Our team
Meet the LandAid team
This month, we spoke to Gareth Pettit, who’s been with LandAid for nearly 3.5 years, leading the team that delivers LandAid’s Employability and Pro Bono Programme alongside our corporate and charity partners.
What brought you to LandAid in the first place?
I am hugely motivated by my values and the desire to contribute to establishing a more equal society. After 14 years of supporting disadvantaged young people to realise their education and employment ambitions, I was looking for a new challenge. I was looking for an organisation that supports marginalised people where I could make use of my significant programme and relationship management experience and see the impact of my work. LandAid was a perfect fit.
What’s your role, how do you help end youth homelessness?
As Head of Strategic Programmes I lead the team that delivers LandAid’s work to secure services, volunteering and in-kind donations from our corporate partners. This support broadens our offer to youth homelessness charities above and beyond our core grants. The three programmes are Pro Bono, Employability and Property Donation.
I am also a member of LandAid’s leadership team, helping to drive the strategic direction of the organisation to be as efficient and impactful as possible.
What’s one project or moment that made you proud to work at LandAid?
Hearing directly from young people who have benefitted from the projects that we support is always hugely inspiring. Everyday our hard work creates new opportunities for young people who are right at the start of their adult lives. They have the same dreams and ambitions as their peers but they don’t always have the same support networks or opportunities. Being part of a team that helps to correct that is extremely rewarding.
What’s one challenge LandAid faces in this work that you think more people should know about?
LandAid is entirely voluntary-funded. Without the generous contributions of our corporate partners and supporters we wouldn’t be able to carry out work and support so many charities and young people. One of our biggest challenges is ensuring that we have predictable and sustainable income over the long term.
