FRIENDS OF ALALAY (SANTA CRUZ)
Annual Report to Year End 31 December 2022
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
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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
We have continued our scholarship programmes and eight children have been in vocational training, four having completed their courses and received qualifications.
3.1 Projects and other supporting payments made
In addition to continue to hold some funds in reserve to protect our children and staff from Covid 19, and especially Omicron (in the event this was not needed), we continued to invest in:
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the production of around 7,000 panettone for sale at the end of 2022 by the children and staff. The profitability of this project was in the region of £9,000
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completing the vocational training of remaining children. The training scholarships that we are able to provide are proving invaluable
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the vocational training for four further students
In October our girls’ football team travelled to Doha and took part in the “Street Child Football World Cup 2022” and finished fourth in the world – a great achievement
Once more, a continuing financial shortfall of Alalay funds from other sources meant that we also continued to pay the salary of one house parent.
3.2 Volunteers
No volunteers were sent by FoA to Alalay in Santa Cruz this year. Since this report is being written during the war in Ukraine, and other international unrest, we consider it unlikely that there will be any significant use of volunteers in the following year (ie 2023).
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3.3 Presentations, events and publicity
FoA continue to send out a Quarterly newsletter. Our aim continues to be that this would not exceed a single sheet – as previously this has always been much appreciated by our readers! It was twice increased to two pages in the current year, because of the need for an extensive listing of our past projects and the great international success of our girls’ football team.
3.4 Concert
In November a charity concert was held in St Matthew’s Church, which was well-attended and a great success, raising over £800 and publicising our work.
3.5 Website
Our website continues to attract new contacts and some new donors. We regard this and our Facebook and other social media outlets to be increasingly important to our work. We recognise a need to update our website but this has proved impossible in the current year and is unlikely to be achieved in the near future.
3.6 Communication with Bolivian staff
During this year we introduced Zoom meetings on important issues with staff in Bolivia and this has proved enormously beneficial.
4. POLICIES
We maintain the following written policies, and these were reviewed and confirmed in July. 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. FINANCIAL REVIEW
In our previous Trustee Report for the year to 31 December 2021 we rather gloomily reported that in the current difficult economic climate our income for that year was reduced by around 20% compared to the previous year. We are pleased to report that this situation has improved considerably (with an increase of just over 15%) and that with prudent planning and action we have rebuilt our contingency fund to more than £10,000.
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It is perhaps worth repeating a statement made in our previous two reports, namely:
“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”.
Long may this continue, and with careful attention to detail and good financial control we have every reason to believe that next year will see even more improvement.
6. CONCLUSIONS
It seems that our optimism has been repaid and we have been able to continue to protect our children and staff from the Covid 19 virus, whilst still achieving our other priority objectives.
In our last report we stressed the importance of rebuilding our contingency fund. This has been achieved and we have ambitious plans for the coming year.
It is good to end on this positive and optimistic note!
Annie Syrett Graham Syrett Rosamund Syrett
15 March 2023
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FRIENDS OF ALALAY (SANTA CRUZ) Registered number 1123425
PROFIT/LOSS ACCOUNT FOR FINANCIAL YEAR ENDED 31 December 2022
INCOME
Donations Reimbursement from Bank (01/04/22) Administration payment by family Interest
30,466.69 43.54 360.00 47.43
Total Income
£30,917.66
EXPENDITURE
JustGiving costs
216.00 20,000.00 43.54
Bank charges for currency transfers 10.00 Funds transfer Santa Cruz (15/03/21) 20,000.00 Fraudulent withdrawal (31/03/22) 43.54
Total expenditure
£20,269.54
PROFIT RETAINED £10,648.12
02 May 2023