with skinny bodies and shoes on their feet. 

Journalist and photographers, such as Jan Banning use photographic essays to reveal the “face of Poverty” in places like Malawi Africa. The display of impoverished African families who situation is so dire they are living off of single digit bags from portions of a yearly corn harvest, appear to lack proper nutrition as evidence by the malnourished visage of the underprivileged families 

The lack of basic living necessities is illustrated by the elation of the child characterized by his facial expression when he is encountered by a stream of clean water. The photograph of a young child residing in rural Ethiopia ,captured by the charity water group of the Aid for Africa organization, exhibits the utter joy the child is experiencing during his interaction with clean drinking water. Upon close examination of the image it can be implied that the location of the young boy’s inhabitance is experiencing a paucity of clean water. In addition, The portrait of the innocent looking Ethiopian girl presenting a bottle of dirty drinking water and a bottle of clean drinking water  affirms the assumption that a fundamental living necessity such as water exists in inadequacy in third world counties. It is for this reason that the negligence of the privileged world is hindering the advancement of third world countries who struggle to provide its citizens with nothing more than a primitive living existence. Images published by legitimate not for profit charities and organizations, unlike the TOMS company, serve not only to promote a genuine motive but also to inform the public of the legitimate dilemmas that are being experienced by third world countries not only in Africa but around the world. 

Finally, Health organizations around the world are exclaiming the abundance of unadulterated suffering by disclosing a graphic image of a child with an advanced form of measles.  A disease that can be prevented by a minor investment and a simple trip to a clinic in most privileged countries is imposing a large volume of suffering in deprived regions of the world. The lifeless and ailing pose of the young boy is broadcasted to the world by the (WHO) World Health Organization. The Hope that the world will respond to the desolation of indigent civilizations containing a plethora of virtuous people who have been sentenced to a life of suffering is exposed through photography. The very people who aim to end suffering by buying TOMS shoes is in fact causing the neglect emphasized by the organizations who choose to make a difference.  
