Submitted
2020 Elevate Prize

Families Without Borders

Team Leader
Terri Khonsari
About You and Your Work
Your bio:

Terri Khonsari, the Founder and Executive Director of Families Without Borders, was born and raised in Iran and lived in Germany for ten years where she earned her Master’s Degree in industrial and organizational psychology from the University of Hannover. 

Terri is also a graduate of the Executive Program for Nonprofit Leaders at Stanford Graduate School of Business. 

Terri possesses broad corporate management, consulting and coaching experience with extensive expertise in business management in the medical industry, which she gained prior to founding of Families Without Borders in 2011. 

Concurrent with her leadership of Families Without Borders, Terri supports the TechWomen program since its expansion to Sub-Saharan Africa in 2013. Terri is a recipient of the Global Citizen Award from the United Nations Association in recognition for her initiative, innovation and the impact of Families Without Borders on global development. 

Project name:
Families Without Borders
One-line project summary:
We nurture the next generation of ethical leaders with the education and skills required to transform their communities from within.
Present your project.

The world’s poorest communities suffer from significant under-investment in human capital, which compels them to remain underdeveloped and under-empowered, despite their intrinsic potential. 

Families Without Borders identifies and nurtures future leaders committed to improving the lives of those in need in rural West Africa’s poorest communities, reducing poverty and developing both community and capacity. 

We work with high-achieving high school graduates from impoverished areas who could not otherwise afford to continue their education. After completing a foundational year focused on community-building and project management, participants receive a scholarship to one of their country’s top universities, including room, board and healthcare expenses. 

Participants continue to give back and build leadership skills through community-service projects, internships and workshops during their college experience. The program’s focus on integrity and service culminates in graduating students “paying it forward” by contributing to another incoming student’s tuition over four years.

Submit a video.
What specific problem are you solving?

According to the United Nations, Sierra Leone ranks among the ten poorest countries in the world. Sierra Leone has one of the highest illiteracy rates in the world; nearly 57% of the population cannot read or write. Often, families cannot afford to send their children to school with access to education especially limited in most rural areas of the country. 

While the Sierra Leonean government is making moves to eliminate fees and make primary and secondary school education free, subsidies for universities are being reduced, a mere 7% of university-aged students access college education. 

Families Without Borders selects top-performing high school graduates from different tribes and religions from financially disadvantaged backgrounds with an emphasis on female and rural students and provides them access to otherwise inaccessible college educational opportunities. 

To further develop our Emerging Leaders’ capabilities, our students identify service projects and actively participate in their implementation in many rural communities based on the needs of each community across Sierra Leone. Current projects include installing solar systems to address the lack of electricity; constructing simple water wells for access to clean water; training girls to make reusable sanitary pads; and teaching adult literacy and numeracy to rural populations. 

What is your project?

Families Without Borders selects top-performing Sierra Leonean high school graduates from different tribes and religions from financially disadvantaged backgrounds with an emphasis on female and rural students and provides them access to otherwise inaccessible college educational opportunities. 

Families Without Borders takes a holistic approach, providing these future leaders with a full college scholarship, including tuition, housing, food and health care, while encouraging them to lead in their communities by taking ownership of challenges and nurturing strengths. 

During the first year of the program, our Emerging Leaders perform community service and are trained in computer use, financial management, entrepreneurship, leadership and ethics. Students continue to give back and build leadership skills through community-service projects, internships and workshops held during their college experience. 

The program’s focus on integrity and service culminates in graduating students “paying it forward” by contributing to another incoming student’s tuition over the next four years as well as continued involvement within their own communities. Upon graduation, our fellows receive support to advance their careers and, in some cases, start their entrepreneurial ventures.

Who does your project serve, and in what ways is the project impacting their lives?

We serve the rural poor of West Africa through providing increased educational opportunities.  Our students come from communities where less than 3% of adults are college educated. Nearly 57% of the population cannot read or write; 49% of people walk over half a mile outside of their villages for clean water; and only 2% of the rural population have access to electricity. 

We regularly consult with our students and constantly revise our training and support package to ensure that it meets students’ constantly evolving needs. 

We provide not just tuition, but housing, internet access, a meal program and sometimes transportation. 

In terms of greater benefits, our impact extends behind our students to their families, friends, neighbors, and the larger community. Our program emphasizes fostering unity among different tribes on a local level through service and leadership development with a focus on ethics and integrity. 

Students identify service projects based on the needs of each community and conduct those projects across different tribes and build a spirit of unity.

We support developing rural communities through increased community stability and an educated population capable of transformation addressing issues locally.

Which dimension of The Elevate Prize does your project most closely address?
  • Elevating opportunities for all people, especially those who are traditionally left behind
Explain how your project relates to The Elevate Prize and your selected dimension.

There is a direct correlation between lack of education and poverty. We identify some of the brightest youth from the most impoverished rural areas in Sierra Leone and provide them with the education and skills required to transform their communities from within, thus tapping into the great potential of their own human resources. 

Students are encouraged to explore their talents and focus on ethical leadership and service. During and after the program, our students actively engage in community transformation. We elevate opportunities for the students in our program and their families, communities and beyond.


How did you come up with your project?

My inspiration came in 2010, when I visited my daughter in Sierra Leone. My driver, Ibrahim, had lost both of his parents and was supporting his younger brothers and sisters, although his dream had always been to attend college. I decided to pay his tuition at a local university. 

Shortly after he started at the university, I realized that Ibrahim had taken my gift and already began to pay it forward. Ibrahim learned how to repair computers and soon was able to pay for his brothers to go back to middle and high school. He helped his girlfriend go back to school too, all while still attending university himself. 

That's when I had a profound realization. Supporting college education for top performing high school graduates and empowering them to take on community-building work in their own communities could produce tremendous results and be a resource multiplier. 

Helping a single high-achieving and community-oriented young person get the education and support they needed in their early years ultimately had a great impact on multiple lives in a rural town. I started Families Without Borders to identify and help as many Ibrahims as possible, changing the world through this chain of impact.

Why are you passionate about your project?

I believe strongly in the transformational power of individual people. Traditional donors and nonprofits are often too hesitant to invest in people. They seem satisfied with small investments like one or two days of free lunch, but not real sustained investment: education, sustained training, mentoring and encouragement. 

My academic research work focused on tapping human potential because I am very passionate about people. Families Without Borders works in Sierra Leone because the need is so great, and so many communities are dependent on outside help. I believe that these communities can build themselves from within and that our graduates can affect positive change and give back. 

I travel to Sierra Leone three to four times a year to recruit new students, support current students and graduates, hold leadership retreats on various themes around our values, and meet with potential partners. 

In the beginning, I had no personal connection to West Africa nor did I intend to become a leadership development specialist in that region. I know now that my own success was built on a solid foundation through the mentoring and educational opportunities that I was able to access and I want to empower others to do the same.

Why are you well-positioned to deliver this project?

Families Without Borders' current project is celebrating a successful decade of work in Sierra Leone having produced 15 university graduates, all of whom have not only continued to sponsor another incoming student, but who stand ready to actively support our continued expansion. 

Families Without Borders' continued track record of success in locating, educating and empowering young community leaders with great potential leads to the creation of a replicable and scalable system that can be implemented beyond Sierra Leone. 

By refining our model and investing in our future leaders, our work has resulted in a large pool of capacity and organizational experience which allows us to implement service projects at extremely low costs, ensure a high graduation rate, and produce an unheard-of 100% employment rate upon graduation. 

Families Without Borders recently began recruiting our first students from Liberia, and we will open our community projects there once the current pandemic passes. 

Coupled with Families Without Borders’ proven model and string of success stories, my education, organizational and work experience in the corporate world, plus my consulting experience prior to starting Families Without Borders gives me the confidence to grow this work.

As a result of these skills and experiences, I feel well-positioned to continue to increase partnerships and expand the program for future students and with modest resources, expand and extend of the program into new countries that would benefit from the similar identification and development of local talent with our tested and trusted model. 

Provide an example of your ability to overcome adversity.

There are certainly challenges working in less privileged countries. Our original IT Center in Makeni suffered a violent robbery in June 2019 which was a major setback for our organization. Two were injured in the attack and many more were terrorized. Many IT assets were lost and our IT based community service projects were forced to cease operations. 

I arrived in Sierra Leone a week later, and found an organization in disarray. I took over police interactions, and immediately led a security audit, adding additional security features to our facilities and placing strong mandates on locking doors after dark. We held meetings with the local community to explain that our center could not operate if it was unsecured, and I expressed my strong worry about the safety of our female students, whose adjacent housing was fortunately not part of the attack.  

I then reached out to donors and partners to inform them of the difficulty, which was one of the hardest things I have ever done. I felt personally responsible for the losses but I was deeply gratified by the outpouring of support, which allowed us to quickly reequip the center and to restart projects. 

Describe a past experience that demonstrates your leadership ability.

In 2017, many of our male Emerging Leaders requested bicycles to help them save money on transport from our housing to the campus. I was surprised when I was told that the female students did not need bicycles because “girls don’t ride.” While this was accepted by both our male and female students, I found this sexist attitude frustrating. I announced that I would buy every student in the house located the farthest from the campus a bicycle on the condition that the female students learned to ride a bicycle.

That left me to teach the girls to ride a bicycle. Admittedly with no small amount of trepidation about falling or looking foolish, I climbed on a bicycle for the first time in thirty years, and led the female students on a bike ride. We fell a lot and laughed a lot, but by the end of the day, we were all riding. 

While riding a bicycle is a small lesson, it is key insight to my leadership style. I believe that people can improve themselves; that gender and tribe are irrelevant and that you lead from the front by doing.

How long have you been working on your project?
Ten years work, nine years of it as a non-profit
Where are you headquartered?
Moraga, CA, USA
What type of organization is your project?
  • Nonprofit
If you selected Other, please explain here.

N/A

More About Your Work
Your Business Model & Funding
The Prize
Solution Team:
Terri Khonsari
Terri Khonsari
Founder & Executive Director