Friends of Gueoul

Our Purpose

Friends of Guéoul is a Colorado non-profit organization with the mission to underwrite and support education of the poorest girls in the village of Guéoul, Sénégal.

Why are We Educating Girls in Sénégal?

The average annual income in Sénégal is about $600. Among the poor, this figure is much less. At the bottom end of society, poverty is so great that families cannot afford even the minimal costs of supplies and school fees that would permit their daughters to stay in school. They may not even be able to afford to feed their families, creating an incentive to marry off daughters at a very tender age, just to have one less mouth to feed. The unfortunate result is that the poorest girls drop out of school and are married when they are as young as eleven years old.

How Do We Do This?

We select the poorest girls in every incoming first grade class in the village of Guéoul. Each girl is given a scholarship of $100 per year. Since the scholarship is provided only so long as the girls remain in school, the family is given both the resources and a powerful incentive to keep their daughter in school. In 2004-05, we named the first 14 girls. In the winter of 2006, we named another 12 girls. Likewise, twelve more girls have been selected every year since.

To support our scholarship recipients and the village they live in, additional projects have been developed such as the computer classroom that doubles as a cyber-cafe and has linked Guéoul to the outside world, an after-school fun club for girls, tutoring programs and a Volunteers in Senegal program to bring our donors over to experience first-hand the charm and delight of Senegal.

Donors and Supporters

Organizations such as Rotary who have provided substantial funding as well as individuals contributing a little or a lot make everything we do possible. We raise money the old fashioned way (by asking), and by conducting fun events such as our Annual Dinner, house concerts and salon events with our friends at Salon Zoe. These are the ones to thank!

A History of our Organization and our Board

Someone wise and mystical once said that when you look over long years of events, all those illogical events and coincidences and serendipities take shape, and you see that it could never have turned out any other way. Friends of Guéoul’s story will leave you smiling!

Want to join our Board of Directors? Come sit in on our meetings and get to know us. Call 303 788 1716 for meeting dates.