ABOUT FREE TO RUN
Founded in 2014 by ultra runner and human rights lawyer, Stephanie Case, Free to Run began with simple hiking activities that were requested by a small group of young women in the Central Highlands region of Afghanistan. Since then, Free to Run has impacted thousands of individuals and their communities in five countries, most notably Afghanistan where the organization was founded, and Iraq where our largest-scale programs operate today.
OUR WORK IS…
Rights-Based: Rooted in girls’ and women’s rights as an ethical and practical imperative.
Girl/Young Woman-Led: Our sessions are led by Community Development Leaders - young alumni of the program who want to further develop their leadership skills.
Community-Owned: Programs are exclusively designed, implemented, and evaluated by people from the community.
Diversely Integrated: We bring together participants from diverse ethno-religious and cultural backgrounds as a grassroots strategy to improve peacebuilding and stability in places of conflict.
Safety-Conscious: Sport participation and rights activism is a counter-cultural act in most of the communities where we operate. We are experts in understanding how to ensure mental, emotional, physical, and political safety of our participants and staff.
On the Edge: Our work exists at the places where it’s most challenging to be assigned female at birth, in places where few others dare to work. We exist where our work is most acutely relevant and has the greatest impact. We focus on segments of the population that experience deep, intersectional discrimination based on gender, age, race, ethnicity, religion, socioeconomic status, and/or migration/displacement.