10 Years of GAiN
(2017-2018)
In 2025 we are celebrating ten years of GAiN UK!
We want to take you on the journey of GAiN over the last decade, sharing stories and highlights from each year. These stories will be spread out over the next 5 months, as we focus on two years with each post, so check back in to read about our growth and adventures!
2017
In our 3rd year, we continued to support people in Iraq, Syria, Greece and Romania by sending finances, physical aid items, and volunteers on projects.
One highlight from 2017 was that GAiN UK became mentors to GAiN’s field office in South Africa. In South Africa, GAiN’s work focuses on improving education in impoverished areas where education levels are in decline. More than half of the 80,000 pre-schools in South Africa have little to no infrastructure, lesson plans, curriculum, or educational material. GAiN has been working closely with a nursery close to Pretoria which is addressing the need for affordable early childhood education.
Children of disadvantaged, mostly black families, are given the opportunity to step out of the vicious circle of poverty. All children, regardless of race, religion or ethnicity, are welcome. Unlike many other nurseries, this pre-school also accepts children who are orphans or whose parents cannot afford the costs.
The school also takes the children’s home life into account and helps to deal with the issues that affect them physically, mentally and emotionally, such as poverty, abuse and hunger. They are supported through home counselling, recovery programmes, healthy nutrition and homework assistance.
2018
In 2018, we took a massive step forward in establishing a logistics hub in the UK and increasing our capacity to send aid overseas by acquiring our first storage container. Located near the Birmingham Airport, this container enabled GAiN to collect, sort and send Gifts in Kind – items like clothing, hygiene products, and even tents! Volunteers faithfully joined us, exposed to the elements, to pack these items and load them onto trucks to go directly to our partners overseas.
In 2018 we sent two trucks to Lesbos, where we were partnering with EuroRelief working in the refugee camps on the Greek Islands, the main arrival point for refugees coming into Europe at the time.
