Born in Moldova, Natalia Zbirnea loved to play sports as a child. When she was 13, an athletics coach in the community invited Natalia and her friends to join a running program, saying, “If you come and try athletics, then you can go swimming in our pool for free.”

“So we ran,” Natalia remembers, laughing. “Running has mobilized me to be a better person every day,” Natalia says. “It has grown wonderful emotions and feelings in me. I am more powerful. My problems melt away when I run.”

Natalia balances her running career with a full-time job as a consultant for The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), an international organization that works to build better policies for better lives. Having grown up in a lower-income family herself, she strives to alleviate the challenges facing marginalized Moldovan women as a result of poverty.

Natalia is also motivated to tell her own story of overcoming adversity in order to inspire and empower girls and women in Moldova. “I want to be fearless in front of other people when I tell my story,” Natalia says. “I want women to connect and be able to share experiences together—to become a family.”