Run Across Ethiopia is now LIVE!

Higher Grounds owner Chris Treter sends us this update from Ethiopia:

Starting tomorrow, 10 American and six Ethiopian runners, along with musicians, artists, educators, and activists, will begin a 12-day journey across Ethiopia. For the runners, this journey entails running 10 marathons over 10 days in an adventurous and ambitious mission to promote solidarity between the two countries while raising funds for Ethiopian youth education and programming.

The idea, born a year ago from a frustration over wealth inequalities throughout the world, soon became a project known as the Run Across Ethiopia. And now we’re about to kick off the culmination of an entire of year of planning, dreaming and executing.

If you want to be part of the unfolding of this international celebration of perseverance and equality in the heart of coffee-growing country, you can follow it all via the Run Across Ethiopia LIVE page.

In Ethiopia, long-distance runners are heroes. So the idea was: What better way to create a bridge between America and Ethiopia than with running? From that kernel grew a multi-faceted project involving a 12-day event spanning from Ethiopia’s capital city of Addis Ababa to the coffee-growing region of Afursa Waro, where the Negele Gorbitu fair-trade coffee co-operative—the cooperative where we purchase our Yrgacheffe beans—resides.

One of the most important aspects of this project, beyond raising awareness to the inequalities around the world, is to gather funds and advocate for youth education. Already we have broken ground on some of our goals; to date, the Run Across Ethiopia fundraising has funded the following: a kindergarten lunch program for 40 children in one of the worst neighborhoods of Addis Ababa, a Tesfa Foundation program for street children, and the construction (currently underway) of two schools in coffee-growing communities.

Over the 12-day journey, another arm of the project will take wing: an international art and music collaboration. Michigan musicians Seth Bernard and May Erlewine will perform in the communities the runners pass through, working with Art Aid International and the Tesfa Foundation on music and art projects in Ethiopian schools, and collaborating with Ethiopian musicians to pen their next album. The album, which will be written during the duration of their two-week stay in Ethiopia, will be produced in collaboration with Higher Grounds’ nonprofit organization, On the Ground, with proceeds going to support furthering our educational work in Ethiopia.

Of course, none of us would be here with out the time, money and support given to us from so many generous individuals and communities, as well as all the volunteers and On the Ground staff, who put in countless hours to make this project a reality.

It’s hard to believe that what started as a kernel of an idea is now a big, multi-part project already underway. Organizing and executing this dream is an example of what’s possible when a community (or in this case, many communities) come together for a common cause. We hope you’ll join us by following our daily progress at RAE LIVE.