Today we’d like to introduce you to Gloria Mensah. Them and their team share their story with us below:
Gloria’s zeal to help African immigrants and refugee students started to grow tremendously in 2009 while at BYU Hawaii and continued to grow when she was the president of the Utah Valley University(UVU) African Association. Under her tenure as president, the UVU African Association was nominated campus “Club of the Year”. This award to the campus was presented to the surrounding UVU African community. Association significantly influenced the positive growth of its members, With her experience as President of Utah Valley University’s African Association and her belief that quality education, entrepreneurship skills and capital are key to solving Africa’s emerging socio-economic issues, Mensah established GK Folks Foundation.
More information on the history and how it started is in this video:
The GK Folks Foundation is a 501 (C) (3) Nonprofit organization that focuses on providing educational, entrepreneurship, and mental health, resources/opportunities for African immigrants (including youth and emerging scholars), and refugees to become catalysts for change. The foundation also inspires some of our community’s most vulnerable populations to build confidence, find and project their voices, make meaningful strides to their professional and career goals, promote their passion, and showcase their culture and pride. GK Folks Foundation empowers marginalized youth, especially women by providing life-changing workshops which allow them to learn from and shadow successful leaders, and gain leadership skills.
The GK Folks Foundation educational, entrepreneurship, and mental health programming, services, and or resources are provided to the following multicultural communities:
1st -3rd generation African immigrants & refugees – Cultural Scholarship program
Afro-Caribbeans/ Black – Educational Scholarship & Mentorship program
Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) – Mental Health program
Black immigrants – Business Plan & Career Advancement programs
Each of these programs is tailored to support the specific needs of each subgroup named above. These groups constitute a large number of our historically underserved multicultural communities in Utah and across the nation.
The cultural diversity events include Afro Utah festival, Miss Africa Utah, Idaho and Arizona cultural Programs.T hese compete for scholarship programs are one the of African the various scholarship ways African funds organized immigrants by and GKFolks refugee Foundation. students can The apply mission of this cultural scholarship program is to promote Africa’s diverse culture, educate people about Africa’s rich heritage, facilitate real economic growth opportunities, and empower the youth through education.
Other projects the Foundation is working on as a way to give back to the motherland is a clean water project and building libraries in Villages in Africa
We got to where we are today through the hard work of all the volunteers and team members of GK Folks Foundation and the Utah community at large who have accepted our programs.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It hasn’t been smooth at all. We struggled every year. Some of our struggles were financial, as we struggle to get sponsors for our scholarship program. the earlier years of the program were all personal funds from my family put into the event and awarding the scholarships. After 5 years and officially registering the foundation, we gradually started getting some serious support from the community, we were able to get items, services, and goods donated so we can auction or raffle out during our events to raise more funds. With that, we were able to break even and not use personal funds as much as we did previously. Now, we are blessed to get grants from our mental health, entrepreneurship, and Afro Utah programs. This financial support is not where we want to be, but it has helped tremendously to help the foundation grow and implement more of its programs.
Another struggle we faced was the longevity of volunteers. Since no one was paid, there was a limit as to how much time they could dedicate to helping. We had the core team they served as executive members for over 5 years, and some even longer and worked really hard to make GK Folks what it is today.
Other struggles are just the ups and downs that come with dealing with a particular community. The black community takes its time to trust an organization and when we started newly it took a while for us to gain the trust of the community. We can proudly say now that we are a trusted source in the black community for mental health, entrepreneurship and educational resources.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
My professional background is in Education, I worked full time with two reputable Universities. Western Governors University and the University of Utah. I specialized in enrollment, recruitment, and student services for the Masters in Business and Masters in the nursing programs.
I earned my MBA to help me work effectively in these positions, but now, after quitting my full-time job two years ago. I Have seen that my professional experience and MBA have enabled me to run and manage GK Folks Foundation effectively.
We GK Folks, we specialize in fundrasing events, event planning and management, project management, etc.
If we knew you growing up, how would we have described you?
I grew up in Abuja Nigeria and moved to the US when I was 24 years to go to college. It was a fun experience growing up in Nigeria, we had a communal living as compared to the individualist nature of the American society. We had various traditions of cooking and delivering foods to neighbors during Christmas, New Year and Easter. We enjoyed playing outside and had little TV time. I grew up in a Mormon family surrounded by nonmembers, but living the gospel was way easy for us because we always tried to live by example and our non-member’s friends respected our religion, and we there.
I had a big family with all 4 of my cousins living with us, hence of the family of 8 kids with my single windowed member taking care of all 8 kids. She ensured we were all loved equally to the extent that no more knew my cousin was not her kid.
I have two older sisters and one younger brother. As the 3 of 4 kids, it was my responsibility to do the dishes, because of that, I hate doing dishes now. I have had my fair share of dishes. My older sister cooked and we cleaned afterwards. As kids, it was our responsibility to get the house clean, cook and take care of our younger ones. so from an earlier age, we were all empowered to be strong women and serve others. I love to make friends, travel and visit new places.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.gkfolksfoundation.org/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gkfolks/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GKFolksFoundation/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/gkfolks
