• procure a scooter to assist staff with urgent and immediate rescue of a teenage girl 

• purchase food 

• purchase critical medicines 

• purchase textbooks 

• purchase footwear 

• contribute to the tuition, room and board for more than 100 girls who have escaped forced polygamous marriages

Goals

• Continue to contribute to the room, board, and tuition as well as the funding of other basic needs; such as medicine and clothing for the girls who have fled forced polygamous marriages and are currently attending Collège Ste-Bernadette as well as three (3) other rural centres.

• Contribute to the girls' secondary school education allowing them to reach the minimum requirement a for high school diploma in Burkina Faso.

• Mobilize local organizations with a view to acquiring additional funding and support. 

• Coordinate efforts with national and international agencies to assist with contributions for larger projects (such as improving library facilities, school materials and reducing class sizes). 

• Seek and attract the support of corporations with the hope of acquiring additional funds and support. 

Founder

In 1995, on a flight from Paris where Denise Baillargeon had been visiting her son who was studying in Europe, she met an African nun from Burkina Faso. It was a transformational meeting. Sister Delphine Nubi was travelling to Toronto to attend a conference on womens’ issues at York University to speak of the plight of young women and girls in West Africa and particularly on forced marriage and polygamy. From that meeting came a lifelong vocation for Denise. 

She became committed to the cause of abused women and girls in Burkina Faso, a small and impoverished West African country. Denise travelled to Africa five times between 2001 and 2011 and created, almost single-handedly, a registered charity: Rescuing Our African Daughters (ROAD)in 2005. Today, ROAD helps fund a school and a women’s centre in Burkina Faso that care for a significant number of young girls who have escaped forced marriage, genital mutilation and other abuses. 

Denise was a person of deep religious faith and moral example and was very active in her church. Before she became ill in 2012, she had attended daily mass for almost 25 years. She believed that living was for giving and remained dedicated to ROAD until her last breath. ROAD will continue to help teen age girls in Burkina Faso and will carry forward the torch so brightly lit by Denise in 1995. 

Following a heroic struggle with cancer, Denise Baillargeon passed away on October 8, 2013. 

Denise is survived by a loving family, her husband of 40 years and their children Paul, Christiane, Natalie and Isabelle. She is also survived by 6 grandchildren, 9 siblings and more than 50 nieces and nephews. She is dearly missed. To watch the CBC interview with Denise, please click here.  

Co-Founder

Patricia Girouard along with our late President, Denise Baillargeon, was instrumental, as a founding member, in getting ROAD underway. She passed away on January 7, 2016, after a ten year battle with cancer. She was courageous, hopeful throughout this period. As a board member of ROAD, she was passionate about helping young women and girls in Burkina Faso and made a generous donation to ensure that its work would continue after her death. 

Governance

ROAD has a strong board of directors who oversee the charity. The Board is made up of volunteers who do not collect salary.

• President and Treasurer: Solange McNeely
  Retired social worker previously employed by a family service agency and a school board.
• Vice-President: John West
  Our late founder's husband, lawyer in Toronto, with the charity since its inception.
• Secretary: Marie Comiskey
  Lawyer with the Government of Canada.
• Board member: Danna Donald
  Lawyer in a leading Toronto law firm.
• Board member: MaryAnne Girouard
  Retired Registered Nurse. Very aware of the charity for years because of her interaction with her late sister-in-law Patricia Girouard.

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