The Fregenet Foundation is a non-profit corporation dedicated to providing early childhood education to children from low-income families in Ethiopia.

The Fregenet Foundation is a 501 (c) (3) corporation founded to honor the life and the lifetime dreams of Fregenet Tafesse Woubshet, a 29-year-old American citizen of Ethiopian origin, who died in an auto accident in the summer of 2003. She had just completed her education in accounting, and was about to embark on the work she saw for herself ahead: the support of her family in Ethiopia and, in the longer term, the assistance of the children of Ethiopia. She envisioned a day when she would open a school for needy children there.

In the weeks following Fregenet’s untimely death, we, her family and friends, vowed that she should not be forgotten. She was good beyond measure, selfless and idealistic. The surest way to keep her alive in our hearts was to follow through with the mission she had chosen for herself: to help needy children in her native country, and to do that by helping the children, in a mission:

• To provide early educational opportunities for needy children and to create conditions that will help them succeed in life.
• To promote early education as a means to overcome poverty, eliminate AIDS, gender inequality and political oppression.
• To set up schools to be used not only as centers of education, but as community resource and health centers for the benefit of children, their families and the community at large.
• To establish bonds between our students in Ethiopia and children all over the world, by sponsoring music, travel, language and cultural education programs.