In Conversation with Girls Gotta Run

This week, former GGRF Executive Director and current Board Chair, Kayla Nolan, sat down with GGRF’s incoming Executive Director, Danielle Taylor, to discuss the origins of her passion for community development and the empowerment of women and girls. 

Stay tuned for Part II of this conversation with our organization’s leaders as they discuss the global Black Lives Matter movement, engaging and connecting the African diaspora, and the future of Girls Gotta Run!

Kayla: What has inspired your passion for community development and the empowerment of women and girls, particularly in Africa?

Danielle: Well, I was born and raised in the American South. I spent my formative years in a small town in South Louisiana. During that time, I navigated a lot of confusing and hurtful interactions that I did not yet have the words to explain or the skills to respond to. I experienced blatant racism, overt sexism, and a general dehumanization from the adults around me. I was taught early on that I wasn't as valuable or as capable as other people because I was a girl… a Black girl. So, I never quite felt at home. 

That changed when I was nineteen years old. I went to Senegal for the first time and discovered that I have a place in the world. There are people who not only look like me but who understand my world view, who have similar desires and ambitions, and who face similar challenges because of the color of their skin and their gender. I finally had an outlet for exploring who I was and what I wanted to become as a black, female, global citizen.

Over the years, as I got married, became a mother, got divorced, and navigated life as a Black single mother, I experienced firsthand many of the issues that I addressed in my work across Africa: sexual assault, struggling to access education and gainful employment, and overcoming harmful societal expectations. These experiences fueled my passion for ensuring the rights of Black women and girls globally. 

Danielle Taylor in Ibadan, Nigeria with community leader working to advance women’s rights.

Kayla: That is really powerful. Thank you for sharing that with me and with the GGRF community. It sounds like your trip to Senegal was really important in your life. Are there more experiences that you've had in that region that have shaped how you approach your work?

Danielle: My favorite experiences are the ones that help me feel connected to a global movement that has real implications for the lives of women and girls. For example, I did some work with a junior high school just outside of Accra, Ghana a few years ago. I conducted a series of trainings with teachers, counselors, and some students on the value of girls’ education, the unique challenges girls face in accessing and sustaining their education, and helping develop community-led responses to harmful social norms. During a follow up visit to the school, one of the newly trained counselors excitedly told me about a girl who was “still here”. I was confused because the girl she pointed to was not one who had participated in our training. 

What I learned was that the girl - who was only about 12 or 13 years old - discovered that she was going to be married off and thus unable to continue her schooling. She was disappointed but accepted the inevitability of the decision. She lamented to a friend about her situation. This friend happened to be one of the students we had recently trained. The friend told her about her right to marry the person of her choosing and the right to an education and helped her reach out to the school counselor for help. The counselor spoke with the school’s headmaster and together they spoke to the girl’s parents about laws against child marriage and advocated for other means of supporting the cost of the girl’s education and upbringing. 

I remember seeing this little girl, unaware of my watchful eye, just doing the things that a kid her age is supposed to do: play, talk to her friends, get excited about a new book, dream about her future. Moments like this remind me of the importance of my work and how powerful it can be to touch even just one life. There is a ripple effect that strengthens entire communities. I’m honored to be a part of this movement with women in communities around the world.

Kayla Nolan in Bekoji, Ethiopia.

Kayla: I completely agree. It’s powerful to hear about girls acquiring the knowledge and the tools they need to really support their dreams and their interests as well as being able to communicate their dreams, interests, needs, desires with friends, with community members, and with family. It’s been shown that girls are their own greatest advocates and the greatest method of intervention in early marriage is girls advocating on their own behalf and the behalf of others. This story symbolizes how powerful it is when girls really understand their own agency.

What kind of unique impact do you feel organizations of GGRF’s size, of a grassroots size, have in the communities they work with? How does this impact set us apart?

Danielle: I think this type of organization is critical to seeing sustainable change in international development. I have been fortunate enough to work with some major aid organizations and although their intent is definitely in the right direction, we end up seeing a lot of the same challenges. Bureaucracy impedes the delivery of support to people on the ground. The voices of community members are often left out of program development. And too often, change is driven by external actors instead of community members themselves. 

The beauty of grassroots organizations is that they have their finger on the pulse of what's really happening on the ground. You can't parachute in from outside and think you can invest two or three years in a community and expect radical, sustainable change. That's one of the reasons why I'm so excited to join Girls Gotta Run. We prop up those change makers who are already doing the hard work to promote human rights in their home communities. I think that Girl’s Gotta Run in particular has a really great model because we are able to be the international advocate and champion for the good work that's happening in Ethiopia

Kayla: I couldn't agree more. I love hearing that. I have seen firsthand the lack of representation of local voices, which is of course the ultimate irony because the people creating the most change are those directly involved in the community: the girls, the families, are the ones working every day to redesign and rebuild a future that they're excited about.

What topics would you like to see the Girls Gotta Run Foundation’s leadership discuss? Let us know in the comments below!