Tag Archives: education

Visit to Ethiopia 2024 – Leigh’s Photo Essay

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From Nov 14-25 2024, I joined a group of donors and supporters on an amazing trip to Ethiopia, organized by our partner and grantee Girls Gotta Run Foundation (GGRF). In the decade that we have been partners I have not had the chance to travel to this beautiful country to see the programs that we support, so this was quite simply the trip of a lifetime for me!

After a few days in Addis Ababa the capital, where we took part in the Great Ethiopian Run (an annual 10K race through the streets of the city), we travelled to Bekoji, a rural, farming community about 9,300 ft above sea level. This is a place considered the ‘land of runners’, because so many of Ethiopia’s elite distance runners come from there, such as Derartu Tutu – the first Ethiopian womn and Black African woman to win an Olympic gold medal, and Tirunesh Dibaba – the youngest female athlete to win individual gold at the World Championships.

The GGRF program in Bekoji includes about 60 adolescent girl athletic scholars – who receive support to stay in school, to train under a female coach, and to attend lifeskills classes. This helps them to delay marriage, gain an education, and develop their physical and intellectual strengths. In addition, GGRF also supports the mothers of the girls, by organizing Savings Groups and seed money for income-generation projects.

We joined the girls at their morning training. The terrain is uneven and hilly and after just 5 minutes I was huffing and puffing.

Drills…UPHILL! (It really hit home at this point why Ethiopians are so dominant in distance running!)

The girls run to and from their training – often several miles back and forth. Here they are running alongside our bus to meet us. Many of them were actually faster than our bus.

(Below) Coach Fatiya leading a warm-down stretch session. Once a promising professional runner, she had to give up her career after serious injury. Her abilities as a coach and a strong role model have become legendary, so much so that boys and younger girls have started joining her training sessions for the GGRF athletic scholars. The boys are welcome to join as long as they are respectful and recognise that the training focuses on the girls. This allows them not only to learn from a strong female leader, but also experience first-hand what gender equality is about – that girls are just as strong, just as committed and just as valued as boys.

After training, the girls walk/run home to change, and then they meet at school to have lunch. This is cooked by 2 of the girls’ mothers, who amongst themselves take turns everyday going to the market to buy food and then cooking for the entire group. Because of rampant inflation, cutbacks have had to be made on the protein the girls get, so they may not get meat every week. Pictured together are Desta Ragasa who cooked today’s meal and her daughter Kume Gamachu, 15, who’s in the 6th grade. The lunch the girls get everyday is essential, given their rigorous training, and the fact that they attend school in the afternoon. (In Bekoji, the sheer number of students versus the limited availability of schools means there are 2 separate school sessions in the morning and afternoon in order to accomodate everyone.)  

Below is the rudimentary kitchen where the girls’ meals are prepared by their mothers. Essentially a large wok on a ‘stove’ made of rocks in a windowless shed. The work is literally backbreaking and unhealthy because of the smoke that fills the small space. GGRF is working on building a new kitchen (almost complete!), which will be life-changing – a proper cooking set up in a bigger space with ventilation (next photo). 

The warmth and love that we received from the girls, despite only spending time with them over 3 days, left an indelible mark on our hearts. Siddise Mekonen (first photo below), who is 15 and in the 9th grade, is a talented athlete and dancer who also wants to be a doctor. Her mother, Mihret Tesfay, is a member of the Mothers Savings Group. She grows vegetables on her small plot of land enough to support her family but not quite enough to sell at the market, so the support from the GGRF program is much needed – “With GGRF I felt my life change from darkness to sunshine. I want to be like Derartu Tulu,” Siddise told me.

Like her, Aster Dejen (second photo below), 15 and in 6th grade (because she started school late), also aspires to be an elite runner and a doctor. She told me that she didn’t know anything about running at all before she became a GGRF athletic scholar. Now, her life is different in many ways, “I have enough food, I can afford sanitary supplies, I get gear to train and I’m even learning English which I love. I want to be a doctor and a famous runner when I’m older.”

In the photo below is the GGRF team in their brand new office space. Left to right: Samrawit (admin), Arbora (Senior advisor based in the US), Sukare (program manager in Bekoji), Blaine (Executive Director based in the US and Ethiopia), Fatiya (athletics coach and life skills mentor).

International Day of the Girl 2024 – Annual Fundraiser

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Happy International Day of the Girl 2024! 

Please join us once again in commemorating the day by supporting our annual fundraiser in support of girls’ education and skills-building!

[click here to go to our online fundraiser]

This year is Project Good for Girls 10th anniversary! 

For the last decade – through the generosity of our supporters – we have supported small non-profit organizations working with disadvantaged adolescent girls, with micro-grants to pilot initiatives or help them expand their programmes. We have worked mainly in Ethiopia and Afghanistan.

This year (2024-2025), we are raising funds specifically to help our project partner – Girls Gotta Run Foundation in Ethiopia – pilot an exciting new initiative – SELF-DEFENSE TRAINING!

Why self-defense?

Abduction or ‘telefa’ continues to be practiced in Ethiopia, where men kidnap girls, rape them, and then legally and culturally claim them as wives. The issue began receiving international attention due to the brave actions of girls who stood up for themselves and women who supported them, including as depicted in the 2014 film ‘Difret’. The practice is prevalent particularly in the Southern region (where the GGRF Soddo programme is), with estimates that 1 in 5 child marriages are due to telefa.

The mothers of our athletic scholars in Soddo have specifically asked for self-defense training for their daughters in hopes this will prove a deterrent. The issue was raised during a recent visit by GGRF staff to a Mothers’ Group meeting, where the women shared that they feared for their daughters’ safety as they walked to and from school. One mother, Mebrat, described how she was abducted as a girl and later abandoned as a pregnant young woman. She is raising her daughter alone, working as a hairdresser. “Now I want better for my daughter than the life I have had. My main dream is that my daughter will choose her own path, as I was not allowed to do,” she said.

In May 2024, we provided a $4000 micro-grant to help kickstart an initiative to integrate self-defense training into the life-skills portion of the scholarship programme. There is significant interest by girls and their families to participate. Now, we are hoping to raise more to help develop the effectiveness and sustainability of the programme.

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PARTNER PROJECT SUCCESSES

Girls Gotta Run Foundation (GGRF)

In Ethiopia, where GGRF operates, although 95% of girls begin their education, only about 20% complete secondary school 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 staying in school, while also increasing their self-confidence, access to economic assets, and control over life choices.

In Bekoji and Sodo, over 175 girls participate in the programme receiving full athletic scholarships which provide tuition, exam fees, school lunches, school uniforms and hygiene supplies, full running gear, life-skills education, and access to showers and laundry. Medical subsidies are also provided for each girl and her mother. The athletic scholars meet three times per week to run as a team and train under the direction of their Coach. Their schedule allows them to train without sacrificing the time they need for homework and family obligations. The Girls Gotta Run teams also compete in one local race annually.

Since the launch of its athletic scholars programme in 2014, 98% of girls who completed the programme have delayed marriage and childbirth (before 18 or before completing secondary school). 96% have finished or are on track to finish secondary school, and a significant number have gone on to college and tertiary vocational studies. In addition, GGRF has made an important impact on the community, reaching over 1400 people including parents, siblings, and community leaders.

A few years ago, Project Good for Girls helped GGRF to establish savings and entrepreneurship groups for the mothers of the athletic scholars. These Mothers’ Groups are provided with a 5-day business development workshop, seed capital to establish a savings group, and the weekly oversight of a female savings group manager. At the end of the pilot three-year program, participating mothers were invited to continue to invest in and develop their savings groups. This program strategy equips mothers with the knowledge, tools, and mentorship needed to build financially resilient futures for themselves and their families. Many of these women were once child brides themselves, robbed of their youth and potential — they are committed to a different future for their daughters, and to raising each other up to forge their independence and improve the lives of their families.

As partner, we hope to continue supporting GGRF to expand its support for adolescent girls both joining the programme, and as alumni so they can continue with their studies and give back by becoming life-skills mentors to the younger girls. We also hope to help strengthen the Mothers’ Groups to promote community-led women’s and girl’s empowerment activities.

Life Skills, Launched in 2014, Set to Expand … With the Help of Good (for Girls) Friends {Partner Post}

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This article was written by our Partner, the Girls Gotta Run Foundation (GGRF), for the 10th anniversary of our collaboration.

Part of GGRF programs’ strength is that we solicit the input of our Athletic Scholars and their families on a regular basis, and strive to make sure that our program remains responsive to their needs. And from Day 1 of our Life Skills program, we have been supported by partners who have provided long-term engagement.

This year marks our 10th year of collaboration with PROJECT GOOD FOR GIRLS, a small, all-volunteer nonprofit founded by Leigh Pasqual. Leigh and her colleagues share our passion and commitment to giving every girl around the planet access to education and the opportunity to pursue her own dreams.

In 2014, Leigh began a conversation with GGRF’s leadership about providing crucial learning and safe spaces to adolescent girls, using our running groups as an entry point. From that the Life Skills program (aka Girls’ Club) was born in Soddo to complement our Athletic Scholarships. Life Skills is now integral to our programming in both Soddo and Bekoji. In fact, Kathleen Ralls specifically cited Life Skills in her analysis of GGRF’s empowerment success, observing: “A comprehensive program like GGRF is necessary to truly build well-rounded individuals who have the power to change the entire trajectory of their families and communities.”

We will be able to further strengthen our Life Skills, and add exciting new components, thanks to generous support from a new partner, Project Redwood. We will share more about this partnership, and other long-term supporters, later in the summer. 

We are so grateful to Project Good for Girls, who has been a steadfast partner for a decade and has pledged additional support for the launch of  “Life Skills 2.0” this fall. We hope you, too, will be with us for the long haul!

And … Bekoji Kitchen Upgrade Coming!

Project Good for Girls has also been an important supporter, from the beginning, of the Mothers’ Entrepreneurship & Savings Groups in Bekoji. As part of the program there, the mothers are given small grants to shop for ingredients and prepare lunch for the girls in a makeshift kitchen set up at the government school attended by our Athletic Scholars.

The kitchen is quite basic — a covered space with cooking pots on the ground over fire (as seen above) — and the Mothers’ request for an upgrade is also part of our larger plan for expanded Life Skills. 

Be on the lookout for more news and let us know if you would like to join Project Good for Girls in supporting this venture!