2023-03-31-accounts - Project Peru

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Project Peru

Thirty-first Annual Report

and

Accounts

1st April 2022 to 31st March 2023

Registered Charity Number: 1049413

PROJECT PERU Annual report – for the year to 31 March 2023

Trustees’ report

This report covers the activities of Project Peru in the UK and Peru from 1st April 2022 to 31st March 2023.

Reference and Administrative details

Project Peru was formally established in May 1992, and in 1995 became a registered charity (Registered Charity number 1049413).

Structure, Governance and Management

Charity name

Project Peru (known in Peru as Proyecto Perú).

Registered address in the UK

1, St. Catherine’s Hill, Guildford, Surrey GU2 4EF, England, UK Telephone: 01483 576093.

Administration address in Peru

Proyecto Perú Administration; Calle Julio Diaz, Centro Poblado Zapallal, Distrito de Puente Piedra, Lima 22, Perú.

Bank

Lloyds Bank,147 High Street, Guildford, Surrey GU1 3AG

Executive Committee and Trustees during this financial year in UK

Carole Hudson (Chair) Helena Cooke (Treasurer) David Hudson Jean Wright (from 17 February 2023)

All activities in the UK are on a voluntary basis and the trustees are selected from a core group of volunteers.

In Peru

Our legal representation and local responsibility are in the hands of Karina Alza Gomez and the co-signatory on our Project Peru bank account is Padre Fernando Castellón Asin.

PROJECT PERU Annual report – for the year to 31 March 2023

Objectives and activities

The principal aims and objectives of Project Peru are to address issues faced by people living in extreme poverty in Peru. We are a small, lively, totally voluntary UK-based charity offering food, clothes, shelter, education, health and fun to those in need in a country where much of the population still exists in extreme poverty.

More specifically:

We support our children's refuge, which we founded and have developed over the years, in one of the desert shanty-towns of Lima
We develop new initiatives to help those in need in Peru both in the community near to the refuge and periodically further afield
We react swiftly to direct calls for practical help from our refuge
We send frequent aid shipments ensuring that they reach their destination and are put to immediate use within our refuge or in the wider community
We fund almost the entire costs of the refuge through a wide range of activities in the UK, including sponsored events, educational projects, and crafts sales, as well as through individual donations and sponsorship, and contributions from volunteers going to Peru
We involve volunteers of all ages and occupations both in Peru and in the UK
We seek to raise awareness about issues relating to poverty and development
We believe that, despite our more serious purpose, our activities should be fun for all those who take part

Supporting our refuge is our core activity. We are indebted to all our volunteers in the UK and in Peru and to the huge faith in our work that is demonstrated by our many individual donors, as well as by our many supporters in the private sector, in educational institutions, churches, voluntary groups and local authorities both in the UK and internationally.

Public information about Project Peru

Our website is https://www.projectperu.org.uk which we constantly keep under review and refresh where possible with topical news items and relevant pages. Our Facebook page is http://www.facebook.com/projectperu.org.uk. Both of these are designed to meet our need to inform the public about our activities in UK and in Peru, as a tool for public awareness, to enhance our fund-raising efforts, to attract new volunteers, while at the same time to respect the privacy and safety of our children.

We regularly update the ‘News’ pages on our website with items about our activities in Peru and in the UK, promoting these News items as widely as we can through our contacts with supporters principally via email, and on our Facebook pages.

PROJECT PERU Annual report – for the year to 31 March 2023

We produce a very limited amount of presentational material and leaflets that are available on request or at fundraising events.

In the past we have promoted the charity actively in the UK through public speaking engagements including in churches and schools, and with Rotary Clubs and other community-based groups, and we encourage our volunteers to do the same. We were unable to do this during the years of Covid-19 and we are still not seeing many of these events taking place.

Achievements and performance

UK achievements

Most of our income comes from our own direct fundraising initiatives and regular donations, as well as from sponsorship and contributions made by volunteers before going to Peru, and by other supporters, not necessarily those who have known us before. We want to encourage more of this type of support in future, especially through fundraising initiatives by others. These funds are used specifically for our core work in running our refuge or for our work in the wider community in Peru.

We had another successful year as shown in our Treasurer’s report, due to sustained help from many of our long-term supporters, with the result that

we have again met our target of sending sufficient funds to support our refuge in Lima, even though most of our usual fundraising activities in the UK have not been possible
we have provided funds to maintain and refurbish our existing buildings in Peru, to further develop the facilities in our refuge and to support our special projects in the wider community, including funding for a new building
where funds have been raised in the UK for specific projects in the refuge or in the wider community we have been able to ensure that these have been completed
we continued to retain funds in the UK as a contingency reserve at the previous year’s level and receive interest on our savings accounts. We keep these deposits under review and update our accounts where needed. We aim to ensure that we have at least a reserve of two years’ funding for our refuge and for our work in Peru

The funds we have raised have specifically enabled us to:

Provide food and facilities for the children who live in our refuge
Pay the wages in Peru for our full time and part time employees and provide staff training and support
Develop educational, social, sporting and cultural activities in our refuge, reopening many activities following the pandemic
Meet the educational costs for our children particularly, and to continue to support the further education of some of our older girls after they

PROJECT PERU Annual report – for the year to 31 March 2023

have left school including where appropriate their access to university courses

Continue to develop the structural facilities at our refuge, maintaining and refurbishing the existing buildings, to provide safe, comfortable and appropriate facilities that are fully compliant with the local health and safety requirements, which can change frequently
Continue to develop our special projects, our kitchen garden project providing fruit and vegetables for the refuge, and our library project enabling our children to grow up with access to reading and reference materials
Participate in community initiatives including the distribution of emergency food supplies, and particularly making new contacts with local ‘ ollas comunes’ , the newly developing soup kitchens in the shanty towns which provide urgent food supplies and hot meals in response to the rapidly rising prices and increasing food shortages
Fulfil long-term ambition to build a residential hostel for up to eight of our teenage boys as well as staff accommodation, currently for our Director and her family. This was achieved by securing funds from a variety of sources, but especially through one substantial legacy from a long-term supporter, along with a second large tranche raised by the Amoria Bond Charitable Trust, a company which has supported us for many years. In addition to fundraising for this specific project Amoria Bond also provided a volunteer team to work on the the building site. The new accommodation was built on a segment of the land we hold for our kitchen garden and was fully completed and operational soon after the period covered by this report.

Project Peru’s fundraising events and activities in the UK

Sales of Peruvian crafts
We held our regular craft stall in Guildford in June 2022. A number of our supporters have also bought our crafts and cards which we promote on our web-site, and we have had an increasing amount of online sales. We again had a successful special campaign to promote our sales of Christmas cards made in Las Laderas
Volunteers

We were prevented for several years by the pandemic from involving our volunteers either in UK or in Peru and we have not had our regular and varied number of volunteers and visitors to the project in Peru. However we were able to restart this process during this year and welcomed one group as outlined above

Such support would normally provide income for us through individual sponsorship as well as providing income locally in Peru through contributions by volunteers. In addition to raising money for us before they go to Peru we hope we can also encourage everyone who visits our refuge to continue to make a contribution to the charity in future years

PROJECT PERU Annual report – for the year to 31 March 2023

• Container to Peru

This procedure had also been stopped by the pandemic. In normal times we receive large quantities of donated goods in the UK which we sort, pack, load and deliver for onward shipment to Peru in an annual consignment. We try to respond to the direct needs expressed by our colleagues in Peru with whom we are in close contact on a regular basis. We continue to rely on the generosity of commercial, educational and private donors, of our volunteers, and of the shipping and road transport companies who have supported us over many years. We normally distribute goods far beyond our own refuge and are continuing to develop a wide range of contacts with isolated communities in need of these goods and have been identifying new ones. Though we did not send a cargo during the period covered by this report we continued to collect goods and to pack them ready for transporting to Peru. The first shipment was sent in June 2023

Achievements and performance in Peru in 2022-3 (based on reports from our Director in Peru, Karina Alza Gomez)

During the year, in all, we had 38 children and adolescents staying with us and one young adult, totalling 20 males and 19 females. There were two at nursery level, 25 at primary level, 11 at secondary level and one preparing for the government’s university entrance scheme [Beca 18]. Numbers of residents have reduced compared with previous years mostly due to problems with accessing school places during the school year following the introduction of a central rather than local enrolment system.

Most of our children do have a family tie but are welcomed to our refuge due to extreme poverty or physical or moral risk. This means that the refuge has to aim to establish a working arrangement with each family or ‘guardian’. In other cases referrals from a government special protection unit mean we may accept several children who have neither family ties nor legal protection. During this year we have been caring for three girls in this situation.

As always we give all-round support to everyone with reference to: Shelter: every young person enjoys an adequate safe physical environment in which to live and sleep; everyone receives clothing provided appropriate to their age, and each one has their own personal cupboard.

Food: we are regularly assessed by a team of nutritionists from the local Health Centre, regarding the provision of three good meals a day. The Health Centre checks the weight and height of every young person in our refuge, and organises quarterly campaigns and visits.

Education: despite the fact that the local school is a State school we still have to pay for many items including photocopying, educational materials and payments for any outing or activity. The refuge supplements the children’s education with the provision of educational support and cultural workshops

PROJECT PERU Annual report – for the year to 31 March 2023

including Dance, Music and Singing and Theatre as well as book clubs based in our Library.

Support with health: as the Health Centres are overwhelmed with people with emergency health needs we frequently attend the local ‘Polyclinic’ where the children may receive better treatment, but at a cost.

Fun: we have arranged visits to the zoo, to local beaches and swimming pools including a 10-day stay at the Balneario de Tortugas in Casma, a visit to Lomas de Lachay, walks and football competitions with other organisations.

Further provision for children: we always organise individual birthday parties and prepare children for and make arrangements for First Communions and Confirmations. The children are also assessed for their special gifts in any particular subject. We also ensure that every child has a psychological assessment and any necessary therapies.

We also offer support to the children’s family members and assess their family situation. This has been complicated this year as achievements made in previous years have been reversed by the pandemic as instances of abandonment, destitution and indifference have significantly increased. The great loss of jobs in the area, even those offering minimum income levels, has meant that when we request the family’s presence in the refuge they are often unable to attend due to transport costs.

We organise monthly meetings with each family or ‘guardian’ and underline the importance of these so that we can make up for time lost during the pandemic.

In spite of all the crises in the world and the general situation experienced , which seems to get increasingly worse ,we have had many successes.

This year thanks in part to funding from loyal supporters Amoria Bond in the UK we were able to construct a new building which will be used for our male adolescents.

We were also able to re-construct a small community kitchen in the local community.

The kitchen garden continues to grow and provide us with fresh fruit and vegetables.

The Food Bank [Banco de Alimentos] continues to support us with supplies of food which enable us to continue to distribute food to soup kitchens and individuals in need in the community, as well as helping us with our own food costs, keeping these costs down as in previous years.

We have had regular staff-training sessions led by the NGO Cambiando Horizontes [Changing Horizons]

PROJECT PERU Annual report – for the year to 31 March 2023

All our residents were vaccinated as appropriate with their Covid-19, ‘flu and other jabs.

We are very proud to say that four of our residents received the government’s university scholarship [ Beca 18] giving them the support to be able to attend professional courses in recommended universities.

The work that we do is coordinated closely between the committees in England and in Peru and with our staff team in the refuge with whom we form a close and mutually supportive family. In spite of still suffering from the earlier loss through Covid-19 of our house mothers Estelita and Edith we continue optimistically to follow their example in caring with love for our children and adolescents.

Everything we have lived through and shared with you in the UK means that we are more united on equal terms of friendship, love and loyalty.

Our Committee in Peru has continued as in previous years, the committee being Karina Alza Gomez as Director and Legal Representative of Project Peru,Timoteo Ramos, Rosa Romero . and Gladys Espinoza.

Plans for the next 12 months

Main goals

To react to the longer-term social and economic issues both in the UK and in Peru
To fund our ‘core’ work in Peru relating to running our refuge and to develop more community activities, enabling us to maintain the number of children we can care for, and to further improve the living and working conditions at the refuge and in the local communities
To provide educational support and to improve educational opportunities for our younger children, with more extra curricula activities where possible
To work towards assuring a better and more secure future for our children as they reach their late teens and need to run their own lives
Where possible to secure access to government grants in Peru for funds for higher education for disadvantaged people especially individual grants under the government’s Beca-18 scheme to enable our older residents to study at university
To open up and fully establish the new residential facility for our longawaited adolescent boys’ hostel and staff accommodation on the site designated for this purpose
To develop new advice systems and opportunities for employment for those leaving the refuge
To develop new and more specific opportunities for volunteering in the refuge and in the wider community

PROJECT PERU Annual report – for the year to 31 March 2023

To undertake more social initiatives in the local community and further afield
To look for fresh or innovative ways of fundraising in the UK
To explore new ways to seek local funding in Peru for the project and to encourage Peruvian individuals, organisations and institutions to become more involved

Our ongoing work

fund raising in the UK and in Peru to cover the running costs for our children’s refuge in Peru
maintenance and upkeep work on the buildings at our refuge
fund raising for new projects at the refuge and in the wider community
UK sponsored events set up by individual supporters, sales of our crafts, educational and cultural and public awareness activities, and recruitment of volunteers
In particular, to encourage others to undertake fund-raising initiatives, such as sponsorship for their individual challenges

Longer term plans and activities will, it is expected, be broadly similar in future years. Funding for all activities will continue as outlined in the Annual Report.

We expect that many of the UK-based fund-raising activities will remain similar to those outlined in the above report.

Financial report by the Treasurer

Results for the year

Total receipts for the year were £127k which was £19k higher than last year’s level of £108k. Overhead costs were, as always, kept to a minimum and £123k (2022 - £86k) was sent out to Lima to cover the running costs of the refuge and new building work.

Analysis of receipts

Voluntary receipts; these include gifts and donations and the related tax reclaimed under gift aid. During the year £36k was raised from voluntary receipts of which £20k (2022 - £21k) was from regular donations. Last year’s receipts were higher by £34k due to one-off donations and a legacy.

Activities for generating funds

Activities include fund raising activities and sponsorship along with the related tax reclaimed under gift aid, providing goods and services that are not for the charity’s beneficiaries, and income from selling bought in goods. Income in this category was £86k (2022 - £33k) – and included £50k from one-off events.

PROJECT PERU Annual report – for the year to 31 March 2023

Trading activities

Income from selling Peruvian goods at various craft markets throughout the year raised £3k which was broadly in line with levels seen in the previous year.

Analysis of payments

Direct charitable payments included £123k of funds sent to Peru to cover the costs of running the refuge and building projects.

Other costs

As always costs have been kept at a minimum and are in line with last year.

Payroll

The charity has no paid staff in the UK and relies entirely on volunteers for the organisation and administration of the charity, fund raising activities and the promotion of the charity.

Accounts for the 12 months to 31 March 2023

Receipts and Payments

	Unrestricted funds	Restricted funds	Total funds	Last year
	£	£	£	£
Receipts
Voluntary receipts	36,363		36,363	70,853
Activities for generating funds	85,601		85,601	33,198
Trading activities	3,497		3,497	3,601
Bank interest	1,289		1,289	700
Total receipts	126,750		126,750	108,352
Payments
Direct charitable expenses	123,599		123,599	86,504
Cost of generating voluntary funds	959		959	904
Fund raising costs	3,149		3,149	2,671
Total payments	127,707		127,707	90,079
Net of receipts and payments	(957)		(957)	18,273
Transfers between funds
Cash funds last year end	256,337	80,000	336,337	318,064
Cash funds this year end	255,380	80,000	335,380	336,337

PROJECT PERU Annual report – for the year to 31 March 2023

Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period

	Unrestricted Funds	Restricted funds	Total
	£	£	£
Cash funds
Current accounts	166,173		166,173
Deposit accounts	89,207	80,000	169,207
Total	255,380	80,000	335,380

Notes to the accounts / Accounting policies

These accounts were prepared on a receipts and payments basis.

Accounting policies

The accounting policies have not changed since the previous year and are summarised below:

Receipts

Recognition of receipts – receipts are accounted for when the charity receives the cash.

Receipts with related expenditure – the income and related expenditure are reported gross in the receipts and payments account.

Tax reclaims on donations and gifts – tax reclaims are accounted for when the cash is received.

Gifts in kind – gifts in kind are not given a value as this is impractical. Proceeds of the sale of any such gifts are shown in the category of activities generating funds. Gifts include second hand clothing, household goods and tools and are shipped to the refuge in Lima and either used in the refuge ordistributed directly to those in need in the local communities. Gifts in kind also includes shipping, the use of garages for storage granted by Guildford Borough Council, and the waiver of hire charges for venues used for fund raising activities.

Volunteer help – the value of volunteer help received is not included in the accounts but is described in the trustees’ annual report.

PROJECT PERU Annual report – for the year to 31 March 2023

2. Payments

Recognition of payments - payments are recognised when the cash payment is made.

3. Assets

Tangible fixed assets for use by the charity are capitalised if they can be used for more than one year and cost more than £500.

Signed on behalf of all trustees

C Hudson

Chair Dated 4[th] January 2024

H Cooke

Treasurer Dated 4[th] January 2024

Independent Examiner’s Report

Section A Independent Examiner’s Report

Project Peru	Project Peru	Project Peru

31 March 2023	Charity no	1049413

10-11

Respective The charity's trustees are responsible for the preparation of the accounts. The responsibilities of charity’s trustees consider that an audit is not required for this year under trustees and examiner section 43(2) of the Charities Act 1993 (the 1993 Act) and that an independent examination is needed. It is my responsibility to:

examine the accounts under section 43 of the 1993 Act,
to follow the procedures laid down in the general Directions given by the Charity Commission (under section 43(7)(b) of the 1993 Act, and
to state whether particular matters have come to my attention.

PROJECT PERU Annual report – for the year to 31 March 2023

Basis of independent My examination was carried out in accordance with general Directions given
examiner’s statement by the Charity Commission. An examination includes a review of the accounting records kept by the charity and a comparison of the accounts presented with those records. It also includes consideration of any unusual items or disclosures in the accounts, and seeking explanations from the trustees concerning any such matters. The procedures undertaken do not provide all the evidence that would be required in an audit, and consequently no opinion is given as to whether the accounts present a ‘true and fair’ view and the report is limited to those matters set out in the statement below.
Independent In connection with my examination, no matter has come to my attention
examiner's statement 1. which gives me reasonable cause to believe that in, any material respect, the requirements:
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 - to keep accounting records in accordance with section 41 of the 1993 Act; and

 - to prepare accounts which accord with the accounting records and comply with the accounting requirements of the 1993 Act

 - have not been met; or
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1. to which, in my opinion, attention should be drawn in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached.

Signed: Corinne Sloan Date: 4 January 2024 Name: Corinne Sloan Relevant professional qualification(s) or body Chartered Accountant (if any): Address: 44 Kensington Park Gardens London W11 2QT

Section B Disclosure

Only complete if the examiner needs to highlight material problems.