Search terms: Masai sandals, thousand miler sandals, michelin sandals.
This is a good lead
While probably most of us can’t imagine running a marathon even in normal running shoes, in 2008, six Maasai men came from Northern Tanzania to run the London Marathon to raise money to provide their village with clean water. They ran in their full traditional Maasai dress, including spears and tire sandals. They may not have won but they easily raised enough money to finance the much needed infrastructure.
Lots of tourists traveling to Africa are fascinated by those sandals. A couple from Britain was so intrigued that they even opened an online store, Jambo Jambo, that sells tire sandals in various designs, made by men and women who live in Kibera the biggest slum in Sub-Saharan Africa. If you watch the film the Constant Gardener you get a bit of a romanticized idea of Kibera (it was actually partly filmed there).
Curious? If you want to make your own tire sandals, maybe you can use schickchick’s flip flop creation as pattern.
You could track down the shoes from the lead above, our you could track down sources for tires, and hire people to make the shoes.