Registered Charity No. 1090901
Trustees’ Annual Report for the year ended 31 December 2024
The Kanji Project
34 Vicarage Drive, Eastbourne, BN20 8AP
Trustees' Annual Report Year ended 31 December 2024
Trustees’ Annual Report for the year ended 31 December 2024
Aims and Objectives
The Objects of the Charity, as defined in its constitution, are:
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the advancement of education in India
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the relief of those in need in India, by reason of youth, age, ill-health, disability, financial hardship or other disadvantage.
The constitution permits the Charity Trustees to meet these Objects in such ways as they think fit, in particular, but not exclusively, by providing grants.
Partners
During 2024 The Kanji Project continued to work with two organisations in Tamil Nadu, India:
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St Antony’s Foundlings (SAF) is an Indian-registered charitable Society. The Society runs St Antony’s Matriculation School and Shanthi Lumin children’s home. It also assists local people in the community who are in need. Its work is centred around the small rural town of Kanji in the Tiruvannamalai District of Tamil Nadu.
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The Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (FIHM) is a religious Congregation of women based in Pondicherry. The Congregation runs The Sunshine Special School from its centre near Pudupalayam, about 12 kilometres from Kanji.
Enfants de Kanji, a small French charity, also works with St Antony’s Foundlings and liaises with The Kanji Project, sharing knowledge and experience.
Public Benefit
The Trustees of The Kanji Project are mindful of their responsibility to ensure that the Charity provides a public benefit. They communicate frequently with the key personnel in their Indian partner organisations and have dedicated liaison persons for each key partner, so that they can be confident that the work being funded is indeed providing such a benefit.
In 2024 the Trustees have maintained regular contacts with our partners in India via online meetings, telephone and email correspondence.
Governance
The Trustees have continued to meet regularly online via Teams throughout 2024. In total, the Trustees met online as a quorate group 7 times for a regular Trustees’ meeting.
This year, the trustees have undertaken a more thorough review of the charity’s policy portfolio with the intention to simplify and streamline. The updated policy portfolio and review schedule is now implemented and policies with relevance to partners are ready to be shared.
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Trustees' Annual Report Year ended 31 December 2024
Fundraising wise, this year’s major focus has been on the Walk2India initiative, TKPs ambitious project to ‘walk’ the distance between Brighton, on the South Coast of the UK, to Kanji in Tamil Nadu. The purpose of the initiative had the dual intention of raising awareness of our work whilst also collecting funds. The distance of 6,370 miles was covered by participants pledging miles by means of running, walking, swimming and biking. We saw broad engagement from supporters, friends of the charity, trustees and the pupils from St. Anthony’s school who all contributed miles. The journey was tracked by an extraordinarily elaborate website build by trustee George Foden on which distance travelled was regularly updated and accompanied by current and historical anecdotes on the connection between the enroute places and India. The initiative was a long while in the planning stages and took considerable effort from a dedicated collective of trustees. As a trustee group, we are pleased with the initiative having raised funds IRO £3,500 and proud for a small volunteer-led charity to have successfully delivered an ambitious project like this.
With regards to the distribution of funds, The Kanji Project has remained committed to being led by its partners on the ground. Regular communication allows for swift decisions to be made and to ensure that funds are used where they are most needed. The trustee group continue to monitor the impact on the ground of the money we receive from donors.
For SAF, 2024 was marked by two historical occasions. One was the planned closure of the Shanti Lumin hostel, which, following a review carried out in 2023, closed its doors in April. The winddown of the project was carefully tended to by Maria and Lourdusamy, and appropriate arrangements were made for all remaining residents to align with the ending of the school year. As the Shanthi Lumin project was the founding initiative of TKP, we plan a celebration of its legacy in 2025.
The second historical occasion marked by SAF in 2024 was the grand opening of St. Anthony’s Plus 1 and Plus 2 provision. After years of deliberation, careful scoping (and considerable pressure from the school community) it was decided to extend the school provision to offer post Standard 10 education. The school board and partners like TKP agree that providing college level education to the same high educational standard as hitherto delivered up until Standard 10, will fortify the standing of St. Anthony’s school within the wider community and greatly enhance the future prospect of young people in Kanji. The new facilities, still within the original school site, were inaugurated in June.
This year again, we conducted the AGM as an online meeting. The annual meeting saw a live presentation from Lourdusamy Michael, the head of St. Anthony’s school.
Education and Relief of Need
There are three distinct strands to the educational work funded by The Kanji Project.
St Antony’s Matriculation School takes pupils, boys and girls, regardless of caste or religion, from the age of 3 through to 18. The school has high academic standards and its results in the external examinations for the 10[th] standard school year have consistently been among the best in the region. These results are complemented by the school’s achievements in sports and a range of extracurricular activities. The school involves itself in the community with ecological projects and health awareness programmes.
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Trustees' Annual Report Year ended 31 December 2024
St Antony’s, which is run by St Antony's Foundlings, is a fee-paying school, with the fees set by the Tamil Nadu Education Department. It takes a proportion of children whose parents cannot afford to pay the full fees. Depending upon the family’s circumstances, there may be up to 100% remission of fees.
The Kanji Project provides grants to top up the fee income and so enable the subsidised places to be offered. Grants also help to finance some of the community involvement.
The Sunshine Special School takes up to sixteen children who have learning disabilities. Some of the children also have moderate to severe physical disabilities. The aim of the school is to enable each child to develop social, practical and academic skills to the extent to which he or she is able. The school is staffed by two teachers with Special Needs training, assisted by two ayahs with a particular interest in working with these children. There is close liaison between the staff and the children’s parents.
The children’s attendance records are excellent, and parents are pleased by the ways in which their children are benefiting from the school. There have been some significant improvements in children’s speech, physical agility and learning.
The Sunshine School is run by the Franciscan Sisters. No fees are charged by the school which is supported entirely by grants from The Kanji Project.
14 children between the ages of 7 and 16 have been consistently in attendance during 2024, each with their own educational plan and each making significant progress.
Village Outreach work is carried out in 5 rural villages surrounding Kanji. The work is led by SAF and has an employed outreach worker plus several peripatetic homework club teachers. Support offered in the villages include homework support for children attending either local government schools or St. Anthony’s School, Children’s Parliament sessions, health promotion activities and an income generating cooperative and loan scheme for women. This work is receiving significant interest in the villages and has great potential for scaling to include more villages in the locality.
Children’s Parliaments bring together boys and girls from different castes and religions to work together for the benefit of their communities. The parliaments are well-structured arrangements, with individuals taking responsibilities for particular roles e.g. chair, secretary, and subjects e.g. education, environment and so on. The parliaments are held in 'neutral' places such as schools, to ensure that children from differing castes or religions feel welcome. The Children’s Parliaments are effective in disseminating information, such as the prevention of diseases like Dengue Fever, and in lobbying village elders for small but significant improvements such as the repair of street lighting and the cleaning up of public wells. Through the work of the Children's Parliaments, young people are growing up with a greater sense of social responsibility and regard for the common good of their communities.
The women’s income generation scheme run as self-help groups. These groups, each with up to 15 women, meet monthly to discuss progress and future plans. Monthly subscriptions enable them to provide loans to members in urgent need, while they also access government loans to support various family needs such as education, healthcare, and livelihood development. With the
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Trustees' Annual Report Year ended 31 December 2024
cooperative support women are assisted in buying livestock and setting up market stalls to improve their household incomes.
Financial support from The Kanji Project to relieve need focuses mainly on long-term benefits rather than short-term handouts. However, the locality is vulnerable to the immediate impacts of natural disasters, weather conditions (droughts, floods), and downturns in the wider economy and SAF therefore holds a small fund, provided by The Kanji Project, from which it can give emergency grants to families and individuals, most often in the case of a medical crisis. It is only these people who receive assistance in cash.
Safeguarding
Following release of the Charity Commission’s Inquiry Report, The Gail Trust (March 2018), which emphasised the safeguarding responsibilities of UK charities who do not do direct delivery abroad but whose overseas partners have contact with potentially vulnerable individuals and groups, the Kanji Project’s Board of Trustees, in conjunction with staff at St Antony’s Foundlings, has undertaken a thorough review of our safeguarding policy and procedures. Processes for ensuring due diligence within our partner organisations have been added to our processes and a system which will alert us to potential safeguarding issues within the projects has been put in place. No incidents requiring involvement of The Kanji Project have been noted by partners during 2024.
Data protection and GDPR
Leading up to the introduction of new regulations in May 2018, the Trustees undertook a data flow analysis and updated privacy statements and consent forms to be GDPR compliant. The legal basis underpinning The Kanji Project’s data processes are Consent and Legitimate Interest. There have been no recorded breaches during 2024 and the Trustees continue to review the data that we hold on supporters to ensure that it complies with legislation.
Publicity and Liaison with Supporters
The Kanji Project sends out 2 yearly, larger newsletters and also use the news tab on our website extensively to communicate with supporters about current issues affecting our projects and the local area in which they are situated. We use Mailchimp to share regular news updates with people on our database and to launch new fundraising initiatives.
Financial Review
We finished the year with a surplus of £619 and have a healthy balance in our general account. We must thank our supporters for their great fund-raising efforts and the brilliant response to our Walk2India project. Not all donations for this came in through the dedicated Walk2India website page, but our best estimate is that the ‘walk’ raised £3,500 over the summer.
We have now funded the village outreach work in Kanji for a full year. Shanthi Lumin closed at the end of April 2024, and so the overall funding given to St. Antony’s Foundlings (SAF) was lower than in 2023. However, funding to St. Antony’s school has been maintained at the same level as in 2023 with an extra payment of £500 in November.
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Trustees' Annual Report Year ended 31 December 2024
Ongoing trends show a gradual reduction in the number of supporters paying regular monthly amounts by standing order or direct debit and the trustees see this as a key area of focus and concern for 2025. The overall figure for 2024 is some £1400 lower than in 2023. Furthermore, we can see that TKP is operating with a significantly lower level of overall income than before. This inevitably means that our options are limited when it comes to considering whether we can commit to any new project which requires regular funding over the longer term.
Yet we do plan to identify opportunities to fund one or more specific one-off projects in 2025 and plan to use some of the funds held in our reserves account for this purpose. The review of our approach to managing reserves forms an ongoing part of the trustees’ financial diligence process.
At the end of 2024, the Charity held £13,467 in the General Account and £ in the Reserve Account, a total of £15,716.
Reserves Policy
The reserves policy is up-to-date.
Risk
The Trustees are aware of the risks associated with aid to overseas countries: exchange rate fluctuations, cultural differences, creation of dependency and so on. These are taken into account when making grant decisions. They discuss with the Trustees of St Antony’s Foundlings and with the Franciscan Sisters the impacts, positive and negative, that different forms of aid may make upon the Indian village communities. They also periodically review risks more generally.
Structure, governance and management
The Kanji Project is an unincorporated association registered by the Charity Commission on 4th March 2002 and governed by a Constitution (last updated 25 April 2015). It is managed by trustees.
Trustees
Trustees are elected by members at the Annual General Meeting. They may also be co-opted until the next Annual General Meeting by the existing Trustees. Trustees are themselves members of the charity.
When seeking to recruit new trustees, the existing Trustees are mindful of the skills, knowledge and experience needed by the Board of Trustees. We continue to review the Trustee Board’s need for new membership.
Prior to appointment, potential trustees are interviewed, two references are obtained, and, if successful, the new trustee is required to sign a declaration confirming their eligibility to serve. New Trustees are provided with information giving them an overview of the charity’s operations, but much of the Trustee induction is done informally with further information being supplied as needed in Trustee meetings and in other communications.
Trustees meet about every six weeks. They do not receive remuneration for their work with the charity, but expenses incurred solely for charity business are reimbursed on request.
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Trustees' Annual Report Year ended 31 December 2024
Trustees who served in 2024 were
Jennifer Cruse re-elected 29/06/2024 Veronica Clark re-elected 17/06/2023 George Foden re-elected 02/07/2022 Sofie Franzen (Chair) re-elected 29/06/2024
Pamela Jones retired 29/06/2024 Alison Worgan re-elected 02/07/2022 Peter Dacombe re-elected 02/07/2022 Benjamin Skinner elected 17/06/2023 Lesley Arend elected 29/06/2024
Patron and President
Lady Cotton is a Patron of The Kanji Project. Mr Ian Parr is the President of the Charity.
Volunteers
The Kanji Project is run entirely by volunteers: the Trustees plus the many other people who give of their time and their skills to the Charity. It is thanks to all these people that the Charity can commit such a large proportion of its income to its charitable purposes.
Serious Incidents
The Trustees are legally obliged to report to The Charity Commission any serious incident (e.g. fraud) adversely affecting the charity. No such serious incident has occurred during 2024.
Bankers
CAF Bank Ltd 25 Kings Hill Avenue Kings Hill West Malling Kent ME19 4JQ Honorary Legal Adviser Elizabeth Jones
Approved by the Trustees on 18/02/2025 and signed on their behalf by
Sofie K Franzen
Chair of Trustees Signature
Date 18/02/25
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Trustees' Annual Report Year ended 31 December 2024
Independent Examiner’s Report to the Trustees of The Kanji Project Trust
I report to the trustees on my examination of the accounts of The Kanji Project Trust (“the Trust”) for the year ended 31 december 2024.
Responsibilities and basis of report
As the charity trustees of the Trust you are responsible for the preparation of the accounts in accordance with the requirements of the Charities Act 2011 (‘the Act’).
I report in respect of my examination of the Trust’s accounts carried out under section 145 of the 2011 Act and in carrying out my examination I have followed the applicable Directions given by the Charity Commission under section 145(5)(b) of the Act.
Independent examiner’s statement
I have completed my examination. I confirm that no material matters have come to my attention in connection with the examination which gives me cause to believe that in, any material respect:
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accounting records were not kept in accordance with section 130 of the Act or
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the accounts do not accord with the accounting records
I have no concerns and have come across no other matters in connection with the examination to which attention should be drawn in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached.
Nick Westcott
Retired Bank Official 15 Motcombe Road Eastbourne East Sussex 5 February 2025
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Trustees' Annual Report Year ended 31 December 2024
Financial Statement for the year ended 31 December 2024
CAF Cash General Account
| 2024 | 2023 | |
|---|---|---|
| RECEIPTS | ||
| Regular donations | 20,533 | 21,962 |
| One-off donations (1) | 3,667 | 2,552 |
| Fund-raising events | 2,311 | 3,026 |
| Gift Aid payments from HMRC | 5,094 | 5,151 |
| Sale of Indian artefacts | 0 | 345 |
| Bank interest | 29 | 31 |
| TOTAL | 31,634 | 33,067 |
| PAYMENTS | ||
| Grants to St. Antony's Foundlings | ||
| - School + Shanthi Lumin grants (2) | 13,165 | 16,950 |
| - Village outreach work | 3,000 | 1,500 |
| - Salaries and allowances | 8,300 | 8,500 |
| Grants to IDHAYA - the Sunshine School | 5,600 | 6,220 |
| Bank charges | 291 | 280 |
| Printing - newsletters, cards, flyers | 338 | 299 |
| Postage | 145 | 96 |
| Website hosting and helpdesk | 176 | 161 |
| Purchase of Indian artefacts | 0 | 266 |
| Membership fee | 0 | 50 |
| Trustee expenses | 0 | 202 |
| TOTAL | 31,015 | 34,524 |
| Excess of receipts over payments | 619 | -1,457 |
| CAF Gold Reserve Account | ||
| Receipts- Interest (2) | 476 | 174 |
| Payments | 0 | 0 |
| Balance Sheet - Assets | ||
| CAF Cash General Account | 13,467 | 12,848 |
| CAF Gold Reserve Account | 15,716 | 15,240 |
| TOTAL | 29,183 | 28,088 |
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Trustees' Annual Report Year ended 31 December 2024
Notes
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The figures for one-off donations and fundraising both include donations to support the Walk to India fundraising project. This raised approximately £3,500.
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The 2024 figure for interest on this account appears to be higher than in 20232 This is due to an oversight in the 2023 accounts. The figure of £174 did not include the fourth interest payment of the year. As a result, the 2023 figure was made up of three interest payments and the 2024 figure is made up of 5 interest payments.
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