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2024-12-31-accounts

ChallengeAid Report and accounts 31 December 2024 ChallengeAid fitfor a purpose

ChallengeAid

REPORT AND ACCOUNTS

31 December 2024

CONTENTS

Page
Company information 2
Report of the Directors 3-7
Independent Examiner's Statement 8
Statement of financial activities 9
Balance sheet 10
Notes to the accounts 11-12

ChallengeAid

COMPANY INFORMATION

Directors M. Ryan
R.J.Bywater
J. Cox
M. Ellis
I.M. Hunt
V Jones-Mathias
G.E.K Thomas
Secretary I.O. Thomas
Registered Company Number 5318179
Registered Charity Number 1109055
Registered Office 1 Kings Road
Llandovery
Carmarthenshire
SA20 OAW

ChallengeAid

REPORT OF THE DIRECTORS

The directors have pleasure in presenting their report and the accounts of the company for the period ended 31 December 2024.

Principal activities

ChallengeAid promotes health and fitness throughout the UK by motivating schools, universities, corporate groups and individuals to undertake physical challenges and raise money through sponsored activity and exercise.

Most of our challenges are organised in-house so our costs are far less than those organised by for-profit companies for other charities.

Our pledge is that none of the money raised from any of these challenges or sponsored exercise is used for administrative purposes.

The aim of our charitable giving is to create “Schools of Hope” (SoHs) for aspirational young informal slum dwellers living in extreme poverty, who may not be able to attend school during the day due to family or work commitments. These centres offer a complementary and alternative form of schooling, as well as a unique long term sustainable solution to the provision of education.

We believe that we are one of the very few charities that is able to respond effectively to some of East Africa’s ongoing issues in some of the largest slums without creating a culture of dependency or bringing knee-jerk reactions to the latest crises.

Through our work we enable some of the poorest people in Kenya and Tanzania to escape a lifetime of poverty.

The charity was established in 2005 to help disadvantaged children living in some of the worst conditions in the developing world. This is being achieved by raising the awareness of schoolchildren in the UK about the severe poverty that these children experience, largely through visits and presentations to promote exercise and awareness about the work of ChallengeAid.

Administrative costs are specially covered by trustees’ and private patrons’ donations.

ChallengeAid is a company limited by guarantee.

Financial overview:

The company received funds totalling £119,453 (March 2024: £129,044) during the 9 month period and incurred direct charitable expenditure totalling £93,508 (March 2024: £103,818). Details of awards made are given in note 4 to the accounts. The balance of funds carried forward at 31 December 2024 is £3,226 (March 2024: £3,843).

Review

Schools of Hope

Our major focus continues to be the development of Schools of Hope (SoH), which are designed to provide a complimentary education to children attending school and as an alternative education for children who either work or look after their younger siblings during the day, to help provide a path out of poverty. Most do not have lighting or space in their homes, so attending each evening during the week and during weekends and school holidays allows them to study. ChallengeAid's support covers the provision of text books, desks and chairs, secure storage space and electric lighting. There is also a programme of life skills support, covering topics such as substance misuse education and HIV/Aids awareness programmes. Unusually for Kenya and the cultural norms of East Africa, we have more girls than boys attending our SoH's. This has largely been brought about through our sponsored Sanitary Pad programme which provides all adolescent girls who attend the SoH’s regularly, with free sanitary pads. Since ChallengeAid began in 2005 over 100,000 pupils have benefitted from the SoH programme and we are currently catering for over 5,000 children each night in our Schools of Hope, at weekends and during school holidays. We currently operate 53 SoHs in Nairobi, Mombassa, Nyeri, the Aberdares, Bisil, Kajiado and Arusha in Tanzania some of which also operate during the day as virtual learning centres attached to schools.

We have in place quite an extensive extra-curricular programme the pupils have opportunities in music and drama, chess, art and debating. In addition, at weekends there are sports teams and coaching opportunities with cricket, football, rugby and volleyball. Over 60 of our 200 supervisors have been trained to basic National Standard in these sports. The extra-curricular programme had been difficult to maintain during the pandemic, though activities still continued within the communities but intercommunity competition and practice was severely curtailed due to national restrictions.

Adult Literacy and Numeracy Programme

This project is in Kajiado County - serving indigenous Masai households in 9 locations. We currently have over 1,000 learners enrolled in 9 centres set up by the project and about 85% of the participants are women. Recently the learners undertook a government exam in literacy and all passed. The Project also promotes livelihood enhancement among women. Four savings and loans groups have been formed and trained to managing a simple documentation system. The women are making craft and will be selling these outside their villages with support from the project. 960 women/mothers have received training in hygiene, nutrition and childcare - the training is carried out by the Ministry of Public Health and targets women who attend adult literacy classes. This is now a 3 year project being implemented by ChallengeAid Africa with financial support from ERKO an NGO from Slovakia, which has now been extended.

Challenges & Events

Going forward ChallengeAid aims to increase the number of challenges organised in the UK and also to increase the number of adults raising money through a wider variety of challenges. Covid restrictions have made challenges difficult but we will rebuild in 2023 with Celtic Challenge Cycle, the Welsh 3 Peaks, The Taff Trail Hike and the 100 Mile Challenge. Our events have continued successfully and have been a substantial source of income, with Six Park Place lunch, Cardiff dinners and our annual golf day at Burhill.

ChallengeAid Africa

Three years ago, ChallengeAid Africa Trust was set up as a company and foundation in its own right, which means that we no longer need to rely on partners in Kenya running the SoHs for us. This has had a huge effect, increasing our efficiency with our own dedicated co-ordinator operating out of Nairobi. This has had positive implications on ChallengeAid’s sustainability in the future, as we can now co-ordinate with all the previous partners and monitor their efficiency. Another exciting development is a new relationship with the Federation of Slum Dwellers, which will enable us to identify suitable buildings in slum areas for any future SoHs and also will be able to help us identify Community Leadership groups from our SoH Committee can be formed.

Highlights and Headlines takeaways for 2024

  1. 53 Schools of Hope (SoHs) and almost 5000 students per day.

  2. There are now 10 virtual learning centres (VLC's)

  3. Science, Maths & English lessons are delivered by 5 expert volunteer teachers from the UK.

  4. Over 660 form 4 students sat the KCSE in 2024, 34 boys and 44 girls qualified for a place at University and 44 boys and 41 girls qualified for a diploma course.

  5. In 2024,901 students sat the KCPE (primary exams), 10% more than last year, with a total of 98.7% transitioning to secondary school. The norm in Kenya for transition would be 60% with a mere 40% in informal slum settlements.

  6. Nine centres with just under 1000 young women in Kajiado (South Kenya, Masai County) are involved with women's empowerment and adult literacy sessions as most young girls, as young as 12, are forced into polygamous marriages, suffer FGM, experience early childbirth and consequently leave education.

  7. We are currently piloting a new Maths programme 'Education in a Suitcase' sponsored by the Icelandic Government with the crypto currency - Smiley Coin- "Earn as you learn". 306 students from 7 centres are participating in the programme

  8. 150 of last years leavers have already volunteered as supervisors to 'give back'. Self sustainability in action. 3-5

  9. Most SoHs are participating in soap, disinfectant and shampoo making. They are then selling these products into their communities as a way of earning a sustainable income. All the SoH's are also involved in vegetable growing.

  10. We have formal working relationships with The Federation of Slum Dwellers of Kenya, and more recently The Association of Informal Schools. There are over 100 informal schools in just two of Nairobi’s informal slums settlements as there are no Government schools in the slums.

  11. The average cost of educating a ChallengeAid pupil in our SoHs is less than 3p per day, or less than 20p per week, or £10 a year.

  12. 2500 girls receive complementary sanitary pads every month.

  13. There are 1500 boys currently participating in Boys Club. This club focuses on keeping boys in education, leadership, taking responsibility and longer-term decision making.

  14. There are currently 2465 girls participating in ‘Girls Can Clubs’ which meet to discuss topics such as womens empowerment, career and lifestyle choices, womens health and education.

  15. We have 230 sports teams for both boys and girls pariticpating regularly in secondary and primary, in rugby, cricket, football, volleyball and more recently, netball and handball.

  16. Life skills sessions are held in each of our SoHs, normally twice a month.

  17. Debating and art classes are held in some of the SoHs. Chess has become incredibly popluar, with over 565 young people participating and a chess academy has been formed for SoH students to access national and international tournaments.

  18. Approximately 40% of girls living in the slum and under the age of 17 are sexually active. Almost 50% of those girls drop out of school through unintended and unwanted pregnancies. Our average dropout rate for SoH girls is just 1.4%. We are working through the Girls Club to eliminate incidences of teenage pregnancy in the SOH programme.

  19. Of the 35 students who started our mentoring programme, all have transitioned to University. Many of the mentors are former students from our SoHs who are now either in University or have graduated and are now on career pathways. The mentorship programme is now being extended to include university-leavers.

  20. Inset lessons in maths, physics, chemistry, biology and English are being held with teachers from informal schools in Nairobi and Kisumu. Over 450 teachers have been trained in 2024.

  21. We are currently facilitating a remedial literacy and numeracy project with Strathmore University and Regional Education Learning Initiative to help the young students in the informal slum settlements who have fallen behind in these two basic areas. At the time of going to press we have currently assessed over 4000 pupils who were not attaining the national standard and spent time improving their performance.

Directors

The directors of the company who served during the period are as follows.

M. Ryan (Chair) R.J. Bywater J. Cox M Ellis I. M. Hunt V. Jones-Mathias G.E.K Thomas

The above report has been prepared in accordance with the special provisions relating to small companies within Part 15 of the Companies Act 2006.

Approved by the Board of Directors on and signed on its behalf by:

….............................................. Martyn Ryan Director

Date: 31/10/2025

ChallengeAid

INDEPENDENT EXAMINER'S REPORT

We report to the trustees on my examination of the financial statements of the charity for the period ended 31 December 2024.

Responsibilities and basis of report

As the charity's trustees, you are responsible for the preparation of the accounts in accordance with the requirements of the Charities Act 2011 (“the Act”).

We report in respect of my examination of the Trust’s accounts carried out under section 145 of the 2011 Act and in carrying out our examination, we have followed all the applicable Directions given by the Charity Commission under section 145(5)(b) of the Act.

Independent examiner's statement

We have completed our examination. We confirm that no material matters have come to our attention in connection with the examination which gives me cause to believe that in, any material respect:

We have no concerns and have come across no other matters in connection with the examination to which attention should be drawn in this report in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached.

Signed

.........................................................

Date: 31/10/2025

EST Accountants Ltd Henstaff Court Llantrisant Road Cardiff CF72 8NG

ChallengeAid

STATEMENT OF FINANCIAL ACTIVITIES

(INCORPORATING AN INCOME AND EXPENDITURE ACCOUNT) FOR THE PERIOD ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2024

INCOME AND EXPENDITURE
Note
Incoming resources
Donations
2
Gift aid repayments/HMRC refunds
Other income
Interest receivable
Total incoming resources
Resources expended
Fundraising trading costs
3
Charitable expenditure
4
Management and administration of the ch
5
Total resources expended
Net incoming/(outgoing) resources for the year
Fund balances brought forward
Fund balances carried forward at 31 December 2024		 £
119,453
5,845
-
269
125,567
12,052
93,508
20,624
126,184
(617)
3,843
3,226
December 2024
(9 months)		 £
129,044
3,822
-
419
March 2024
(12 months)
133,285
37,250
103,818
18,594
159,662
(26,377)
30,220
3,843

The notes on pages 11-12 form part of these accounts.

ChallengeAid- REGISTERED NUMBER 5318179

BALANCE SHEET

31 December 2024

Current assets
Note
Cash at bank and in hand
Creditors
Amounts falling due within one year
6
Net assets
Capital and reserves
General fund		 December
2024
£
9,226
9,226
(6,000)
3,226
3,226		 March
2024
£
9,843
9,843
(6,000)
3,843
3,843

For thefinancial period ended 31 December 2024, the company was entitled to exemption from audit under section 477 Companies Act 2006. No notice has been deposited under section 476. The directors acknowledge their responsibilities for ensuring that the company keeps accounting records which comply with section 386 oftheAct and for preparing accounts which givea trueand fair view ofthe stateof affairs of the company as at the end of the year and of its profit or loss for the financial year in accordance with the requirements of section 396 and which otherwisecomply with the requirements of theCompanies Act 2006 relating to accounts, so far as applicable to the company.

These financial statements have been prepared in accordance with the special provisions relating to small companies within Part 15 of the Companies Act 2006.

The notes on pages 11-12 form part of these accounts.

Approved by the Board of Directors and signed on its behalf by

M. Ryan Director

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Date 31/10/2025
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ChallengeAid NOTES TO THE ACCOUNTS

FOR THE PERIOD ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2024

1 Accounting policies

Basis of accounting

Theaccounts havebeen prepared in accordancewith applicablestandards, theStatement of Recommended Practice - Accounting and Reporting by Charites, and under the historical cost convention.

Incoming resources and outgoing expenditure are accounted for on an accruals basis.

December March
2024 2024
£ £
2 Donations received
School challenges 196 -
Adult challenges - -
196 -
Fund raising events 16,573 51,129
Private Donations 91,308 77,915
Grants 11,376 -
119,453 129,044
Income from schools represents 50% of funds actually raised for the schools. The balance of
funds raised is retained directly by the schools.
3 Fundraising trading costs
Fundraising events 12,052 37,250
Other - -
12,052 37,250
4 Direct charitable expenditure
St Prisca's School, Nairobi - 5,000
Challenge & exercise activity - -
ChallengeAid Africa 85,350 85,000
Direct salary costs 4,808 11,882
Direct expenses 3,350 1,936
93,508 103,818

ChallengeAid

NOTES TO THE ACCOUNTS

FOR THE PERIOD ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2024

5
Management and administration of the charity
Staff salaries
Public relations
Fundraising & Bidding consultancy
Promotional material
Legal and professional fees
Website maintenance
Premises costs
Insurance costs
Office supplies
Bank charges
Miscellaneous
6
Creditors: amounts falling due within one year
Loans
Costs incurred in the management and administration of
raised by private donors.		 December
2024
March
2024
£
£
13,330
10,326
-
-
900
-
-
37
1,634
1,862
150
423
2,027
2,446
1,482
164
569
2,201
532
769
-
366
20,624
18,594
6,000
6,000
-
-
6,000
6,000
thecharity arecovered by funds		 March
2024
£
10,326
-
-
37
1,862
423
2,446
164
2,201
769
366
18,594
6,000