About Us

GIDSS, which stands for ‘Gandhian Initiative for Development of Support Services’, is working to help poor, marginalized and weak sections of society in Canada, especially women, seniors, youth, people with disabilities and victims of violence from the last 11 years.

GIDSS believes in Gandhi’s philosophy of truth and nonviolence and actively engaged in the community to help diverse sections of the population by networking and sharing of resources.
GIDSS vision to build a Healthy & Safe Canada, ‘Ours Canada’, where unity will reside in diversity.

Dr Raminder Singh, PhD in Political science and former crisis counselor, is the executive Director of the organization along with other staff members.

Currently, GIDSS is working on many projects to help Canadians by all possible means.
Right now (from last two years) more than 500 youth, mostly from visible minorities group in Canada, are helping in the following projects (in-person and from home)

GIDSS TALK

In the last couple of months, the GIDSS team, including summer job students, has built an online nonprofit resource Directory to help Canadians network with available resources in their area. Till date, the team has added more than 7000 Canadian nonprofits’ information and our target is 15,000 nonprofits in the coming months, with free access for everyone. More than 200 youth volunteers are just working on this project. (www.gidsstalk.com)

TEAM CANADA

GIDSS team has been working on building a trustworthy Business Directory in Canada, to network Canadians with all the emergency and general business services and to save them from online scams. Anyone will be able to access services of reputed companies in their area and will be able to share their feedback on the website & mobile App. Another 150 volunteers are actively working on this project along with GIDSS staff.

SMART HELP FOR SENIORS

A project funded by the Government of Canada aims at promoting healthy living among seniors and other strata of society. In the last 4 years, the GIDSS team has helped more than 5000 seniors learn technology and functional literacy, learning use of computers, smart phone, and social media by in-person and virtual training sessions. These all have been achieved through our wonderful highschool volunteers.

ONLINE THALI & GIDSS FOOD BANK

This is a unique project launched by GIDSS as a food bank, providing cooked and healthy food to needy people, especially youth, seniors, people with disabilities and victims of violence. In the last 2 years, the GIDSS team has distributed more than 20,000 free cooked meals in the peel region with the help of our wonderful volunteers. (www.gidssfoodbank.com)

INTERNATIONAL PEACE AWARDS & INTERFAITH DIALOGUE

Every year GIDSS organize Interfaith Dialogues & peace building initiatives with support from Government of Canada and reward the grass root work of hundreds of Canadian organizations from all over Canada. Last year the event was organized on October 30th with more than 1200 nominations of the organizations who helped Canadians during Covid crisis. (www.internationalpeaceawards.com).

ASTROWELLNESS

This is a project designed to help Canadians during and after Covid crisis by providing them short term crisis counseling and network them with the available resources and support system. Anyone looking for short term personal or family counseling can call the GIDSS office any day and the GIDSS team provides them all possible help. We are training lots of young volunteers to help Canadians in this difficult time

GET CONNECT

GIDSS is building a Canada wide networking site for the employers and Canadians who are looking for jobs, internships and volunteer opportunities in Canada. In the last year the GIDSS team helped so many youth and newcomers with this project.. (www.GetConnect.online)