Gideon Gathimba and Myles Edwards first met in Aberdeen, Scotland whilst racing in a 1 mile running event, organised by Myles’ father Mel, to celebrate the opening of Aberdeen Sports Village. 

Kenyan international athlete and 4 x 1500m relay world record holder, Gideon and Scottish 1,500m champion and 2.28 marathoner, Myles became great friends, with Myles spending long spells living and training in Kenya between the town of Iten and Gideon’s family home in Karatina.  

Gideon often spoke about his desire to help disadvantaged children, and in May 2013, the pair saw a real opportunity to turn this dream into a reality. 

An inspirational visit to the Pavilion Village children’s home in Karatina provided the catalyst for them to establish the Gathimba Edwards Foundation. Pavilion Village was home to 22 children at the time – most of whom had either been abandoned or abused by their biological parents or in some cases lost them due to HIV.  

The home was run with love but was in dire straits – lacking electricity, with broken windows, old and torn mattresses, and a shortage of food. Additionally, outstanding school fee debts meant that many of the children were unable to attend school.

Despite the challenging conditions, the children welcomed Gideon and Myles with huge smiles and showed them around with pride. 

Gideon had been donating food from his farm and following Myles’ first visit to the home, the pair left feeling inspired, determined and with an obligation to do more to help the wonderful children.  

Myles set up and shared a fundraising link with the goal of raising £484 to purchase a new mattress for each of the children that Christmas.

Incredibly, after just a couple of days, people had donated £1,266.  The mattresses were delivered and the extra funds meant that some of the children were able to rejoin school with new uniforms and other requirements.  

Additional generous support, from the charity’s now Principal Sponsor prosource.IT, enabled electricity, safe flooring and a toilet to be installed at the home and more of the children to rejoin school without the fear of being sent home due to a lack of fees. 

Gathimba Edwards Foundation was officially established in May 2014 and is a registered charity in both Kenya and Scotland. 

School fee debts of the Pavilion Village children were cleared, repairs and renovations to the home were made and new pillows, beddings, stationery, clothing and cooking utensils provided. Later that year, the dangerous road leading up to the home was re-laid. 

May 2014 also saw the construction of our first fully furnished house for a family in Iten.  Whilst providing as many children as possible with the opportunity to attend school, college and university was a priority, it quickly became clear that the desperate conditions families were living in were not conducive to children being able to make the most of their education.  The majority lived with no electricity, tables, chairs or beds, and slept on a mud floor, in some cases, being soaked with rain water during the night.  

Often older siblings were responsible for providing food and caring for younger siblings because no parent or guardian was present.  This made it extremely difficult to afford food and so we began providing families with farming support or, where necessary, delivering monthly food packages. 

In addition to education, shelter and food/farming support, we recognised a growing need to address the psychological needs of children and their families.  This led to the introduction of GEF seminars which cover a wide range of topics such as personal development, gender based violence, parenting skills, stress and anger management, conflict resolution, entrepreneurship, drug misuse, life skills, reproductive health, career and academic guidance and mental health awareness. 

Sadly, in September 2014 we lost one of our most loyal friends and supporters in Neil Jaffrey, who tragically died in a road accident whilst out cycling in Aberdeen. Neil, more commonly known as ‘Eddie’, really was one of a kind, took an interest in everyone he met and helped them wherever possible. 

Constantly inspired and driven on by Neil’s memory, we wanted to honor him in as many ways as possible, starting with naming the new road leading up to Pavilion Village ‘Neil Jaffrey Road’.

Although we originally established the charity to support children in Kenya, we increasingly became aware of the challenging circumstances faced by families with disabled children in north-east Scotland.  This led to the set up of our ‘Neil Jaffrey Initiative’ to fund specialist equipment and service support for families caring for a disabled child.

You can read about the amazing Matthew James Dyer (MJ), who was the first child to be supported by the programme, and some of the other wonderful children supported here.

In October 2015, a team of 52 GEF volunteers from around the world travelled to Kenya to take part in our first house building trip.

In less than 2 weeks, alongside local volunteers and workers, they built a 16 bed dormitory with a study area, living room and shower facility at the Pavilion Village children’s home, as well as a 3 bedroom house for a young girl Judy and her family in Iruri.

Judy’s house was also named in memory of Neil Jaffrey.

March saw us celebrate the first GEF student university graduation; an incredibly proud moment for Caroline who qualified as a teacher. 

344,130 people in Kenya tested positive and sadly 5,689 people died as a result of Coronavirus.  Schools in Kenya were closed for the majority of 2020, and with many of the children we support relying on school meals, families struggled to put food on the table.  Thanks to the support of donors, GEF Globe Run participants and monthly child sponsors we were able to safely provide 80 families with 8 months of food and essential item support up to the end of October.

The pandemic presented GEF children and families with an increasing number of existing and new challenges.  

In response, we set up a psychosocial support programme, employing full time counsellors to help beneficiaries maintain a good physical and mental health and to provide them with important coping mechanisms to deal with difficult situations.

We completed the construction of a fully furnished home for Mama Felician and her family in Iten, bringing the total number of houses built by GEF to 50.

In January, we were proud to fund the education of several new children, bringing the total number of children supported to 500. 

A group of 39 local and international volunteers built three new fully furnished, solar powered homes for three families in five and a half days; a record fast time for a group of GEF volunteers.

Having previously experienced domestic abuse and homelessness, these three single mums and 14 children now have a safe place of shelter to call home. 

This year saw the children we have supported in north-east Scotland double in number. 

2024 also saw GEF reach its 10th birthday, topped off with another amazing fundraising dinner which raised a record breaking £53,871

Following 10 years of listening and learning, and being embedded in the communities we serve, we decided to reframe our identity to build one GEF community. 

Our commitment to maximising our impact across the whole GEF community lies at the heart of our renewed vision, mission, objectives and values.  

A renewed focus and a new look for the next 10 years and beyond.