2022-03-31-accounts

AFRICAN CHILDREN’S

FUND LTD.

ANNUAL DIRECTORS’ REPORT AND FINANCIAL STATEMENT FOR YEAR ENDING MARCH 2022

REGISTERED CHARITY NO

1114699

COMPANY LIMITED BY GUARANTEE NO 05708741

CONTENTS

• i. Administrative Information

• ii. Governing Documents

• iii. Aims and Objectives

• iv. Our Programme in Africa

• v. Education and Awareness Raising in the UK

• vi. Covid-19

• vii. Future Plans

• viii. Monitoring and Evaluation

• ix. Mitigating Risk

• x. Principal Sources of Funding

• xi. Reserves Policy

• xii. Financial Highlights

• xiii. Statement of Financial Activities xiv. Balance Sheet

i. ADMINISTRATIVE INFORMATION

Charity Name African Children’s Fund Ltd. Charity Registration No 1114699 Company Registration No 0 5708741 Registered and Operational

Office Silver Birch House

Cow Lane

Longworth Nr Abingdon Oxfordshire OX13 5EJ

Tel [phone]

Web Site www.africanchildrensfund.org

Directors Debra Beazley

Derek Bird

Caroline Blacker

Henry Chitsenga Richard Kenyon Sandra North

Company Secretary Dee Tyrer Chief Executive Officer Dee Tyrer Bankers Lloyds Bank

Solicitor Crowdy and Rose, Faringdon

ii. GOVERNING DOCUMENTS

The African Children’s Fund Ltd. is a company limited by guarantee. The governance of the organisation is laid out in The Memorandum of Association and Articles of Association for Company number 05708741, incorporated on 14[th] February 2006

The directors of the company are together the trustee of the Charity. They therefore have a duty to comply with the rules of Companies House and the Charity Commission. Being a company limited by guarantee there is no dividend.

Policies and Procedures which govern the day to day management of the organisation are set out in the Policy and Procedures Manual which is reviewed and updated regularly.

iii. OUR AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

• a. The relief of poverty, sickness, hardship and distress in African children particularly orphans, street children, child mothers, widows, those with HIV/AIDS and their families - by providing culturally appropriate care and support services.

• b. To advance education and training of the public, both in the UK and overseas, on the issues facing people from Africa, particularly sub-Saharan Africa.

iv. OUR PROGRAMME IN AFRICA

We are currently working in four African countries, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe. We support local projects run by local people and agree a Memorandum of Understanding with those groups who run the projects we fund.

During this financial year our school based projects continued to be disrupted by the partial closure of schools due to Covid 19. As the schools re-opened, many reported cases of health deficiencies including malnutrition in returning children. This compounds the loss of up to a year’s education and our partners are concentrating on giving children help to catch up.

Kenya

In Kenya we work with a local NGO, Watoto Kwanza which is based in Thika, Kiambu County providing support to the poorest children to increase their attendance at primary school. They have identified two main reasons for children dropping out of school:

i. Children from poor families need to scavenge or work during the day to obtain food

ii. Girls can’t afford sanitary protection and miss a week of schooling each month, often causing them to fall so far behind they drop out altogether.

Watoto Kwanza addresses these challenges by working closely with schools to provide school meals and sanitary towels to the poorest pupils. Their success rate is outstanding with both attendance and attainment rising steadily. Watoto Kwanza works with ten schools, including two special needs schools. As schools re-open after Covid they are working with the staff to improve washing and cooking facilities and have fortified the porridge meals with added vitamins to improve the health of returning pupils.

Our second partner is ACF Kenya which runs HAKI, a legal aid project that offers free legal advice to poor families and runs training and capacity development programmes for a variety of groups on children’s rights in Kenya. Members of HAKI also serve on the Boards of various legal committees and give a voice to children’s rights at these committees.

Tanzania

In Tanzania we work with Mfuku wa Watoto, a registered Tanzanian NGO. Covid 19 restrictions in Tanzanai were not as severe as elsewhere in East Africa and schools largely remained open. In Dar es Salaam, Mfuko wa Watoto supports a nursery school which caters for young children who would otherwise be left alone at home during the day while their parents are at work, or they would accompany their parents to work, sometimes in dangerous places such as the local quarry or going from car to car on busy roads selling items.

They also run a programme in Mateves providing sanitary protection for girls at school. The programme includes a social and education awareness element as well as the provision of packs of re-usable sanitary towels, underwear and detergent to the girls.

Mfuko Wa Watoto has a legal specialist who runs workshops for schools, churches and community centres, on children’s rights and gives advice on legal issues to vulnerable children and families, supporting them through the legal system as appropriate.

Uganda

We are continuing to work with the Ugandan registered NGO, Strategic Action for the Eradication of Child Abuse (SAFE). SAFE works with abandoned and abused children, They run a rescue home outside of the city for 20 children which provides a temporary sanctuary for rescued children until they can safely go back to a family member or to a new foster family. They also run awareness campaigns on children’s rights and although these were curtailed during the height of Covid, they are beginning to run again.

Zimbabwe

Our partner in Zimbabwe is the Mwana Trust, which cares for the basic needs of orphaned children in the Mutare area. We fund their work with children effected by HIV/AIDS. They liaise with primary schools to find places for 300 children and support them both practically and emotionally to facilitate the best possible outcomes. They also support the most vulnerable child-headed households with food and practicalities. While schools were closed they provided poor households with solar powered lights so children could do school work in the evenings, thanks to a grant from the Scurrah Wainright Charity. These lights are helping children to catch up now the schools have re-openend.

v. EDUCATION AND AWARENESS IN THE UK

We have an active website and we continue to take advantage of the Google Ads in-kind grant to improve our placing on the google search engine, this amounted to $1460’s worth of free google ads. Attracting an average of 363 visitors each week, the website gives information about all aspects of our work, both here and overseas. The news blog allows us to post news items regularly to ensure supporters are kept up to date. We produce a regular monthly e-newsletter for 424 subscribers which also ensures that volunteers, supporters, and those interested in our work are kept informed.

Our Social Network continues to grow and our Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn sites are very active with 5671 Twitter followers, 1294 Facebook followers and 348 LinkedIn followers. We also set up an Instagram account in January 2022 which so far has 126 followers. Our social media presence is important in ensuring our message reaches a wider audience and we are pleased that it has resulted in new contacts and supporters.

We have three charity shops selling donated items, in Faringdon, Witney and Grove. Each of our shops has displays and leaflets about our work and the issues faced by those with whom we work in Africa. We are extremely pleased that the Juice Networking Group in Witney extended our charity membership with them for yet another year. Membership of the group allows us to promote what we do to businesses in the area and to build positive relationships with several companies and individuals.

We are continuing to campaign about the importance of education for girls. UNESCO estimates that almost 500,000 school-age girls in Kenya do not attend school while only 63% of girls in Sub-Saharan Africa complete their primary education. One reason for this is the simple lack of sanitary protection that means girls miss a week of school each month and often fall so far behind they fall out of education altogether. Our work in this area with Watoto Kwanza in Kenya and Mfuko Wa Watoto in Tanzania provides evidence of the startling difference the provision of sanitary protection makes in the areas of school attendance, academic achievement, social awareness, self-esteem, confidence and health.

vi. COVID 19

As Covid 19 restrictions eased during the year, our shops re-opened and trading has been good thanks to the way our staff and volunteers rose to the challenge and implemented safe ways of running them. During the year we have also established online sales, through both Ebay and Amazon. Other fundraising opportunities such as in person events and sponsored activities are also beginning to take place once more.

In Africa , the closure of schools has had an extremely detrimental effect. Many of the rural children supported by our partners had extremely limited access to online or at home learning and have effectively lost a whole year’s education. Some children have not returned to school, with many being drawn into work or early marriage. Many of those who have returned are showing signs of malnutrition and associated health problems. Our partners are supplying extra fortified porridge to school children to improve nutrition.

vii. FUTURE PLANS

We plan to continue to support all our current projects in the four African countries where we work. We recognise that one of the effects of the Pandemic was to seriously curtail educational opportunities and are working with our partners to mitigate this as far as possible. Our partners all have plans to expand their work to make this happen and we are intent on raising more funds to support them

We plan to continue to develop online trading through Ebay and Amazon, building on the general increase in online shopping. We are also prioritising funding from trusts and developing a legacy strategy as well as continuing with our other current income streams.

vii. MONITORING AND EVALUATION

Monitoring and evaluation is a constant process. Our projects each send a detailed annual report and accounts which have been signed off externally. They also provide quarterly updates on their activities, and

we have produced a Monitoring and Evaluation form to facilitate this. Monitoring visits are made approximately every two years by representatives of ACF and while Covid restrictions make this difficult we are employing virtual technology to maintain personal contact.

viii. MITIGATING RISK

We keep a Risk Register which identifies potential risks and records how they are mitigated. This register is reviewed and discussed at each Trustees meeting and anything of note reported to trustees between meetings by staff.

ix. PRINCIPAL FUNDING SOURCES

Our principal sources of funding are donations from individual members of the public (including direct debits and sponsored events), direct mail, grants from trusts, legacies, events, income from our three charity shops and proceeds from static collecting boxes. We also claim gift aid on eligible donations.

x. RESERVES POLICY

We have agreed a policy whereby the unrestricted funds not remitted or invested in tangible fixed assets held by the charity should not be less than three months of salary and basic office costs. We currently have reserves of £34,317

xi. FINANCIAL HIGHLIGHTS

Voluntary donations from individuals were high this year and once our charity shops could re-open after Covid restrictions they did well. We also had an excellent response from our appeals to Charitable Trusts and we are very grateful for the grants awarded by: Scurrah Wainwright, Souter Trust, Mirianog Trust, Fulmer Trust, When Lo Trust, Calpe Trust, Nora Smith Charitable Settlement, Brian Murtagh Trust, Rathbone Trust, Van Neste Foundation, Peter Stebbings Memorial Charity, Prince of Wales Charitable Foundation and Rosie Pearson Foundation.

AFRICAN CHILDREN'S FUND LTD.

STATEMENT OF FINANCIAL ACTIVITIES FOR YR ENDING 31 MAR 2022

INCOME AND EXPENDITURE ACCOUNT

2021-22 2020-21

INCOME

Direct mail Collecting boxes Individual donations Events Trusts/Legacies Shops Gift Aid TOTAL INCOME	35,285		35,259
	10,180		5,197
	109,287		72,320
			276
	49,198		22,889
	67,622		81,020
	16,511		14,027
	288,083		230,988

PROGRAMME EXPENDITURE

Kenya Tanzania Uganda Zimbabwe Programme Development Education and Awareness TOTAL	104,238		80,734
	19,769		12,396
	16,170		13,639
	20,161		19,125
	12,665		12,665
	9,679		8,766
	182,683		147,325

COSTS

Salaries and pension Tax and National Insurance Office expences, stationary etc Bank Charges Fundraising costs Insurance Travel and subsistence Collecting Box expenses Shop expenses Utilities TOTAL	60,091		52,024
	8,931		7,993
	879		564
	406		203
	3,485		3,842
	529		539
	1,659		1,250
	1,466		800
	1,044		599
	78,491		67,814
TOTAL EXPENDITURE/COSTS	261,174
PROFIT/LOSS	26,909

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