Empowering people
Addressing poverty

Who we are

About us

5000Plus empowers people in some of the poorest areas of the world to break out of poverty. The vision for this charity is drawn from the example of Jesus and His disciples who, starting with 5 loaves and 2 fishes belonging to a small boy, miraculously fed a great crowd of people as described in the Biblical Gospel of Mark 6:35-44.

Key points drawn from this story are:

Compassion

Compassion

Compassion takes responsibility and acts practically to meet needs. This vision has successfully mobilised local community groups. It enables orphans, widows and others in need to be helped as the local people increase their own income without awaiting aid hand-outs.

Empowerment

Empowerment

The 5000Plus training changes mindsets and inspires a can-do attitude motivates and assists families to break their poverty cycle using their own resource to start, however inadequate it seems.

Multiplication

Multiplication

Multiplication grows the community's resources for long term freedom from poverty through sustainable livelihood projects. This in turn encourages self-reliance and avoids creating or prolonging a culture of external aid dependency. We have seen many thousands of people benefiting and then being generous in helping their neighbours to do the same as this message spreads virally. Community members have been supportive and generous with advice, practical help, even the gift of start-up assistance. We have many local savings and loan groups flourishing too.

History

5000Plus was founded by Rob and Jane Garratt in 1998. Challenged by the poverty they saw while travelling in Nepal, they asked God what could be done. Back came the response "the answer starts with what the people have, not with what they don't have". The story came to mind of the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand men plus women and children as recounted in Mark’s gospel chapter 6 verses 35 to 44.

On asking their host Hari Khati what skills he had, they discovered before becoming a pastor he was a tailor and that he thought he could pass these skills onto others. With a £100 donation two sewing machines were bought and this was the beginning of what became three tailoring businesses which in turn financed the running of sewing training schools. Many hundreds of students have successfully learnt a skill which generates incomes to feed their families. Thus the work of 5000Plus was born.

Who’s who

Rob & Jane Garratt

Rob & Jane Garratt

Founders of 5000Plus

Rob & Jane Garratt

Rob and Jane have been involved in pastoral and teaching ministry for more than 35 years. When not pastoring a local church, Rob has worked for some 30 years as a chartered civil engineer. Jane worked for a large international charity, Christians Against Poverty, as a specialist counsellor to those in serious personal debt. At first they used their vacations to travel regularly to Nepal to further the work of 5000Plus.

However in 2007 they both resigned from their secular jobs to be more available to expand the work. They are now spending large parts of each year overseas envisioning, teaching and training communities to break out of their cycle of poverty.

Tim Powell

Tim Powell

Associate of 5000Plus

Tim Powell

A part of Rob and Jane’s vision is to equip other ‘Grey Nomads’ like themselves who still have a desire even in their later years to make a difference in the world around them. Tim is a fruit of the UK seminars - they run for this purpose. After attending he wrote “I found the day stimulating, challenging, uplifting, provocative, and at times pretty scary, but immensely valuable, and an important step forward for me.”

In his former business life Tim was a director of a whole foods importing company and has now put those skills to use by joining with 5000Plus as a volunteer. Over several years he regularly visited Kenya and Tanzania to support the work there. Today he and his wife Sara are valued Trustees of the 5000Plus Charity.

Hari Kumar Khati

Hari Kumar Khati

A partner of 5000Plus in Nepal

Hari Kumar Khati

Hari Khati is a Nepali pastor who started his first church in 1990. Since that time his ministry has expanded and he now leads Grace Ministries which has a network of many churches throughout Nepal.

After embracing the vision of 5000Plus in 1998, he established a non-government organisation (NGO) registered with the Nepali government which has been very effective in impacting for good the lives of the poor in their local communities. Hari has received both national and international recognition for the work of the NGO (Grace Community Development Foundation).

In addition to caring for many orphan children a wide range of income generation projects have been successfully carried out, many being started on the NGO’s own initiative.

Kennedy Otieno Ojunju

Kennedy Otieno Ojunju

A partner of 5000Plus in Kenya

Kennedy Otieno Ojunju

Kennedy was the pastor of a small rural church. In 2007 returning from a 5000Plus vision seminar, he gathered his village community together and they started a tree nursery income generation project. Six months later and with no financial help from outside the village there were 18,000 small saplings ready for sale.

From this beginning a Kenyan registered non-government organisation (Grace Development Foundation) has been successfully formed with Kennedy as the Chief Executive Officer. It is now recognised by the Kenyan Goverment as the most effective NGO in addressing poverty in their country because we do not give money to the poor.

Today there are over 255,000 livelihood projects running, with 4,200 community volunteers who are trained to mentor and encourage others in how to choose, plan and successfully run an income generation project. There are also nearly 2,600 small savings and loan community groups.

These income generation schemes include animal husbandry, horticulture, agriculture, forestry, market stalls and shops, fish trading, beauty salons, dressmaking, hardware, brick making and many, many more. Truly this is communities being empowered to break the chains of poverty.

One of the most recent developments in Kenya is that Grace Development Foundation has begun a programme of taking the 5000Plus training to prisoners within the penal system.

David Nyamita

David Nyamita

A partner of 5000Plus in Tanzania

David Nyamita

David Nyamita is a Bishop, overseeing a number of churches, and he invited 5000Plus to bring their teaching to Tanzania.

With their help and encouragement not only has he started his own income generation projects but has helped to initiate many others among poor communities in the north west corner of his country. These are making a real difference to their ability to provide for the welfare of their families.

Bob was a great mentor to Rob and Jane and while with Panaphur said this "Here at Panahpur we have supported the work of 5000Plus over recent years. It has been refreshing to see how Rob and Jane have remained faithful to the vision God gave them. They refuse to build their own empire but give of themselves and their resource in order to empower others to break free of poverty. This echoes my own passion to communicate God’s love to a hurting world.

They have developed the simple and transferable 5000Plus model. Rob and Jane are a great inspiration to others who are at a similar stage in their lives and who still aspire to make a tangible difference to those they see in need around them.

Panahpur have invested in this vision and we encourage you to invest too."

Deepak Mahtani

Deepak Mahtani

Deepak while alive said "I have been privileged to be part of the 5000Plus journey for some time now. 5000Plus is unique in many ways and I believe is a truly creative way of impacting communities for lasting change. Rob & Jane's passion and vision are exceptional and contagious. A very simple model of using whatever people have and leveraging it for maximum impact and ensuring they take ownership of the vision in carrying it out."

Ram Prasad Shrestha

Ram Prasad Shrestha

While with NMCN Ram Prasad said this "It has been a joy and an honour to work with 5000Plus as a partner in empowering underprivileged community of Nepal by providing the skill of Income Generating Training.  So far we have held 3 sessions of training together with Rob and Jane (5000Plus) which have proved very effective in the communities. The participants have used the skills to make their living by doing small income generating projects. We wish to continue the ministry with 5000Plus in the future to impact more marginalized people groups of Nepal."

Elisha Odero

Elisha Odero

The 5000Plus vision is striking because it is biblical, simple, empowering and is easy to run. There are now hundreds of projects inspired by this teaching. The revelation has gone forth like wild savannah fires.

 Pauline is a widow who attended only two training seminars. She decided to do chicken and sugarcane growing and has managed to pull herself up and today pays school fees for her son.

 Another pastor in Kisii today runs a school that gives him income and also helps him minister to community by providing quality education for the needy and vulnerable and also creating employment.

 Fred attended the training seminars, tried his hands on a few projects with limited success but after receiving further help from Heifer International he increased. Today he has put together over 40 families in a group where 22 have got dairy animals that are already changing lives of the poor people.

 If there could be a way to make 5000Plus spread throughout the country, this continent would change.