Our story - Meet Gem

Hi & Welcome to The Inclusive Gift company. The home of accessible & personalised gifts for all abilities.

 Image shows a head shot of Gem McCallum Founder & Owner of the Inclusive Gift Company

"I'm Gem and I run an inclusive gifts business from my home studio in Northumberland everything is printed in house by me. I've been disabled myself since I was 13 and one of my biggest frustrations was finding lovely personalised gifts I could use in spite of my disabilities. Kind of along the lines of the frustration when you couldn't find YOUR name on the funky keyrings at the local shop. Only for me it was about things that feel good, raised awareness of disabilities and most importantly wouldn't break if i dropped them or spill all over me because i was shaking!"
 
Our founder Gem McCallum is an established ETSY business owner with well over 1300 sales since 2020 and has been in the personalised gift business for over 5 years selling both locally and online from her home town of Ashington in Northumberland. Throughout her experience in the personalised gifts business world and having been disabled for over 30 years as well as a full time wheelchair user for the last 6, Gem quickly realized how difficult it was to find personalised, fun but still functional gifts that actually work for and can be used by people living with or affected by disability.

After her dad was diagnosed with MS in her early teens Gem gained a lot of experience as a familial carer alongside her mum and experienced disability from both sides of the coin before later finding herself having to give up work, needing to use a wheelchair full time and badly affected both physically and mentally by her disability. The last 6 years has been a learning journey for Gem to come to terms with, not only the progression of her disability but also in learning how to embrace and find her own independence as a young disabled mother to a son newly diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder and yet again finding herself living as not only disabled herself but again as a carer in the parent carer role. Now she loves embracing life to her fullest ability alongside her son and two crazy dogs and enjoys bringing her experience and knowledge to provide specialist gifts and also act as a voice for people living with or affected by disability.