Our Story

OUR STORY

Families Without Borders is an organization built on the idea that change is the result of empowerment. 

In early 2010, Founder Terri Khonsari traveled to Sierra Leone to visit her daughter, who was there on a Fulbright Fellowship. Her first trip to Sub-Saharan Africa, Terri didn't know what to expect. She arrived as a tourist and left as a changed person. Deeply touched by the poverty she witnessed, Terri knew she needed to find a way to use her business development and humanitarian background to do something... 

She looked at the young people with a tremendous amount of potential and no resources. Just like many non‐profits, our work started by supporting young children’s education and health. An official organization in 2011, Families Without Borders built schools in villages, dug water wells, provided generators and initiated school gardens. We believed we could transform many lives in those villages.

Year-after-year, Terri realized the work would never be done until she came up with a new and more effective way to eliminate—and not just reduce—poverty.

She was brought back to what seemed like a side-note at the time. During her first trip, Terri hired a driver, Ibrahim, to transport her around the country in a rental car and show her remote villages. Ibrahim was a polite young man in his mid 20’s, who had lost his parents and was now caring for his younger brothers and himself. He wanted to go to college. However, without access to financial resources, it was destined to stay a dream.

Through talking with her daughter, Terri committed to supporting Ibrahim, paying tuition for him to start a local university. At the same time, she started sponsoring a few students in primary school, middle school and high school.

Terri realized that Ibrahim was producing tangible results in supporting his family. He had learned how to repair computers and was able to pay for his brothers to go back to middle and high school. He helped his girlfriend go back to school, all while still attending the university that Terri was sponsoring.    

That's when Terri had a profound realization. Supporting the college education of top performing high school graduates—and empowering them to take responsibility to do the work in their own communities—could produce much greater results. Then she began reflecting on the incredible and valuable return on investment in the world of philanthropy.

The original focus of supporting young children in remote villages was rewarding; yet, it would be many years before we would have a meaningful impact on the lives of those children’s families, communities and their country. Thus, the program evolved to begin supporting the empowerment of brilliant young men and women to unleash their potential. 

Today, Families Without Borders sponsors top‐performing high school graduates from different tribes and religions, all of them from financially disadvantaged backgrounds. They all share the dream of attending a university but have no resources to continue their education. Families Without Borders is committed to a holistic approach of providing these future leaders with a full college scholarship, including tuition, housing, food and health care, while encouraging them to lead in their community by taking ownership of challenges and fostering strengths. 

Terri and the team have learned that when these young emerging leaders have their fundamental human rights met, they are able to focus on and fulfill their potential. In addition to full college scholarships, the organization provides leadership and personal development programs with the focus on integrity and service.
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