Blaine Kebede wasn’t a runner before she joined the Girls Gotta Run Foundation as its executive director in 2024. It was when she visited the Bekoji, Ethiopia, where the U.S.-based non-profit — which focuses on girls’ and women’s education and empowerment in Ethiopia — operates, that she says, “I was so inspired by watching the students that I started to pick up running myself.”
The program operates in the city of Soddo and the town of Bekoji in Ethiopia, and accepts 200 girls into a three-year athletics scholarship. After three years, it also provides them with access to an alumni program through high school graduation. Alongside run coaching for the girls, the foundation covers school tuition and provides the girls and their mothers with crucial life skills and economic opportunities. The overarching goal is to equip Ethiopian women with the skills to support themselves. Kebede, the American-born daughter of two Ethiopian immigrants, is the first executive director of the foundation of Ethiopian heritage and is committed to expanding the program’s reach and helping more women in Ethiopia lead independent lives.
Kebede explains that girls in Ethiopia enter child marriage because their options for financial support are limited, and marriage is seen as a way to solve this. Kebede asserts, “We want girls to be able to make choices for themselves.” Through the Girls Gotta Run program, some girls go on to have a fruitful career in running, while others pursue higher education, seek vocational training, find work, and mentor the next generation of girls. The program is currently only available to the neediest families, prioritizing the children of single mothers and families with many children.
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