ABOUT FREE TO RUN
Free to Run was founded in 2014 by ultra runner and human rights lawyer Stephanie Case. It began with simple hiking activities requested by a small group of young women in the Central Highlands of Afghanistan. Since then, Free to Run has impacted thousands of individuals and their communities in many countries, most notably Afghanistan, Palestine, 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.
Our three-pillar strategy drives everything that we do.
EMPOWER: Support the leadership, agency and health of adolescent girls and young women in conflict to change gender norms in their community through running and rights-based programs
EQUIP: Resource local organizations to design, implement and evaluate programs addressing girls’ and women’s rights through sport
MOVE: Lead a global movement of activists who are using running to improve gender equity