Our Mission: Friends of Guéoul enables female Senegalese students to achieve economic & life successes by creating access to education through annual scholarships and learning enrichment programs to pursue their education through high school and beyond.
WHY? The Statistics Speak Volumes
Our longtime board member and Senior Research Associate at the University of Denver’s Pardee Institute for International Futures Janet Dickson led the charge to analyze the outcomes for the 48 girls who started in the program from 2005 through 2008; these are the girls who have been in the program long enough to have potentially completed 13 years of primary and secondary education.
Of these 48 girls, 18 have completed the upper secondary level, which is a 38 percent high school completion rate.
This contrasts with data from the World Bank Education Statistics database, which reports the recent overall Senegalese high school graduation rate for rural low-income females at less than 1 percent.
Our students are graduating at TWICE THE RATE for urban Senegalese females in all income categories (17 percent).
Perhaps even more amazing, of the 18 young women who have graduated from high school, 17 have gone on to pursue post-secondary education at either a university or a trade school. This is a remarkable achievement for these young women.
Friends of Guéoul Addresses Roadblocks to Education
Many families in Senegal live on less than $2 per day. The impacts of poverty create intergenerational challenges in which families may have difficulty affording the minimal costs of living - let alone the cost of school supplies and associated fees. The challenges are even greater for female students. Culturally-entrenched gender discrimination holds an impactful voice where families often prioritize educating sons over daughters.
Each year, Friends of Guéoul welcomes sixteen new boursières who have been identified by a local committee of educational professionals who exhibit financial need to stay in or attend school. Friends of Guéoul sustains their educational needs through annual scholarships of $150 USD. This amount is designated to offset the cost of school supplies, uniforms, teacher fees, and other associated costs.
Friends of Guéoul not only provides scholarships, we also offer educational enrichment opportunities through a FoG program we call Noos Club. This translates into “fun club” in Wolof - the traditional language of Senegal. Noos club offers ESL, computer skills, 1:1 tutoring, and more!
2024 Achievements
Our Future:
We know from our local team of supporters, parents, teachers and village elders, that so much more can be done.
We envision a future where all girls in Gueoul have access to education. In order to make this dream a reality we are actively seeking funding in Senegal and abroad to increase program capacity. Our goals are to enhance graduation rates, offer career counseling, mentoring, experiential learning, ESL, teacher training, and more scholarships.
I invite you to further explore our Annual Report to delve deeper into our organization. Together, we are all Friends of Gueoul!
A SUCCESS STORY: ONE OF OUR BOURSIERS RETURNS AS A TEACHER
A Message from Nogaye Diop, former Boursiere and current IT Teacher
It's a dream come true for me to go to study and return to give back to Friends of Guéoul.
I've been working for Friends of Guéoul for a few months now. When I started working in the community, I noticed that, thanks to the Friends of Guéoul in the schools, the girls are very engaged, their attitude has changed and they are determined to succeed. The team did an excellent job in this project, supporting the girls in their work with several disciplines, visiting everyone to see their living conditions and providing solutions once there is a problem.
I love this job because when I studied computer science at university, I always thought I wanted to come back and help my community and now I'm able to do that by working with Friends of Guéoul. I would like to sincerely thank you for the opportunity you gave me.
THANK YOU for considering a contribution to Friends of Guéoul! We appreciate YOU!
Friends of Guéoul enables female students in Senegal to achieve economic and life successes by creating access to education through annual scholarships and learning enrichment opportunities to pursue education through high school and beyond.
When one looks at a lifetime of events, all the coincidences and serendipities take shape. Time reveals that circumstances could never have turned out any other way.
In 1990, co-founder Judy Beggs embarked on a new journey that took her to Guéoul. She was welcomed into a family and over the next two years, she created a special bond that would last a lifetime.
Initially, Judy was working on a Rural Health Education project and picked up Wolof and French. But it was heard she learned that many girls were not attending school. Once she returned to the U.S., Judy began supporting a few children of the family she stayed with to attend school.
After hearing of Judy’s efforts, John Montaña (Co-Founder) said, “Let’s keep a bunch of them in school!” and that is where Friends of Guéoul was born.
Together John and Judy saw the importance and the opportunity to promote education for girls who needed it most. Over the following years, Friends of Guéoul flourished and girls began to gain access to education.
Judy Beggs died in 2020, just one year after hiring Friends of Guéoul's first paid Executive Director, Elke McGuire. With true dedication, John, Elke, and the heart-warmingly dedicated Board of Directors has persevered to take Friends of Gueoul from Judy's kitchen table to an updated international non-profit. Today, we are still growing and are thrilled to be a part of this work.
Organization name
Friends of Guéoul
other names
FoG
2005
Tax id (EIN)
83-0430609
Category
Education, International, Foreign Affairs & National Security, Youth Development
Organization Size
Small Organization
Address
P.O. Box 6801Denver County, CO, US
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