Girls Gotta Run Foundation
Utilizing Running as a Tool for Life Skills and Vocational Training
Fast Facts
Ethiopia
Gelila Bekele
2024, 2025
Education
How Girls Gotta Run Foundation (GGRF) Is Making a Difference
GGRF uses the Ethiopian national sport of running in an innovative approach to creating safe spaces, ending child marriage, and expanding access to secondary school for girls.
GGRF selects girls from low-income families in Ethiopia who have academic determination and athletic potential as Athletic Scholars. They participate in an academic and athletic programs that uses running as a tool to empower girls to become change makers and contributing members of their communities. These programs focus on four key investment strategies for girls and their mothers: education, running, life skills, and savings and entrepreneurship.
What GGRF Does
- Utilizes running as a foundation for girls to develop personal agency and empowerment.
- Provides education and sports training, as well as leadership development and a social support network.
- Supports girls when they’re most likely to drop out of school by providing scholarships to reduce the barriers they face.
- Invests in the girls’ mothers through funding, savings programs, and financial literacy training to strengthen their families’ economic stability.
Initiatives Supported by Project Redwood
2024: $40,000 to provide Life Skills classes with hands-on immersive learning for older teen girls still in secondary school, to give them immediate financial support and skills to improve their family’s economic well-being via goal setting, personal finance management, and vocational training.
2025: $30,000 to expand GGRF’s vocational training and entrepreneurship opportunities for older teen girls and mothers in agriculture, garment-making, and financial literacy. The program will launch co-op businesses and enhance Life Skills curricula, aiming to improve income, ensure educational continuity, and promote long-term self-sufficiency.