Genesis
Every child inherits two things: the opportunities they are given, and the sacrifices they never see.
FORSA began long before it had a name.
In fact...
It began long before I was born.
It began with a boy in a small corner of Tunisia, who walked kilometers to school because education mattered more than comfort.
Some mornings, he walked barefoot.
His family owned a single pair of shoes, so he and his sister shared them—one wearing them to class while the other waited, then trading depending on whose lessons came next.
During holidays, while other children played, he worked in the olive fields. Some nights he slept there beneath the open sky, rising at sunrise to work again before the long walk back to his books.
He gave up comfort, rest, and much of his childhood for the one thing he refused to surrender: his education.
And despite everything, he stayed at the top of his class.
Hardship was never allowed to decide who he would become.
It also began with a young woman who believed in education with her whole heart.
She became a teacher, and she carried responsibility quietly—for her students, for her home, for the people who leaned on her without ever knowing how much she gave.
When difficult times came, she made a decision she never spoke about.
She sold the last piece of jewelry she owned to protect her family's future.
She never asked for recognition.
She never told anyone what it had cost her.
She simply did what she believed was right, and let the people she loved keep dreaming.
For most of my life, I knew only the gifts of people like this—never the full weight of what they carried.
I grew up in a home where I don't remember hearing,
"We can't afford it."
I only remember hearing,
"We'll find a way."
Those four words shaped my childhood.
Years later, I realized they had also shaped FORSA.
When I left home to study architecture, I finally understood what those words truly cost. Tuition was only the beginning. There was rent, transportation, software, equipment, and countless silent sacrifices carried by families who believed education was worth any price.
To ease the burden, I quietly worked side jobs without telling anyone at home.
Sometimes they found out anyway.
And somehow...
Like always...
They found a way.
At university, I met brilliant students whose dreams slowly disappeared—not because they lacked talent, but because financial hardship arrived before opportunity did.
That thought never left me.
Years later, life allowed me to build businesses, experience success, experience failure, rebuild, and begin again.
One afternoon, while driving my father on a simple errand, I received a phone call telling me I had reached a financial milestone I had chased for years.
I expected happiness.
Instead, I had a panic attack.
Not because I had failed.
Because I thought my journey was over.
If I had finally reached the mountain I had spent years climbing...
What mountain was left?
The answer came on a sleepless night.
I wasn't thinking about money.
I wasn't thinking about business.
I was thinking about the two people who raised me.
About every family still whispering,
"We'll find a way."
That was the night FORSA was born.
Not as a company.
Not as a financial model.
As a promise.
A promise that financial hardship should never be the reason a dream comes to an end.
When I first shared that promise, someone told me,
"Go build it somewhere else."
Maybe it would have been easier.
But this is home.
I love Tunisia with all its beauty and all its imperfections.
It frustrates me.
It challenges me.
Sometimes it breaks my heart.
But every time I leave...
I can't breathe.
So I stayed.
Because some things are worth building exactly where they are needed most.
Every time another brilliant young Tunisian leaves, our country loses something no statistic can measure.
Because Tunisia's most valuable resource is not beneath its soil.
It is within the minds of its people.
Every student who fulfills their potential strengthens a family.
Every family that grows stronger strengthens a community.
Every community that grows stronger strengthens a nation.
That is the future I believe education can build.
For a long time, the boy from the olive fields and the young woman who sold her jewelry were two separate stories.
Two children, learning the same quiet lesson in two corners of the same country: that education was worth almost any sacrifice.
One day, their lives crossed.
They built a family.
And I was fortunate enough to call them my parents.
The boy who shared one pair of shoes became my father.
The young woman who gave up her jewelry became my mother.
Everything I have ever built rests on sacrifices like theirs—most of which I never saw until much later.
Years later, my father suffered a stroke.
For the first time in my life, our roles quietly changed.
I was able to make sure he received the care he deserved.
After everything was over, he looked at me and quietly said,
"If this had happened years ago... we could have never afforded it."
I don't think he realized what those words meant to me.
In that moment, I understood something I had never fully understood before.
Success is not measured by what we accumulate.
It is measured by what we are finally able to give back.
That day, I wasn't proud because of what I could finally provide.
I was proud because, for the first time, I was able to protect the two people who had spent their entire lives protecting me.
People often ask me who FORSA was built for.
The answer is simple.
Parents.
Because behind every student is someone sacrificing in silence.
A father walking a little farther.
A mother giving up pieces of her own dreams.
A family carrying burdens they hope their children never notice.
FORSA exists to make sure those sacrifices never end where a dream begins.
It is my way of honoring a debt I can never fully repay—by turning sacrifice into opportunity for other families.
I hope one day no parent lies awake wondering whether they can afford their child's education.
I hope students are judged by their potential—not by their family's financial situation.
I hope fewer of Tunisia's brightest minds feel forced to leave the country they love.
Most of all...
Only later do we understand the weight our parents carried in silence.
A daughter hands her mother the keys to a home.
A graduate quietly honors a sacrifice their parents once made for them.
And in that moment, without ever knowing where the story began, the promise of FORSA will have come full circle.
Because the greatest return on education is not a diploma.
It is the moment a child can finally look at the people who gave them everything and quietly say,
"It's my turn now."
The origin is the parents.
The fruit is giving back.
That is the promise of FORSA.
This is our Genesis.
And as long as I have the privilege of building it, I will spend my life doing everything I can to keep that promise.
— Wael Borghol
Founder, FORSA