GAMAID Foundation
VolunteerGive
01First · Body · Corporis

GAMAID Shelters

Providing a safe place to sleep, a place to call home, and emergency shelter for students and individuals in need.

Fund sheltersGet help
Stage
Body
Activities
6
How to ask
Call
Photos
32
One of the GAMAID Family houses in Uyo
The need

Why itmatters.

Shelter is not one need among many. It is the need that makes every other need either solvable or impossible.

A student without a safe place to stay cannot concentrate. A family whose rent has lapsed loses everything attached to that address: school enrolment, references, stability. Someone leaving prison with nowhere to go walks straight back into the conditions that led to prison.

GAMAID Shelters exists because we believe that a bed in a safe, family-type environment is the most fundamental form of help we can offer. Everything else we do is harder without it.

What we do

How the programmeworks.

6 parts to GAMAID Shelters

  1. GAMAID Family Houses

    Old buildings rented and renovated, largely by volunteers, and run as a home rather than an institution. Residents eat together, look out for each other, and are connected to GAMAID’s other programmes: food, health, education, and mentorship. These are not hostels. They are households.

  2. Emergency and short-term shelter

    A safe bed while a longer-term solution is found, for people stranded in Uyo, students locked out of accommodation, or anyone in an immediate housing crisis.

  3. Rent help and interest-free rent loans

    So that a family does not lose the home it has. We provide rent assistance and interest-free loans for people who are a few days or weeks away from eviction and need a bridge.

  4. Move-on support

    Help finding and keeping independent accommodation when a person is ready to leave a GAMAID house, including rental searching, references, and connections to employment or income.

  5. Spiritual community

    Each GAMAID house operates as a faith community. Residents are invited into prayer, Bible study, and mutual encouragement.

  6. Integration with other programmes

    Residents have direct access to GAMAID Food (Bethlehem Kitchen), health support, education and scholarship assistance, and vocational training, so that shelter is the beginning of a fuller journey, not just a roof.

Who it is for

The peoplethis is for.

GAMAID Shelters is for people who are homeless or about to be. This includes:

  • Students who are financially stranded and have nowhere safe to stay
  • Families who cannot make rent and are facing eviction
  • People leaving prison who have no stable address to return to
  • People escaping an unsafe home environment who need immediate, safe, transitional accommodation
  • People stranded far from home who need a short-term place while they find their footing

Places are limited and offered after a conversation with staff.

Get help

How to get help, or refer someone.

Call the office0810 864 5616

Help is never conditional on faith. Other ways to reach us

Call the office. A member of staff will talk with you or the person you are referring, and explain what living in a GAMAID house involves.

  • EmergencyCall 0810 864 5616. If you are in immediate danger, go somewhere safe first and call us from there.
  • Non-emergencyCall or WhatsApp the office and describe the situation. We will have a conversation with you, explain how the houses work, and tell you what is available.
  • Referring someoneTell us about the person and the situation. We will contact them directly if they are willing.
Fund shelters

Every gift hereis spent on shelters.

When you give to GAMAID Shelters, you are contributing to the rent on a house, the renovation of a room, the bedding on a frame, or the cost of keeping a home that is genuinely a home running for the people inside it.

Card, bank transfer or USSD in naira; dollars or pounds from abroad; PayPal, Zelle or GoFundMe from the US.

We will show what a gift pays for once the costs are confirmed against our records.

Give once

Designated to GAMAID Shelters.

Card, bank transfer and USSD. You will be taken to our payment provider’s secure page; we never see your card details. A receipt is emailed for every gift. Prefer a direct bank transfer?

Online card payments switch on the moment our payment account is connected. Until then, direct bank transfer works today, and US donors can use PayPal, Zelle or GoFundMe.

All ways to give →
In pictures

Shelters,as it happens.

32 photographs in the album

Open the album
From this programme

In their own words.

  • What you offered me wasn’t just four walls. You gave me back my hope, and you gave me a foundation steady enough to actually stand on.

    Shedrack Ikpenyong, GAMAID Shelters beneficiary

  • I was living with a relative who started harassing me, and I urgently needed to leave that unhealthy environment. GAMAID took me in and allowed me to stay for free for several months when I couldn’t contribute financially. Now I live in peace without fear or pressure. I’m surrounded by a godly community, and I’ve seen real growth in my spiritual life.

    Ekpono E., GAMAID Shelters beneficiary
Victory Okon, a GAMAID BeneficiaryA story from this programmeGAMAID SheltersAnchored in Faith: Victory Bassey Okon’s Story of GAMAID SupportMy name is Victory Bassey Okon, and on the 28th of June 2025, I found myself looking back on all the different ways GAMAID Foundation, through God’s Lighthouse Church, has stood by me.Victory Bassey Okon · 25 July 2025Read Victory Bassey Okon’s story

Also in Body

← PreviousGAMAID GarmentsAll programmesNext →GAMAID Health