Get to Know the GAT: Making it Easier to Make a Big Impact

Global Action Team (GAT) Connects Lions Around the World

What is the GAT?

In the world of Lions there are three letters with the ability to significantly enhance your and your club’s service impact: G. A. T. (Global Action Team). By now, you may have heard of the GAT, but maybe still don’t fully understand exactly what it does or how it can make an impact on service outcomes. That’s okay.

Simply put, the GAT is a global support team. It offers clubs and districts direct access to resources and tools from Lions International headquarters, so Lions can benefit from a wider network and, just maybe, accomplish a project they thought was out of reach.

You already know them

Each club president acts as the GAT chairperson for their club and each district governor acts as the GAT district chairperson. Do you have a big idea? Want to do something you aren’t sure your club can accomplish alone? Talk to your GAT chairperson—your club president—and find out what resources LCI has to help.

Take a local project and turn it national

The power of the GAT is in the actions of many Lions working together. Through teamwork, big ideas can be brought to life, even if the club and its resources are small.

In Kenya, when the Ministry of Health made diabetes a national focus, GAT leaders saw an opportunity to expand the work Kenyan clubs were already doing to fight diabetes.

Lions leveraged professional expertise and partnerships with healthcare providers, Lions hospitals, and diabetes centers to provide comprehensive screenings, follow-up care and educational materials and resources to communities throughout Kenya.

With the help of the GAT, what began as Lions seizing an opportunity to meet community needs by providing diabetes education and care grew into a movement, serving nearly half a million people.

Activate the global Lion network

In Malaysia, Jayden, a young boy with a brain tumor was looking at a grim prognosis. His doctors in Malaysia, unable to provide the necessary sophisticated medical procedures needed to cure him, had almost given up hope after his initial treatments.

But then his parents heard about Lions.

GAT leaders from multiple countries arranged to meet at the international convention in Las Vegas, Nevada, to discuss how they could activate the global Lion network to help get Jayden treatment.

Less than a year since the initial meeting at convention, Jayden has been sent home cancer free.

Through the network that is the GAT, Lions from three nations came together to help get Jayden the treatment he so desperately needed to have a chance at life.

“This is a great example of how the GAT activated the global Lion-to-Lion network,” says Global Action Team Chairperson, Past International President Kajit Habanananda. “Lions were able to reach across borders in service.”

Reach out

Think you could use the help of the GAT? Find out more at lionsclubs.org/en/gat

As a Lion, you have more power than you think.