About The Founder
Amalia Gohn
My name is Amalia (Alma) Gohn. I am the founder of the Follow The Dream Foundation. Here is a little anecdote about my life.
Growing up in the Philippines, my family is the most important human beings who have influenced me to be the person I have become today. My mother’s hard work, love, compassion and self-accountability is still tattooed in my soul to this day. As a child, I dreamed of a better world, a world of freedom of education but was unable to achieve it due to the limited financial availability of our household. I lived with my parents in a tiny, but cozy house. I have six siblings, and I am the second of them all. As a little kid I always dreamed of what my life would be, and how it would turn out. I had a vision of one day empowering young men (our next step) and women to break the boundaries of settling for less, instead reach for the sky. Although it was not easy, dreaming helped me pass through the turbulences of my life growing up. My father was barely surviving to make ends meet giving that he was earning less than $2 a day to provide for 8 individuals including himself. Education was the last thing on his mind. I remember looking at my siblings with despair due to my inability to help myself or them. Giving that my parents have never stepped foot in school themselves, it became a normalcy. To their knowledge, rather their upbringings, a woman is to be raised in a proper household and then readied for a family life. A woman’s education has never been a concern to my father unfortunately for him, I was too ambitious for him to handle. Every morning, I will sit by my window watching students pass as they’re rushing to get to school. I deter jealousy from entering my heart by dream hence “Follow The Dream”. Through dreams, I was able to escape reality which helped step into a new world. A world in which Amalia (Alma) was to help young girls like her attain to their full potential through education.
