Happy International Day of the Girl 2022 – Annual Online Fundraiser

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Student athletic scholars in Ethiopia. Photo courtesy of GGRF

HAPPY INTERNATIONAL DAY OF THE GIRL 2022! We’re commemorating the day by launching our annual fundraiser in support of girls’ education and skills-building!

Please join us to help provide much-needed support over the coming year. Every bit counts!

Over the last few years, our grant project partners have been working extremely hard to get ahead of an onslaught of tough challenges due to COVID-19 and severe political instability in their countries. And while there are definite successes to report, there is still much to do to get things back on track.

PROJECT UPDATES

  • Girls Gotta Run Foundation 

In Ethiopia, where GGRF operates, only about 25% of girls go to secondary school. Far fewer graduate and just a tiny fraction go on to tertiary education. Child marriage, where girls are married off before age 18 (often right when they hit puberty) continues to be a serious problem. Once a girl is married, her access to education and peer networks ceases, and motherhood follows soon after despite the girl still being a child herself.

GGRF’s mission – through athletics and life skills – is to increase the number of girls in school, while also increasing their self-confidence, access to economic assets, and control over life choices. Because of the pandemic and political conflict, continuing regular programming has been especially hard. However, through sheer perseverance and the hiring of new, dedicated staff, work is getting back to full strength.

Over 160 adolescent girls receive scholarships which provide tuition, school lunches, school uniforms and hygiene supplies, running kits, life-skills education, and access to showers and laundry. New girls are being added to the programme for the 2022/2023 school year, with a focus on girls who lost out because schools were closed during the pandemic.

Since its launch in 2014, 95% of girls who completed the programme have avoided early marriage (before 18 or before completing secondary school). And a significant number have gone on to college and tertiary vocational studies. We hope to support GGRF to assist alumni to continue with their studies and give back by becoming life-skills mentors to the younger girls.

GGRF alums who will act as mentors for the programme in Sodo, Ethiopia; they continue to receive small stipends to help with their further studies. (Photo courtesy of GGRF)
  • Code to Inspire

The upheaval and turmoil In Afghanistan caused by the seizure of power by the Taliban in 2021 continues to disrupt the lives of millions of women and girls living there. Secondary schools for girls remain closed.

After the Taliban took over in Herat in August 2021, CtI was forced to cease operations and figure out how to adapt to the unsafe and highly volatile situation. In October, the entire coding and graphic design curriculum was moved online using Google classroom. After assessing students’ needs and technical capabilities, laptops were provided to girls who needed them, along with monthly internet subscriptions so all students could continue their online classes. 

Through our flash fundraising appeal in Sept-Oct last year, we were immensely grateful to all our donors for helping to provide $12000 in urgent funds to CtI to help meet their students’ and families’ immediate needs during the crisis, which included food, medicine, rent assistance and internet access. Today, 80% of CtI’s students are on track to complete their classes using Google classroom.

Through unrelenting persistence, and never giving up hope, CtI finally just received permission to renew its work permit, meaning that the coding school can legally reopen. For 2023, this means that a new graphic design class can be held for 180 girls and young women as a one-year afterschool programme (tertiary level only). We hope to support CtI with a grant to roll out this class, purchase new equipment and furniture for the school, and subsidize internet costs.

Graphic by Zainab Azimi, one of Code to Inspire’s top graphic design graduates. (Photo courtesy of CtI)

Thank you!

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A week ago when we launched our urgent appeal for the girls of Code to Inspire, our partner organization in Afghanistan, we set a goal of $5000. We didn’t expect that we not only would raise that amount in just 2 days, but that we would more than double it.

Together, thanks to you, our generous friends and supporters, we raised close to $12000, every cent of which will go to the girls and their families in Afghanistan.

Our hearts are full with gratitude.

Flash Appeal for Our Partner Code to Inspire in Afghanistan

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Code to Inspire is the first computer coding school for girls in Afghanistan. We started our partnership with them in 2020, right in the middle of the global COVID-19 outbreak, by raising much needed emergency funds to help provide internet access to girls who had to continue their work at home when the coding school was forced to close. We also contributed professional tablets to kick off a new advanced graphic design programme at the school. The school re-opened and 75 girls were able to graduate this year in coding and graphic design – several of the girls were already earning an income building websites and apps for companies.

Things changed drastically over the last few weeks.

Fereshteh Forough, founder of Code to Inspire

In light of recent events we are launching this urgent fundraising appeal to help the girls of Code to Inspire, who have overnight seen their living situations deteriorate rapidly. We have a generous donor who will match up to $2500 in funds by midnight 27 Sept (EST), so every dollar you donate will become two. Donate here.

Monday Sept 19th was the first day back at school in Afghanistan under the Taliban. But only for boys. Fereshteh Forough, the founder of Code to Inspire has received many urgent messages for help from the girls and their families as the humanitarian crisis continues to grow more dire, especially for girls and women. In her own words:

“These past weeks as much as I was worried and concerned about the future of our girls with our coding school, I received heartbreaking messages from our students whom either themselves as the main breadwinner of the family or someone from their family lost their jobs and have no income at all which led to food insecurity, not being able to pay rent, medical needs, commute and etc. 

Here are a few of the messages I received:

“I don’t have a father and our situation at home is very bad.”

” My father is disabled and my mom and I were the breadwinners. We both lost jobs. Any help can save us.”

“My mother was a government human rights lawyer. The Taliban took my father as hostage to force my mother to resign which it happened. My father is hidden and we don’t have any source of income since my mother lost her job.”

“I don’t have a father. I was the only breadwinner. My mother is sick and we have to pay for her medical bills which we don’t have any money for.”

There are currently 80 students asking for cash assistance to support their families. With an average family of six, cash assistance of $200 per family can help cover food, rent and medical expenses. 

Every bit counts if you can spare it. Thank you for your help.

45 graduates in graphic design, Jun 2021 (Photo courtesy of Code to Inspire)
30 graduates in coding, Feb 2021 (Photo courtesy of Code to Inspire)