History

Gavin Bate founded Moving Mountains during many years of travel, expeditions and work around the world from 1987 to 1998, mostly in developing countries.

He worked on ships bound for the scrapping beaches of India, Pakistan and China, hitch-hiked extensively in developing countries and spent most of his time travelling and going on climbing expeditions.

A solo expedition to walk across the Sahara Desert in 1987 led to further travels around Africa, mostly on foot or by local transport exploring most of the countries on the continent and sometimes driving overland trucks full of young adventurers.

Gavin settled in Kenya where he worked with a number of humanitarian agencies involved in delivering aid to Ethiopia, Somalia and Rwanda. Being a truck driver driving aid for these agencies meant that most of his friends were Kenyans and he lived in a small ‘banda’ in the nearby forest next to the huge Kibera slum outside Nairobi.

This led to working ad hoc for organisations like Medecin Sans Frontieres building clinics in the slums, and also for national programmes to rehabilitate street children back to their families and into school. This in turn led to working in a number of slum schools and running a number of after-school clubs (reading, sports, hiking..) which were all part of an initiative to give these children a sense of normality and consistency in their lives.

Many of those children who were just five or six years old at that time are now educated adults who still work for the charity and the company and have children of their own. Moving Mountains in Kenya began during those years of working in the slum schools and eventually grew to support several thousand children, mostly from the proceeds of Gavin’s climbing and his company Adventure Alternative.

Gavin also travelled and climbed extensively in Nepal, eventually climbing Mount Everest six times during the years from 2000 to 2011. Through a friendship with Ang Chhongba Sherpa he travelled to the small villages in the solu Khumbu during the Maoist conflict and lived amongst the Sherpa people, influenced by the issues facing those mountain communities.

As a mountaineer he used his income from Adventure Alternative and the donations raised from climbing Mount Everest to support the Sherpa communities with hydro electric power, water, monasteries, schools and business capital.

Gavin wanted the name of Moving Mountains to reflect the overwhelming difficulties that many people face every day in their lives. It also reflects the difficulty of overcoming the dangers of stereotypes and complacency and inequality when it comes to development. Through his many years travelling and living in those communities, their resilience never failed to inspire.

The priority was always to provide help which did not anonymize people and to provide a long term commitment to help people move mountains in their lives in order to become the architects of their own success and achieve their potential.

The first logo, designed in 1991, reflected the focus on street children in Kenya, and the second more modern logo was brought in during a re-brand in 2015.

Gavin has used his expeditions to raise money and awareness of the charity. “If my adventures in climbing mountains can help some people move mountains in their lives, then they will all have been worthwhile endeavours”.

The six Everest expeditions raised around £2 million over eleven years. In 2000 the charity was registered in the UK and Gavin asked long time colleagues Christoper Little and Andrew MacDonald to become trustees. Over the years they have remained true to the values and ethos of the charity and there are now two other trustees involved, Susan Birkett and Dot King.

Nowadays the bulk of the fundraising comes from groups visiting the areas where we work to help support the programmes and get involved. Volunteers, medical students, school groups and fundraising teams now work alongside a very dedicated group of people who provide standing orders each month in order to keep the work of the charity going.

Over time Gavin helped to set up local NGOs in Kenya and Nepal, run by local committees who had worked for a long time with Gavin and built up a lot of trust. Like many organizations which have developed slowly and organically over many years, Moving Mountains has built a great network of friends and supporters.

“I wanted Moving Mountains to stand for something equitable, inspirational, and genuinely thoughtful in how it tackled social, economic and environmental issues” says Gavin, “we were never going to offer a glib response to complex issues, but attempt to learn and find solutions together. Choosing the right people to help me has been a journey in itself.”

In Kenya many of the children who Gavin met during those formative years living in Kibera are still involved, helping to run a small but successful NGO based on honesty, trust and an understanding of what works in terms of long term development. Those people are themselves the products of the charity, and they now bring up their own children without the privations that they once suffered.

Left: Kelly Kioko was one of the children who went to Muthurwa School when Gavin was there; he was supported all the way through school and college, eventually working for the company and charity.
Right: Now a father of three, Kelly is still a tour guide for Adventure Alternative and an ambassador for the charity. 

In Nepal the original friends that Gavin made during the early years are still managing Moving Mountains Nepal and helping to develop the region of solu Khumbu. The work has completely transformed an entire area and brought about huge demographic change. Where before the villages were dying, now they attract new families looking for clean water supplies, electricity, good schools, a clinic, a monastery and a strong community.

Gavin with Pasang Tendi, Geljun and Ang Chhongba who have all been managing MM Nepal since 2001. They still meet regularly in the villages.


The villages of Bupsa and Bumburi in the solu Khumbu where all the work has brought so much positive change.

In the mid 1990s the charity branched out into various other areas of work, including building a hospital in the Ukraine and also funding a tree planting project in the forests of Sarawak for seven years.

Left: For several years we funded the renovation of this hospital in south Ukraine, and bought an ambulance and equipment for the staff there. 
Right: In Sarawak we funded the seed planting and transplanting of around 49,000 saplings into logged forest.

The charity is still focused on child education and providing a holistic care to the family and community, and over the years Moving Mountains has built many schools and a children’s home, funded feeding centres and early child development centres. It has supported many teachers, social workers, counsellors and professionals to help the child beneficiaries. In Nepal and in Kenya it is in many places the only source of support and employment for many such people.

In July 2012 Gavin was nominated to carry the Olympic Torch in recognition of all the good work that Moving Mountains has done over so many years. He was also given the Points of Light Award by British Prime Minister Theresa May.