optical amplifier(Examiner.com) — Washington-based Girls Gotta Run is already supporting Ethiopian girls training to be professional runners.

Now, the Chevy Chase volunteer-run nonprofit is supporting the work of an Occidental College student named Kayla Nolan who is spending the summer in Ethiopia researching the benefits Ethiopian girls and women can reap from running. Like those involved with Girls Gotta Run, Nolan believes involvement in the sport can empower Ethiopian girls and women, offering them paths out of poverty and teenage childbirth to education and independence. Girls Gotta Run helped Nolan write a proposal that netted her a research fellowship from Occidental College, which is fully funding the trip.

As part of her research, Nolan is visiting and getting to know members of the four teams Girls Gotta Run provides support for. Best of all, she’s blogging about her experience here.

Girls Gotta Run has raised more than $24,000 in the past two years to buy shoes, training clothes, food and other training essentials for Ethiopian girls training to become professional runners. Among its fund-raising events is an immensely popular art exhibit in the Washington area for which local artists design and sell artwork related to shoes, running and motion.