orphans for orphans

Gandys-Orphans-for-Orphans

The founders of Gandys Rob & Paul had a unique education travelling the World with their parents as children volunteering to help less privileged children from the age of 13 & 11. Tragically they were orphaned themselves at the ages of 15 and 17 in the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami. Their journey back to the UK involved hitch hiking to the nearest national airport whilst looking after their youngest siblings aged 8 and 11. Part of rebuilding their lives was creating Gandys and coming up with the initiative ‘Orphans for Orphans’ to help less fortunate children.

The brothers along with their siblings were lucky enough to come back to friends and family who could ensure their safety. The brothers now after given the support of friends and family and local people in Sri Lanka helping them get home so they wanted to create something positive from their experience and now give back to others in need.

This is why Orphans for Orphans was created, the brothers were determined to continue their parent’s values & vision and create a legacy that would last generation after generation.

Orphans for Orphans signifies what the brothers represent and after years of going back to India & various other countries as the brothers continued to show their passion for travelling and volunteering they thought what was the lasting impact of this. The brothers had come to the conclusion that it was great to help children less fortunate with english, maths and enjoy helping with art, music & sport but ultimately they were still in the same position as the brothers would go back to their jobs. This was until the brothers thought if they could come up with a sustainable way of providing more than just their time. The brothers created Gandys in the hope of funding and building childrens projects. The brothers initially wanted to build a home for not only orphans but for under privileged children in India in their memory.

After the brothers returned to Sri Lanka last year and funded a childrens home for the next 3 years there after a collaboration with Accessorize they realized something... India had many great memories from their travels & upbringing and they will keep returning there again to work on other projects but at this current moment in time and the significance of the anniversary, they could not forget the country they had their last Christmas with their parents and had a incredible time up until that one tragic day. The people there really helped the brothers and siblings to escape and return home, so the brothers felt that this is the right thing to do at this current time.

Gandys are excited to therefore announce we have found some land and children that need our help so we are going to be starting to work on building our home in Sri Lanka for the anniversary year of the Tsunami.

Hopefully we have a lifetime ahead of us in which we can push to build further childrens homes in many other places. We really see this as just starting out on our journey and opening the eyes to our vision.

This wouldn't possible without all of those who have joined us on our journey! We have a huge amount of gratitude and thanks to everyone who has either purchased Gandys, shared a Facebook post, told a friend, donated to Orphans for Orphans or just helped in some way enabling us to reach our dreams.

Our life has taught us to live like every day was our last but we know it could be another child's last day too so lets not just make our last a good one but theirs too.