See Beautiful at Girls Gotta Run
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Running Towards Education and Economic Opportunity in Ethiopia
The story of Girls Gotta Run Foundation is much the same as the communities it serves – a story of tenacious girls and women coming together to overcome gender-based barriers and empower a new generation of female leaders in Ethiopia through the power of running.
In a nation plagued by girls’ and women’s limited access to education and economic opportunities, Ethiopia’s national sport of running is viewed as the great gender equalizer. It is a sport where girls are encouraged to be just as successful as boys and therefore ensures girls equal access to opportunities to succeed in the sport. Girls Gotta Run uses running as an innovative approach to creating safe spaces for girls, ending child marriage, and expanding access to secondary school for girls.
Consider this:
• Only half of Ethiopian girls who enroll in primary school ever make it to the 5th grade.
• 40% of Ethiopian girls are married off as children.
• 47% of adolescent girls in Ethiopia today have already been subjected to female genital cutting.
• One in three women in Ethiopia experience physical, emotional, or sexual violence in their lifetimes.
• Ethiopian women provide the majority of agricultural labor across the nation but have limited or no access to financial resources or decision making in their homes and communities.
If you feel uncomfortable grappling with this reality, know this - Girls Gotta Run is on a mission to change these statistics. Through our Athletic Scholarship Program, we focus on four key investment strategies for girls and their mothers to ensure they have the ability to design the future of their choosing:
EDUCATIONAL SCHOLARSHIPS
Girls Gotta Run provides full scholarship for girls to attend secondary school which covers school costs including tuition, books, supplies, and uniforms; healthcare subsidies for girls and their mothers; hot lunches and clean water every school day; and hygiene products including sanitary pads, soap, space to wash clothes, female-only hygiene facilities.
LIFE SKILLS TRAINING
Girls in our program meet weekly with a female mentor to train in life skills. The weekly workshops were developed to create safe spaces for girls and provide experiential learning modules on financial literacy, HIV/AIDS awareness, nutrition, healthy relationships, leadership, family planning, and creative expression.
RUN CLUBS FOR LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT
Girls in our program are trained in leadership development through their participation in run clubs where they not only train for races, but learn to set goals, build plans to achieve goals, and discipline themselves to pursue their dreams. Every girl is provided with a full running kit, two pairs of shoes, training gear, oversight of a female coach, and entrance and transportation to Ethiopian races throughout the year.
MOTHERS SAVINGS AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Girls Gotta Run establishes savings and entrepreneurship groups with the mothers of the girls to whom we provide scholarships. Mothers are provided with a 5-day business development workshop, seed capital to establish a savings group, and the oversight of a trained community mobilizer for 3 years.
Our Athletic Scholarship Program does more than just provide adolescent girls with full scholarships to attend secondary school in Ethiopia. We use running as a means of promoting change in the lives of Ethiopia's most vulnerable girls. Combining sport with education provides our girls with a pathway to success, instilling in them the life skills they need to successfully navigate adolescence and adulthood.
Since its inception, Girls Gotta Run has seen 96% of our program participants avoid early marriage, complete the Girls Gotta Run program in full, and enter higher levels of education. Over our 14-year history, Girls Gotta Run has impacted more than 1,300 people in four regions in Ethiopia.
See Beautiful™ is a philanthropic company with a mission to provide inspiring, ethically-sourced products to create more beautiful in the world. With every purchase, you help fund carefully vetted, sustainable projects of non-profit organizations. See Beautiful recognizes that through education, empowerment and strategic giving, we can create more beautiful in the world. The company has given over $200,000 through its Grant program and strategic giving initiatives.
We are pleased to announce that See Beautiful™ has awarded Girls Gotta Run a $4,000 grant to support Life Skills Classes for Ethiopian girls! Join us in celebrating!
