The Preemptive Love Coalition began with a pair of shoes in Iraq

In the Spring of 2007, I was invited to a local hotel in Iraq where some Iranian musician-friends were relaxing after a big concert they had just given. I was asked to bring my guitar and a nice meet-and-greet erupted into a Western-gospel-folk-meets-Iranian-folk-orchestra explosion in the lobby of the hotel. While belting out Eastern versions of Western standards, I took note of the Iranian tar player's shoes - a white pair of hand-knit works of art that screamed "Persian rock star." The band took me to buy my own pair of these famous shoes the very next day. And thus began my fascination with the klash.

Klash are the three thousand year old claim to fame of the Kurdish people. Long before the Kurds were guerilla fighters fending off Saddam Hussein's army in the mountains of northern Iraq; before they were the victims of oppressive regimes in eastern Turkey and the Islamic Republic of Iran; and long before they were the largest group of people in the world without their own country the Kurds were making klash - remarkable hand-spun, hand-dyed, hand-knit, and entirely hand-made footwear belonging to the Kurds alone.

Until 2007, of course, when the Iranian rock minstrels rolled through Iraq shod with klash. That's when I bought my first pair of klash and determined with my wife and a few friends to export these hand-made marvels to the world.

Historically made from Persian cotton, natural berry dyes, tree sap, raw hide, and bull penis, klash are unlike any shoe in the world. The sole comprises vibrant red and blue accordioned fabric strung together by sheer force and strips of raw hide leather anchor to hardened bull penis at the toe and heel. Hand-cut by old-fashioned awl and razor blades, frayed edges of the sole are finalized by hand with boiled tree sap, giving the edge of the sole a shiny, completed look.

When a Kurdish man finishes this labor intensive effort the sole is then passed on to the women of the family who take turns knitting the white upper portion of the klash between household chores and village visitors.

But beyond their unique beauty and design, klash are now a source of sustainable charity for Iraqi children through the Buy Shoes. Save Lives. program that we've established here in Iraq. The Saddam-era has left behind an environmental milieu in which heart disease runs rampant and the medical infrastructure is wholly inadequate. Every purchase of klash from the Preemptive Love Coalition helps fund life-saving heart surgeries for Iraqi children by sending them to first class facilities in Turkey to the north; thereby nurturing communities of peace from nemesis neighbors.

You can buy klash, save lives and promote peace today at BuyShoesSaveLives.com