2020-12-31-accounts - Friends Of Alalay (Santa Cruz)

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FRIENDS OF ALALAY (SANTA CRUZ) Annual Report to Year End 31 December 2020

1. BASIC DETAILS AND STRUCTURE

Friends of Alalay (Santa Cruz) – in this Report now referred to as FoA

Registration number 1123425

Registered address 13 Fremantle Road Cotham Bristol BS6 5SY

The FoA Trust comprises three family trustees:

Annie Syrett (Chair) Graham Syrett (Treasurer) Rosamund Syrett

All decisions of consequence are taken jointly and appropriately minuted.

Trustees are currently chosen by appointment of the other Trustees.

The Trust supports and works with the Alalay Foundation, in Santa Cruz, Bolivia.

2. ACTIVITIES AND OBJECTIVES

These have remained the same since the initial registration of the charity.

2.1 The principal activities are:

To advance education, preserve health, relieve poverty and otherwise meet the needs of street children supported by Alalay in the city of Santa Cruz, Bolivia, by providing funding as determined by the Trustees and by educating and informing people (especially school children and students) on the plight, circumstances and needs of these street children.

2.2 Our philosophy and principal objectives are:

That funds raised will be used in either educating, training or developing the children

and

establishing projects that will become self-financing within six months and invariably aid in the development of the skills of the children.

That no funds raised will be used to meet administrative costs of FoA in the UK or elsewhere (eg travel, stationery, telephone, publicity, bank charges and so on). These will be met directly from family funds and there are no conflicts of interest.

3. ACHIEVEMENTS AND EVENTS IN THE REPORT YEAR

Our plans for 2020 were substantially changed in February 2020 when it began to be clear that COVID 19 might have serious repercussions throughout the developed World and almost certainly disastrous consequences for the less developed regions.

These fears were compounded at the start of the year by the death from the virus of “Richi” (Richard Krust) the husband of Claudia Gonzales, the Founder and CEO of the Alalay Foundation.

The Trustees decided that the children and staff at Alalay in Santa Cruz must be protected from any initial infections by the virus, in so far as it was possible, since it was likely to spread quickly amongst the 100+ children in our care. Isolation procedures were put in place, appropriate protection equipment purchased and considerable effort put into educating both staff and children in the basic precautions that must be taken.

To this end it was decided to release the bulk of our funds at this time (including our normal contingency and reserve funding - normally held at 50% of funds).

We clearly explained the situation to our regular donors – including that we no longer held contingency funds. And they responded magnificently!

In hindsight these were wise moves, as Bolivia has been hard hit by the virus with high levels of infection and death.

3.1 COVID 19

In the event we were very successful in protecting our children from the virus, with no resultant serious illness. Some staff (who were needing to also be working or tending their own families in the outside world) did contract the virus but there have been no direct fatalities at Alalay in Santa Cruz.

At a later stage in the year we were able to release unused funds to support other aspects of our programme.

3.2 Projects and other supporting payments made

As already indicated, some of our initial funding went towards protective equipment and so on, but we also invested heavily in supporting the training and distance-schooling of our children so that they would not fall behind other more advantaged children.

In addition during the year our support included:

Once more the production of around 10,000 panettone for sale at the end of 2020 by the children and staff. We do not have current information regarding the profitability of this project but we anticipate it to be in the region of £8,000
Funds were provided to complete the vocational training of three boys
In addition, funds were transferred for vocational training for three further students

The planned rebuilding of a children’s playground and also capital equipment, including a dehydration machine, cutter and vacuum packing equipment is still delayed until a future date.

Once more, although not strictly meeting our original stated objectives, a continuing serious financial shortfall of Alalay funds from other sources meant that we also continued to pay the salary of one house parent.

3.3 Volunteers

No volunteers were sent by FoA to Alalay in Santa Cruz this year.

3.4 Presentations, events and publicity

FoA continue to send out a Quarterly newsletter. Our aim had always been that this would not exceed a single sheet - which has always been much appreciated by our target readers! This has been increased to 1½ pages in the current year because of the need for more extensive explanations of our Covid 19 actions.

We have been unable to speak at public meetings, nor hold other presentations, because of Government requirements for lockdowns.

However, Michael Jones, a world-renowned cellist, undertook a sponsored cycle ride on our behalf and raised significant funds.

3.5 Website

Our previous report contained a typographic error – the number of annual hits on our Website was around 100,000 and not a million as stated. The current level is around 120,000 and we now have increased activity on our Facebook pages.

It is gratifying that several people, previously unknown to us, have made significant donations resulting from their contact via our webpage.

4. Policies

We maintain the following written policies, which are normally reviewed annually. They are:

risk assessment and management, investment, safeguarding and child protection, conflicting interests, volunteer management, complaints handling, Gift Aid, privacy and data protection, and website data protection.

5. ATTEMPTED FRAUD

There were no known attempts at fraud during the current year. One way in which we have achieved this outcome is that only our Business Reserve Account details are publicised – and this does not accept Direct Debit arrangements (which had been the main route to past fraud).

6. FINANCIAL REVIEW

One result of our clearly explaining our urgent need to protect and support our children was an increase in giving of almost 20% in the year – with our most financially successful year to date and income of over £30,000.

We are in the fortunate position of having a wide support base, with a large number of donors giving via standing orders, and several consistent and reliable larger commercial donors.

However, it seems likely that the next year will be no less challenging than the last, and we continue to manage our resources prudently!

We have moved our currency conversions from the NatWest Bank and now arrange exchanges from sterling into dollars, and onwards transmission, through American Express, with a consequent 50% reduction in fees and excellent service.

7. CONCLUSIONS

This was another difficult year but one in which we met our primary goal of protecting our children and staff from the Vovid 19 virus and achieving our other important secondary goals, viz educating and training the agreed numbers of children, paying a house-mother and creating income through the production and sale of panettone.

In addition we were able to provide further contingency funding to help maintain good health amongst our children and staff.

We remain vigilant for the coming year – Bolivia is greatly disadvantaged regarding the potential spread and continuing damage resulting from the pandemic because of a low availability of bulk vaccine supplies, poor infrastructure and a lack of awareness and sensible precautions on the part of the general population.

Protecting our children, whilst still providing high levels of care and continued education and training, will remain our priorities over much of 2021. However, our current experiences encourage us to remain optimistic for the short-term future.

Annie Syrett Graham Syrett Rosamund Syrett

04 February 2021

FRIENDS OF ALALAY (SANTA CRUZ) Registered number 1123425

PROFIT/LOSS ACCOUNT FOR FINANCIAL YEAR ENDED 31 December 2020

INCOME Donations 36,109.54 Administration payment by family 1,362.40 Interest 14.04 Total Income £37,485.98

EXPENDITURE JustGiving costs 216.00 Bank charges for currency transfers 10.00 Funds transfer Santa Cruz (29/05/20) 25,000.00 Total expenditure £25,226.00 PROFIT/LOSS RETAINED £12,259.98

28 February 2021

Independent examiner's report on the accounts

Section A Independent Examiner’s Report

Report to the trustees/ Friends of Alalay (Santa Cruz) members of On accounts for the year Charity no 31.12.20 ended (if any) 1123425 Set out on pages 1 - 2

I report to the trustees on my examination of the accounts of the above charity (“the Trust”) for the year ended 31.12.20 .

Responsibilities and As the charity trustees of the Trust, you are responsible for the preparation basis of report 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 I have completed my examination. I confirm that no material matters have examiner's statement come to my attention (other than that disclosed below *) in connection with the examination which gives me cause to believe that in, any material respect:

accounting records were not kept in accordance with section 130 of the Act or
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.

Please delete the words in the brackets if they do not apply.

Signed: Date: 12.08.21 Name: Ieuan Ward Relevant professional Chartered Tax Adviser qualification(s) or body Chartered Institute of Taxation (if any): Address: Ingenhaag LLP

39 Eastcheap, London

EC3M 1DT

October 2018

IER

Section B Disclosure

Only complete if the examiner needs to highlight matters of concern (see CC32, Independent examination of charity accounts: directions and guidance for examiners).

Give here brief details of None. any items that the examiner wishes to disclose .

October 2018

IER