COVID-19 is a hard-hitting dilemma for poor families. To help them stay home, limit their exposure to the virus and by extent its propagation, GEPAN provides solidarity hampers. Each hamper contains food items to support a family for up to one month. You can help by donating to our food bank (non-perishable food items with long shelf lives), or by clicking here to make an online donation.
GEPAN is a non-profit, secular organisation working to empower socially and economically challenged households in rural and hinterland communities in Guyana. Founded in January 2016, the organisation cultivates a network of people desirous of contributing to positive changes at the community level, through charity or empowerment initiatives. We place special emphasis on helping women and children by providing relief and supporting education through our annual SEC program. Our core team is comprised of a group of passionate, dynamic and proactive individuals who believe in giving back to communities. A New York chapter was established in 2018 in response to the tremendous support for our work by the Guyanese diaspora in North America. We do not receive salaries, government funding, stipends, per diem or other financial benefits, and we run solely on the generosity of our private donors. Our work extends beyond Georgetown, spanning indigenous communities from as far as the Rupununi Savannahs to Moruca and Mabaruma. Rural communities on the Essequibo Coast, East Coast and West Bank among others, have also benefited from our annual SEC program. Documenting the living conditions of our beneficiaries also forms part of our mandate and is congruent with our efforts to sensitize and raise awareness on the vulnerability and poverty levels existing in Guyana. Click here to access our publications.
Many families cannot afford to stay in confinement because they depend on hourly, daily or weekly wages. Their employment is neither secured nor guaranteed. This is why we provide vulnerable households with grocery hampers helping them to make ends meet and stay at home. If you would like to donate to our solidarity hampers click on image above. Together we can flatten the curve!
We provide assistance to students with reduced opportunities to access tertiary education. This includes summer courses, support lessons and tuition fees.
Every year we collect note books, pens, pencils, sharpeners, erasers, rulers, crayons, markers, water bottles, back-packs/school bags, geometry sets, scientific calculators, dictionaries, computers and any other school necessities. Contact us to drop off items or click on our donate button. It takes just $10 (US) to sponsor stationery for 1 child!
Status: ongoing
We collect clothing for families in need. Clothing can be new or used ( but we avoid distributing pieces with stains, holes, or other notable damages). Contact us for drop-off locations
Status: ongoing
We collect food items, preferable non-perishables or those with long shelf lives for families in need. For drop-off location please contact us. Donations can also be made online by clicking on tab above or visiting our donations page.
Status: ongoing
Our efforts to respond to the steadily growing dietary needs of families bracing the COVID-19 pandemic in Guyana are set to intensify. With the logistical support of the NTC, we continue to provide relief packages Read more…
Recently GEPAN saw a surge in requests for food items coming from families in fragile situations. This can be attributed to the COVID-19 crisis, which is experienced differently across the social spectrum in Guyana. Low-income Read more…
GEPAN continues to support families during the COVID-19 pandemic, by providing them with relief packages. Our solidarity hampers contain basic food and hygiene necessities to help see socially and economically vulnerable families through this challenging Read more…
One of the challenges the local non-profit faces is getting support at the individual level. There are multiple reasons for this, such as a general tendency to look to others to determine if to take Read more…
The impact of the COVID-19 outbreak is devastating for poor households with limited resources and revenues to sustain them during home confinement and lockdown. Those with children are particularly affected. In Guyana, many survive from Read more…
Last week GEPAN conducted an outreach at the Enterprise Secondary School located on the East Coast Demerara, with the help of local youth leader and Facebook Developer, Samantha Sheoprashad. As part of our year-round SEC Read more…