Girls Gotta Run Foundation

Girls Gotta Run Foundation, Inc.

The Girls Gotta Run Foundation, Inc., raises money to buy athletic shoes for Ethiopian girls to support their participation in sports and help them continue their formal education.

In her December 2005 Washington Post article ("Facing Servitude, Ethiopian Girls Run for a Better Life"), Emily Wax pointed out that Ethiopian girls' enrollment in school is among the lowest in the world, and women and girls are more likely to die in childbirth, due to early marrige, than reach sixth grade. Ethiopia also has the highest rate of vaginal fistulas, a tearing of the vagina during childbirth that requires painful reconstructive surgery, often unavailable, in the world; and one of the largest caseloads of AIDS, forcing many girls to quit school to care for sick or widowed relatives.

Today, however, seven of the 10 top-earning athletes in Ethiopia are women. Therefore, many girls and their parents have begun to see careers as professional runners as viable options in a country where girls as young as 12 can be sold as brides by parents desperate for dowry payments. Many who train in order to stay in school and keep their options open, can, with the help of caring others, overcome many of the obstacles in their way. Getting athletic shoes, however, is tremendously difficult. Inspired by their spirit and determination, and moved by their plight, a group of artists and committed others came together in early 2006 to form an organization to raise money to buy shoes for the girls; the Girls Gotta Run Foundation was born.

We are in the process of putting together an international team of people and organizations committed to helping us set up a reliable identification, distribution and verification system to get shoes to the girls in training in Addis Ababa. We are also committed to raising funds in the long term for shoes for girls in a program to educate rural girls that is administered by PACT Ethiopia.

All labor to administer GGRF, including that of the Director, is volunteered and most services are donated, so almost 100% of our funds will go to buy shoes. PACT uses a very small percentage for administrative costs. Contributing artists must donate at least 50% of the sale of their artworks. Many donate 100%. Thank you to Artspan, for this donated website space.

Girls Gotta Run is grateful for the support of our corporate sponsors: Etete Restaurant, Perfect Organics, Photocommunications, The Sewall-Belmont House and Museum, and Universal Settlements. We are also grateful for the support of Girls on the Run of Northern Virginia.

Girls Gotta Run Foundation's 2006 Annual Report is now available, as is the 2007 Girls Gotta Run flyer. To read an article about Girls Gotta Run that appeared in the international emagazine Art'ishake, published by Arts for Global Development, Inc., email artishake@art4development.net and ask for Art'ishake, Issue No. 5. To read an article about Girls Gotta Run in the emagazine Tadias, visit "Shoes, Shoes, Shoes...Girls Gotta Run." For further information about Girls Gotta Run Foundation, contact pat@girlsgottarun.org.