Wednesday 4 February: Running Across Borders and Girls Gotta Run Form Sponsorship Connection
Dr. Patricia E. Ortman, Executive Director of Girls Gotta Run Foundation (GGRF), announced on Wednesday that effective this spring the foundation would provide a sponsorship grant toward Dikinesh Mekasha Tefera, Seada Nura Bati, and Dunkane Keba Desso. These three women, hailing from the Bekoji and Wellaga towns within the Arsi Zone, represent the female cohort of RAB's first recruited group of developmental athletes. The grant will cover the food and transportation funds required for the young athletes to join the RAB Training Camp through the end of 2009, at which time the possibility of renewing it will be discussed.
Previously, on 9 January, RAB Co-Director Garrett Ash and Head Coach Tizazu Wubeshet met with a group of 9 developmental athletes from the Arsi Zone: 6 men and 3 women. The USA-born Co-Director and Ethiopian-born Coach together explained RAB's mission of expanding economic opportunities available to East African youth through long-distance running. They then went on to explain the specific training, education, and employment aims of RAB, and how the RAB Training Camp would initially be devoted toward achieving these aims for developmental athletes like themselves (as opposed to 'sub-elite' and 'outreach' athletes, also supported by RAB but not within a training camp facility at this time).
The athletes committed to joining the program, but had to accept that temporarily no training camp benefits would be provided due to lack of available funds. Thanks to the sincere efforts Girls Gotta Run Foundation, however, that problem has been rectified for the three female athletes. RAB still seeks sponsorship for the six men.
The Girls Gotta Run Foundation was established in 2006 with the mission of "raising money to provide support for impoverished Ethiopian girls who are training to be runners." Since then they have provided invaluable support to two all-female training groups in Ethiopia, giving the girls funds for "training clothing, shoes, extra food, coach subsidies, and other living expenses." The two groups include Team Tesfa and the Simien Mountain Girl Runners. The new arrangement with Running Across Borders represents their first committment to fund female athletes who train with an organization supporting both females and males.
"We look forward to working with Running Across Borders!" said Dr. Ortman in a communication notifying RAB of the decision. "Its efforts to date are both commendable and impressive."
RAB Co-Director Garrett Ash was equally positive. "Girls Gotta Run has taken on a tremendous initiative by focusing their funds on female athletes in Ethiopia. Girls face such heavy marginalisation in Ethiopian society, that running represents a great opportunity for them to empower themselves, but for the same reason it can be even more difficult for them to access chances to train and compete than it can be for men to do so. Groups like Team Tesfa and the Simien Mountain Girl Runners have been working on the ground to create these opportunities and they have really benefitted from GGRF's essential support."
"For all these reasons it's great for us to also form a partnership with GGRF. We have really high ambitions for our athletes: next month we're sending a sub-elite male athlete to compete in the Rome Marathon, and I see no reason why 4 years from now we couldn't be in a position to do the same with one, two, or all three of these girls we've just recruited. By agreeing to 2009 sponsorship of these girls, and allowing us to place them in our training camp, GGRF has given a huge momentum boost toward their achievement of this goal."
Finally, both organizations expressed that the agreement of GGRF to sponsor three of RAB's girls for one year is not just an end in itself but a beginning toward greater possibilities for the future. Said Dr. Ortman, "we are also happy to work with RAB in any other ways that we can to enhance the likelihood of the organization's success, especially in service of the bigger goal of empowering the girls and women of Ethiopia to enable them to lead more productive lives and contribute to the development of their communities and country."
Ash said, "of course the opportunity to use GGRF's funds toward the attainment of the missions of RAB and GGRF is wonderful, but perhaps equally important is that fact that the two organizations are progressing in a working relationship. We hope that many positive future collaborations will stem from this beginning. We would be open to collaborating with GGRF's other member groups, and we're also trying to find ways that our athletes can become involved with GGRF's efforts at a grassroots level. One of our employment-related goals for our athletes, after all, is that they become involved with social development through sport."
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