Haile Gebrselassie and the Everyone Run Campaign Race

On May 11, 2014, there was a half marathon race and a 7 K race held in Hawassa called the Every One Campaign race that has been Save the Children's largest global campaign. The Every One campaign race began in 2009 and its purpose is to raise awareness about maternal and child death and reduce the numbers of deaths each year. The fact is that 8.1 million children die before their fifth birthday and most of the causes are preventable. In Ethiopia, up until the late 90's or early 2000's, 1 in 24 women would die in childbirth. That number has now been reduced to approximately 1 in 60, but that number is still huge. Tesfahun, Habtamu and I went down to support the event and try to get an interview with Haile Gebrselassie who was one of the celebrities in attendance. It proved to be a great day and a lot of fun. The radio episode based on this day is just below this blog post and is one of the better episodes we have done.

Photo: Runners getting ready for the 7K

Photo: Dance show at the finish line

Photo: Part of the dance show

Photo: 7 K competitor group warm-up

Photo: My friends Amy and Ben having received there medals

At the end of the races, the awards were handed out and the celebrities were introduced to the crowd.

Photo: Under 11 7K boys winners

Photo: Elite Women's winners

Photo: Many of Ethiopia's top celebrities including Haile Gebrselassie and Amleset Muchie (a model and the wife of the most famous Ethiopian musician Teddy Afro)

Photo: Tesfahun and Amleset Muchie

Photo: Tesfahun, Abiy, and Habtamu with a couple of Ethiopia's top film actors.

From there, we went to the Haile Resort to get our interview with Haile Gebrselassie. He is a fantastic human being and shared many important insights with us about running and the importance of English language. Have a listen to the radio program below this blog post to hear what he had to say. 

(Photos: Tesfahun and I with the great one - Haile Gebrselassie and Tesfahun conducting the interview)