G3SM is the rather unique name of a school located in a suburb of Dakar, Senegal. The school was founded and is still led by Mamadou Siliou Diallo, a man of action with a clear goal in mind: to fight poverty through education.
interview and article by Marc Van de Velde
Mamadou’s journey is, to say the least, remarkable. On November 11, 1988, he started with a single classroom, a blackboard, five benches, and five students. Classes were held from 8 a.m. to midnight. During the day, children attended lessons, and in the evening, literacy classes were offered to adults. Today, the school has just over 900 students and offers a full curriculum, from kindergarten to high school, and recently added five technical fields. What’s even more remarkable is that the school receives no government funding. G3SM is a non-subsidized private institution, a sort of private school, although its diplomas are recognized by the state. Is this too expensive for the residents of this poor community? Mamadou responds: "Parents who can afford it pay 300 euros per year. Some pay less, and 25 to 30% of the students, whose parents cannot afford the tuition fees, attend free of charge. To finance the expansion of the school with new classrooms, I turned to various external partners, such as parents and alumni, a small bank, a Spanish NGO, the Belgian International Youth Bureau, and a couple from Sint-Genesius-Rode who send us an annual donation to support disadvantaged students. Sometimes these were loans, sometimes donations. All of these loans have since been repaid. And then I had another idea."
New Technical Department
Mamadou is convinced that there is always room for improvement. So, he started dreaming of a technical department. He realized that many young people, even after finishing high school, lack the necessary skills to enter the workforce. As a result, the school was recently expanded with five new technical fields: catering, tailoring, IT, electrical engineering, and industrial electricity. To accommodate these students and the teaching materials, a new floor was built at the school in record time. To fund this, Mamadou, with the help of business coaches from OVO (he also participated in a Boost Camp), put together a proposal to present the project to potential funders. And it happened quite quickly. In 2022, Mamadou participated in the Boost Camp, in January 2023 the project was approved by OVO, and by May 2023, the funds were transferred. The amount raised was 42,500 euros, collected from the OVO Acceleration Fund and Business Angels from BAN (Business Angels Network) Flanders. As always with OVO, the interest rate is 7%, to be repaid over 3 years. G3SM has already repaid the interest and will soon begin repaying the capital. In the meantime, Mamadou is already thinking about opening a new school at a different location. To be continued, without a doubt.