The GAT Foundation are a small Melbourne based, not-for-profit organisation that actively distributes books throughout the Philippines. Our three main objectives are:
We collect and donate books from Australia to the Philippines, in order to help those that do not have access to sufficient academic literature and resources.
We re-home used and new books to create social impact and support others in furthering their education, hence empowering the wider community.
We divert thousands from Australian landfills by re-homing books efficiently.
From humble beginnings to global impact
In 2016, Samantha Bonney founded the GAT Foundation to address two concerns, Australia’s growing mountain of books that end up in landfill and the opportunity to touch the lives of thousands of people through books.
Samantha Bonney, whose extended family still resides in the Philippines, discovered during her many visits that there were still Philippine communities that struggled with access to basic literacy.
She identified an opportunity to help solve this by repurposing the wastage of unwanted and unused Australian books.
We specialise in team building across borders via cross cultural collaboration between groups.
We encourage individuals and organisations in Australia and the Philippines to work together to achieve one goal.
Individuals are able to experience first-hand involvement by collecting books, this also allows active engagement within their communities by sharing and promoting social and environmental change by re-homing books.