We’re delighted to share the news that Good Gifts has just launched a beautifully redesigned website – and to mark the occasion by celebrating what has been one of our longest and most valued partnerships.

SURF has received funding from Good Gifts since 2005, and in that time the support it has generated has been transformative for thousands of genocide survivors and their dependents across Rwanda, helping fund the livestock, agricultural materials, solar lighting and much else that underpin our livelihoods programme.

The new site makes it easier than ever to choose a gift that will make a real difference to a survivor family, and three in particular are close to our hearts.

• Solar lamps bring light to households that would otherwise go without electricity after dark- letting children study in the evenings, improving safety at night, and freeing families from the cost and health burden of kerosene.

• 5 chickens and a cockerel gives a family a small flock that supplies eggs for better nutrition and chicks that can be sold on, building a steady source of food and income.

• A vegetable patch kit – seeds, tools and training together – helps households grow their own fresh produce, strengthening food security and giving families a genuine measure of independence.

Each is a small, practical gift with a very direct route to a family’s table and a family’s income, and each is exactly the kind of quietly transformative support that has always sat at the heart of what Good Gifts offers to the survivors and their families we support.

On the new Case Studies section of the Good Gifts site is the human story behind gifts like these, which clearly illustrates the way a single practical item, chosen by someone thousands of miles away, translates into a family no longer having to choose between food and fuel, or a child able to read after the sun goes down. We’d encourage anyone browsing the new site to spend a few minutes there; it’s the best illustration we know of what a Good Gift really does once it reaches the person who needs it.

So as the new website rolls out, our thanks go to everyone at the Charities Advisory Trust for the work that has gone into it – and our warm encouragement to supporters, old and new, to take a look and consider choosing a Good Gift that will change a survivor’s life this year.