For the price of a Costa a week you can make a lasting difference!

On the day I met Keith*, who is from Iran, he could not speak a word of English, not even a ‘Hello’. I can’t imagine what it’s like to be in that position; I’ve struggled on holiday to interact with the locals but there has always been the sanctity of the hotel to fall back on – with Keith he was truly a stranger in a foreign land.

Keith came to his first Gateway English lesson here at the Baca office on the first working day after his placement. Here his teacher Claire was able to spend an hour with him, at first just showing that she cared and that she wanted to help him. By the end of that lesson however, Keith was so proud to be able to tell me his name within a carefully constructed sentence – I recall the smile of satisfaction as he left the office…what a sense of achievement!

Over the course of the next few weeks Keith’s lessons took place in the shops and on the bus as well as here in the office – all the time Keith’s vocabulary and confidence were growing.

Today some three months later Keith is more than capable of integrating in Loughborough life. All this is testimony to the value of Keith’s time in Gateway. Baca receive no official financial support for Gateway; it is provided out of our desire to care for the boys and provide an essential facility to enable them to become part of the local community. So how can you help?

We need your support and so would ask you to consider donating £10 each month towards the work of Gateway. Over the course of the year, your donation together with attaching Gift Aid, will enable people like Keith to have ten English lessons – isn’t that a brilliant thought to think that you can make such a practical difference in his life!

*a pseudonym has been used to protect the identity of the individual