Tea Leaf Trust
Registered Charity Number: 123427
Trustees’ Report and Financial Statements
For the Year Ended 31 December 2022
Trustees’ Report
Table of Contents
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Reference and Administrative Details
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Message from the Chair
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Objectives and Activities
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Impact
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Fundraising Review
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Financial Review
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Forward Strategy
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Trustees’ Responsibilities in Relation to the Accounts
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Trustees’ Report
1. Reference and Administrative Details
The trustees present their report with the financial statements of the charity for the year ended 31 December 2022. The trustees have adopted the provisions of the Statement of Recommended Practice (SORP) 'Accounting and Reporting by Charities' issued in March 2015.
Registered Charity number
123427
Principal office
2 Miles Cross Cottages Miles Cross Symondsbury, Bridport Dorset
Trustees
Caoimhe Ní Eochagain (2014) James Houston (2019) Laurenne Ajayi (2016) Stéphanie Ray (2019) Yasmene B. Shah (2008) Naveen Supramaniam (2021)
Resigned from Board of Trustees
Emma Richards (2020) resigned as of 15th May 2022
Independent Examiner
Hilary Adams
Structure, Governance and Management
Governing document
Tea Leaf Trust is a charity registered in England and Wales. The charity (registered charity number 123427) was entered on the Register of Charities on 3 April 2008. The charity is overseen by its Board of Trustees to raise funds and work in partnership with Tea Leaf Centres for Professional Development, to deliver educational development projects in Sri Lanka. The areas of primary focus for our work are the tea estate areas and surrounding towns and villages.
The trustees meet on a quarterly basis to review expenditure, set priorities, and review progress against strategic goals and key performance indicators. They also provide mentoring and guidance to the Central Team, who lead on the development and expansion and oversee all activities of the organisation in Sri Lanka. Trustees undergo a formal recruitment and selection process and are given the training considered necessary to perform their role effectively.
Risk management
The trustees have a duty to identify and review the risks to which the charity is exposed and to ensure appropriate controls are in place. Measures are in place to ensure this happens on an annual basis.
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2. Message from the Chair
It is my honour to present to you the annual report of Tea Leaf Trust, highlighting the remarkable achievements and challenges faced by our organisation in the past year.
Reflecting on the economic and political crisis of 2022, I acknowledge the continued and immense challenges our team on the ground in Sri Lanka, and the communities we serve, have faced. From the Easter Sunday Bombings in April 2019, which disrupted our programmes, to the subsequent pandemic and the recent crisis, we have weathered a tumultuous period. However, it is through these challenges that we have built resilience, expanded our capacity, and recognised the strength of our networks and the trust for us within our community. We emerge from these trials stronger than ever, ready to face the future with renewed determination.
Undoubtedly, the political and economic crisis of 2022 posed significant difficulties for us. However, despite the adversities, I am delighted to inform you that our KNH pilot was an outstanding success. The programme's success has led to a request for a phase one proposal to cover the next five years, aiming to expand from 20 to 100 self-help groups. This expansion will enable us to reach even more individuals and empower them to improve their lives and uphold the rights of their children through education and skill development.
In December 2022, the Rotary International Teacher Training project concluded, surpassing its target of 80 by graduating 106 government schoolteachers. This accomplishment is a testament to our commitment to enhancing the quality of education in the region. By equipping teachers with the necessary skills, we are empowering them to make a profound impact on the lives of countless students.
Our "Support a Student, Strengthen a Community" campaign was launched in response to the economic crisis, providing hardship support to 195 students and their families. This initiative ensured that these students did not have to make the difficult choice between education and necessities. Not only did this campaign alleviate immediate hardships, but it also doubled the number of regular donors, showcasing the compassion and generosity of our community.
I am pleased to announce that we are expanding our reach with the opening of two new centres in January 2023. Thanks to the development of new partnerships, these centres will enable us to extend our services to more individuals in need. Furthermore, by the end of this year, we plan to open a sixth centre, further cementing our presence and impact within the communities we serve.
Amidst the ongoing humanitarian crisis on the tea estates, we have been able to provide additional support for 34,185 individuals. Our extensive network of over 2,000 alumni across more than 170 tea estates, coupled with 47 out of 50 staff members being graduates of our programme, has positioned us uniquely to respond to the needs of the most vulnerable members of our communities. All in all, through hardship, medical and housing support, we provided an additional Rs 13 million during 2022 to provide a vital safety net for the communities we serve. We remain dedicated to helping those affected by the crisis, ensuring that they receive the assistance and resources they require.
I am particularly proud of our Main Diploma program, which graduated 184 students last year. Despite dire circumstances, with fuel shortages and limited transportation options, the commitment shown by the students and their families was truly remarkable. In response to these challenges, when the country came to a complete standstill, we opened seven pop-up classrooms within walking distance of our main catchment areas, ensuring that education continued to be accessible to all.
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In conclusion, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to our dedicated team, our trustees, our supporters, and most importantly, the individuals we serve. It is through your unwavering commitment and belief in our mission that we have achieved these incredible milestones. As we navigate the year ahead, I have no doubt that we will continue to make a lasting impact on the lives of those living within Sri Lanka’s tea estate areas.
Le meas (with respect),
Caoimhe Ní Eochagáin Chair, Tea Leaf Trust
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Trustees’ Report
3. Objectives and Activities
The objectives of the charity are:
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Assisting people to obtain and retain employment through training, imparting skills, education, and creation of opportunity.
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Helping people of low income or in poverty regardless of their religion, culture, gender, or personal situations.
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Assisting in building and construction projects that will provide shelter and infrastructure for local people for enhancement of their education, and of their standard of life through the development of agriculture, industry, trade, water supply and sanitation.
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Any other activities necessary for or ancillary to the foregoing objects.
The trustees confirm that they have referred to the guidance contained in the Charity Commission's general guidance on public benefit when reviewing the charity's aims and objectives.
3.1 Why We Do It
Indian-origin Tamil communities in Sri Lanka have long been responsible for picking the leaves that make their way into teacups around the globe. However, very little has changed or improved for these communities in the centuries since they were first sent from South India to work in Sri Lanka’s plantations, with both government and private companies establishing and maintaining harmful, exploitative systems to cultivate a dependent, uneducated workforce.
With a lack of meaningful ways to break free of this cycle of poverty, these tea estates face significant and complex social issues. Rates of suicide, alcoholism and domestic violence are high, with larger national issues such as ethnic tension, civil unrest, economic as well as political crises, and global issues such as Covid-19, hitting these under-resourced and underserved communities even harder than elsewhere.
Tea estate youth - if they complete their formal schooling, a challenge itself in families where those who can work often need to support the family unit - are often discriminated against when seeking employment. In 2022, 100% of the young people who attend Tea Leaf Centres lived on less than $1 per day, a situation that is becoming more difficult rather than easier in the worsening economic crisis. As such, the usual options available to these young people remain limited: remain in the tea estates or take dangerous or exploitative work as domestic servants or labourers in urban areas or overseas.
3.2 What We Do
The aim of Tea Leaf Trust, by way of the Tea Leaf Centres, is to facilitate the development of tea estate communities through practical, necessary, and relevant education. This provision is focused on supporting young people to be equipped with the appropriate skills for the formal job market and to build their emotional resilience, with a curriculum focused on developing English language proficiency, entrepreneurship, IT skills, professionalism, community service and emotional health.
Tea Leaf Trust is unique. The primary educational centre in Maskeliya together with two satellite centres (Nuwara Eliya and Tallawakelle) and other community-based projects we run in the surrounding areas are run by a young staff team, all under the age of 34, the majority of whom are graduates of the programme themselves. As these staff are from the local tea estates, they provide strong, positive role models for their communities and have in-depth insight into their students’ lives.
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3.3 Our Programmes
Tea Leaf Centres make a significant impact on the communities they serve with programmes facilitated and developed through the hard work and the insight of staff, students and alumni. We have four main areas of programming, all overseen by the central Leadership Team. These are Women’s Empowerment; Vocational Training; Government Teacher Training; and Educational Outreach including basic English and health and nutrition:
Women’s Empowerment
Children’s Rights Programme. A new programme, which is completing a very successful pilot stage, is being delivered in partnership with Kindernothilfe (KNH), a German NGO. It has the objective of building capacity for and amongst the most disempowered and stigmatised women within tea estate communities. At the end of 2022, KNH invited our application to move from the pilot stage to first phase delivery. The project will establish 80 more self-help groups in its first phase with the aim of collective learning and increasing political, social, and economic capital with a long-term benefit in improving children’s rights within the plantation sector.
In 2022, our pilot completed having supported the formation of 20 self-help groups with 400 women and 822 children engaged regularly.
Vocational Training - Tea Leaf Centres
These centres are the mainstay of our charity work. Each centre offers a one-year, full-time and free Main Diploma for young people who are unemployed and between the ages of 18 and 26 years old. The Main Diploma is an immersive English programme with subjects in: English Grammar; Speech and Advocacy; Careers and Enterprise; I.T.; and Success and Ethics (teaching personal development, ethical leadership and service).
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We also teach additional subjects such as gender empowerment and emotional health as well as provide opportunities for students to lead positive change in their communities through running free English classes and activity programmes for children from their tea estates as well as delivering regular strategic service projects to improve conditions and raise awareness of social issues and provide signposting to other specialist NGOs.
Tea Leaf Centre Maskeliya. Our original and flagship centre, Tea Leaf Centre Maskeliya is where this all began. The Centre is funded by Tea Leaf Trust and our supporters, and usually enrols around 185 students per year, focusing on English, ICT, employability and professional skills as well as emotional health. In ‘normal’ years, these students reach around 2,300 people through the Community English programme, another 2,000 through the Children’s Activity Programme, and around 35,000 in their communities. The programme is oversubscribed with a long waiting list. However, due to the economic crisis, our impact in 2022 was:
116 Main Diploma graduates aged between 18 and 26.
11 Advanced Diploma graduates aged between 18 and 26.
1164 children aged between 7 and 11 regularly attending the Children’s English Programme. 800 children aged between 5 and 16 attending the Children’s Activity Programme. 13,153 community members gaining support through our structured service projects.
Tea Leaf Centre Nuwara Eliya. The first of our satellite centres, this centre was part funded in 2022 by Tea Leaf Trust and Gnanam Foundation. In ‘normal’ years, it sees around 50 full time main diploma students per year, who themselves reach 500 children for both the Community English Programme and the Children’s Activity Programme, and around 15,000 community members. The programme is oversubscribed with a long waiting list. However, due to the economic crisis, our impact in 2022 was:
34 Main Diploma graduates aged between 18 and 26.
2 Advanced Diploma graduates aged between 18 and 26.
1164 children aged between 7 and 11 regularly attending the Children’s English Programme. 435 children aged between 5 and 16 attending the Children’s Activity Programme. 10,295 community members gaining support through our structured service projects.
Tea Leaf Palmerston. The second of our satellite centres, this centre was established in partnership with T-Field Child Development Federation, the centre’s funder. Like the Nuwara Eliya centre, in ‘normal’ years, it sees around 50 full time main diploma students per year, who themselves reach 500 children for both the Community English Programme and the Children’s Activity Programme, and around 15,000 community members. However, due to the economic crisis, our impact in 2022 was:
34 Main Diploma graduates aged between 18 and 26.
1164 children aged between 7 and 11 regularly attending the Children’s English Programme. 212 children aged between 5 and 16 attending the Children’s Activity Programme.
5,470 community members gaining support through our structured service projects.
By the end of 2022, funding had been secured to expand from three to five centres in the tea estates adding Tea Leaf Centre Bogawantalawa to take the pressure off Tea Leaf Centre Maskeliya, which is only able to offer one in every four applicants a place and Tea Leaf Centre Udapussalawa to push out into a new geographical area with many plantations.
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Government Teacher Training
Rotary Teacher Training Programme. This programme was funded through a Rotary International Global Grant and completed at the end of 2022. It was delivered in partnership with the Rotary Clubs of Bathavon and Colombo West (and their partner clubs). Starting in 2020, it engaged primary and secondary government schoolteachers and aimed to improve their skills to speak English better; to teach English better; and be better equipped to plan interactive engaging English lessons.
There were two cohorts of Government school teachers in 2022, each lasting six months graduating 58 teachers in total. The project was enormously successful, particularly under the circumstances and agility needed to keep it relevant and attainable during the pandemic and then the economic and political crisis.
3.4 Staffing
In 2022, Tea Leaf Centres were staffed by a total of 40 staff:
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Tea Leaf Centre Maskeliya: 11 Teachers; two Senior Teachers; one Administrator; one Finance Officer; one Outreach Project Coordinator; one Senior Outreach and Employability Coordinator; the Deputy Principal and the Principal.
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Tea Leaf Centre Nuwara Eliya: One Senior Teacher; one Administrator; one Finance Officer; one Outreach Project Coordinator: one Media Coordinator and the Principal.
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Tea Leaf Centre Palmerston: One Senior Teacher; one Teacher; and the Principal (Finance Officer shared with TLC Nuwara Eliya)
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Other programming: The Children’s Rights Programme (with KinderNotHilfe) was staffed by seven team members; there was one member of staff responsible for the Rotary Teacher Training Programme; and there are four members of staff in the Senior Leadership Team.
Of these 40 staff, all have been their family’s primary earners this year as the economic crisis caused further and widespread unemployment across multiple sectors.
4. Impact
After working through the pandemic to support communities through the Covid disruptions in 2021, the past year has seen Sri Lanka plummet into economic and political crisis. The impacts of this have been soaring food prices (a kilo of rice went from Rs 80 /- in January to Rs 230 /- by July) and fuel (rising from around Rs 170 /- to almost Rs 500 /- per litre during the year). In July 2022, the country was brought to a complete standstill as the Central Bank had no reserves and imports - with fuel being the most significant - were no longer possible. This led to week-long queues at petrol stations and the collapse of tourism.
These dire circumstances led to a humanitarian crisis in the tea estates that will continue long into 2023. Families are eating one meal a day and have been forced to choose between schooling and eating. The lack of fuel meant extending time needed to collect firewood and the health impacts of this method of cooking being used more widely. In real time, this also meant the highest drop-out rates in our history of operating as families reluctantly had to ask their children to go out and find work. The country suffered a huge exodus of talent abroad.
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Our response was to provide increased support for students through the provision of bus fare and, for the first time ever we paid a monthly stipend into our students’ households of Rs 4,000 a month from July to December through our “Support a Student, Strengthen a Community” crowdfunding campaign. We also gave three additional monthly salary increments to all of our staff members during the year, which will be reduced gradually as the country’s economy recovers. In addition, senior team members checked in with students and staff on a regular basis as part of a programme to support emotional health, with counselling also made available. All in all, through hardship, medical and housing support, we provided an additional almost Rs 13 million during 2022 to provide a vital safety net for the communities we serve.
Due to the economic crisis and the increased need for all able family members to contribute to household expenses, graduation rates were low: 116 in Maskeliya with 11 Advanced Diploma students graduating, 34 in both Nuwara Eliya and Palmerston. In total, 195 students graduated in 2022. However, in the face of the collapse of the tourism sector and other challenges, remarkably, employment rates were high. In Maskeliya, 80% of 2021 graduates were supported into employment, while in Nuwara Eliya and Palmerston the figures were 54% and 69% respectively.
Above: the winning group of Tea Leaf Centre Nuwara Eliya Speech Conference
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Above: a Main Diploma student at Graduation
Throughout the year, students at all three centres supported their communities through structured service projects. TLC Maskeliya supported 13,153 community members; TLC Nuwara Eliya supported 10,295 and TLC Palmerston supported 5,470. In total, 28,918 community members were helped in 2022.
Above: Students serve a lunchtime meal to some tea pickers who have been eating only once a day
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We also train our students to have the confidence and skills to lead their communities and to pay forward the English knowledge that they learn with us. Usually, the Children’s English Programme sees all our Main Diploma students returning to their local government primary schools on a weekly basis to teach structured English classes for free. However, due to the economic challenges and fuel shortages limiting travel, in 2022 this programme was run in 47 community centres local to our students’ homes. Despite the huge disruption in 2022, our 195 graduates taught 1,811 children basic English. Through our Children’s Activity Programme, 1,750 spent two days learning about health and nutrition through games and craft activities.
Below: Main Diploma students perform their social drama showing the dangers of alcohol addiction
Our pilot children’s rights through women’s empowerment project, in partnership with KinderNotHilfe was hugely successful. This is particularly impressive given the historical difficulties faced in engaging women from these communities over a sustained period. 20 self-help groups were formed with 20 of the most marginalised tea estate women in each. In addition to these 400 women, their 822 children were also supported.
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4.1 Impact in Numbers
| Year/Programme | MD | AD | CEP | SP | CAP | BEP | TTP | ERP | Annual Total |
| 2010 | 101 | 0 | 650 | 2,000 | 0 | 113 | N/A | N/A | 2,864 |
| 2011 | 107 | 11 | 590 | 3043 | 1507 | 162 | N/A | N/A | 5,420 |
| 2012 | 155 | 12 | 1750 | 1820 | 2611 | 216 | N/A | N/A | 6,564 |
| 2013 | 148 | 13 | 1895 | 19000 | 1877 | 288 | N/A | N/A | 23,221 |
| 2014 | 135 | 17 | 1932 | 10889 | 2855 | 235 | N/A | N/A | 16,063 |
| 2015 | 146 | 15 | 1885 | 26315 | 2024 | 254 | N/A | N/A | 30,639 |
| 2016 | 155 | 15 | 1864 | 46,165 | 2016 | 331 | N/A | N/A | 50,546 |
| 2017 | 233 | 14 | 2045 | 35340 | 2068 | 258 | N/A | N/A | 39,958 |
| 2018 | 261 | 12 | 2104 | 62,149 | 2123 | 210 | N/A | N/A | 66,859 |
| 2019 | 236 | 8 | 836 | 81,748 | 2,091 | 381 | N/A | N/A | 85,300 |
| 2020 | 304 | 17 | 0* | 47,268 | 0** | 40 | 19 | 13,660 | 61,308 |
| 2021 | 113 | 8 | 0* | 11,810 | 0** | 9 | 29 | N/A | 11,969 |
| 2022 | 184 | 11 | 1,811 | 28,918 | 1,750 | 212 | 58 | 1,230 | 34,185 |
| Total | 2,278 | 153 | 17,362 | 376,465 | 20,922 | 2,709 | 106 | 14,890 | 434,896 |
| Table Key MD - Main Diploma AD - Advanced Diploma CEP - Community English Programme SP - Service Projects * Unable to run due to pandemic |
CAP - Children’s Activity Programme BEP - Basic English Programme TTP - Teacher Training Programme ERP - COVID-19 and Economic Crisis |
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5. Fundraising Review
In the UK
2022 represents another strong year for Tea Leaf Trust’s individual giving from our growing community, with £53,845 raised through online crowdfunding. The majority of this was raised through our “Support a Student, Strengthen a Community” crowdfunding campaign which saw 187 students and their families receive monthly stipends through the worst of the economic crisis to enable completion of the diploma. This figure also includes regular monthly donations, for which we are enormously grateful, and the number of monthly donors doubled in 2022, which really helps us with our longer-term planning. An additional £18k was raised specifically for the conversion of our 2nd floor into a classroom facility with insulation, windows, partitions as well as flooring and fan. The space will be opened in early 2023 and enable 100 more students to benefit from our programmes. We must thank Mr Bernard Stoneham for his continued support of the Tea Leaf Trust through this project.
We once again gained huge support from Rotary through the Rotary International Project. This partnership has been driven by the Rotary Club of Bathavon UK and the Rotary Club of Colombo West in Sri Lanka. We also gained support from four other Rotary Clubs during the year with Rotary Clubs of Kelvedon and District, Keswick, Seaford and Brigg. We wish to acknowledge here the sad passing of Mr Phil Davies of the RC of Keswick who has been our link with the club over almost a decade.
Tea Leaf Trust also continued to support AMMA, a social enterprise for tea estate women that uses hand looms to weave naturally dyed materials - we supported by being their umbrella in the UK for grant applications, through which they raised £8,909. It is with sadness that we learned AMMA was to close in 2022 due to the economic impact of both the pandemic and high inflation.
During the year, we were approached by the M. Night Shyamalan Foundation and one of our Co-Founders, Tim Pare, was accepted into their Founder Leadership programme. Funding was received to support our work in 2023 and a Leader’s Retreat will take place in April.
We have also been very lucky to have developed partnerships with both Gnanam Foundation founded by Ram Gnanadesikan, the Maha Foundation, The Move92 Fund of RSF Social Finance and the Church of the American Ceylon Mission (a non-religious partnership). In addition, we received small grants from nine family charitable trusts and foundations. We are incredibly grateful to all our supporters as we look to expand to another two areas in 2023.
In Sri Lanka
Kindernothilfe continues to support us within Sri Lanka. In 2022, they provided Rs11,831,096.92 (around £30k) in funding for the Children’s Rights project.
A long-term supporter of Tea Leaf Trust in Sri Lanka generously gave monthly support of Rs 100k for our staff hardship fund. We have also focused on fundraising efforts in Sri Lankan diaspora communities, with a growing number of contributions received in Sri Lanka for our work.
It is certainly worth mentioning that the collapse of the Sri Lankan rupee during 2022, whilst creating a terrible crisis within the country, did lead to a much higher currency exchange rate that enabled us to do more to assist those in need. The exchange rate rose from a Rs 272/- average in 2021 to an average of Rs 397/- in 2022.
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6. Financial Review
Tea Leaf Trust is the UK registered charity that exists to support the development and delivery of our work in Sri Lanka. Although we refer to our organisation as Tea Leaf Trust both inside and outside of Sri Lanka, within Sri Lanka, we operate through our NGO registration under the name of Tea Leaf Vision, with full permission to operate in the country. One of the key components of the role of Tea Leaf Trust in the UK is raising funds to facilitate this work. All of Tea Leaf Trust’s programmes are delivered in Sri Lanka, so whilst funds raised in the UK (or elsewhere) may go through the UK accounts, almost all expenditure – other than support and administrative costs representing 10.1% (2021: 9.5%) of overall expenditure - occur in Sri Lanka.
As such, the UK income generated, and support and administrative costs incurred are discussed in the following sections specifically. Restricted funds are donations or grants with specific purposes specified by the donor, while unrestricted funds can be used for any purpose as determined by the recipient organization. We welcome requests for detailed finances of our Sri Lankan operations with annual accounts audited to Sri Lankan national standards available on request by emailing info@tealeaftrust.com.
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Trustees’ Report
6.1 Income
These accounts above detail the income generated in 2022 by Tea Leaf Trust. Please see further detail in the fundraising review on pages 12 and 13.
The charity was also fortunate to receive support from organisations and individuals from within Sri Lanka, including T-Field CDF, which has funded the running costs of a third satellite teaching centre in Tallawakelle. December 2022 saw the completion of the pilot phase of the Children’s Rights programme, with the equivalent of c.£30K funding received from Kindernothilfe (KNH).
----- Start of picture text -----
UK income - 2022 vs. 2021
7%
0%
24% 32%
68%
69%
Grants + partnerships - UK Donations - UK HMRC gift aid
----- End of picture text -----
6.2 Support and Administrative Costs
In 2022, Tea Leaf Trust has engaged one part-time contractor to provide fundraising and operational programme support to the Sri Lankan management team. Other fundraising costs and administrative costs reduced slightly from 2021. In 2022, support costs represented 9.5% (2021: 8.9%) of funds transferred for direct project activities operated by our registered Sri Lankan entity, Tea Leaf Vision, and administrative costs represented 1.7% (2021: 1.5%).
6.3 Reserves Policy
The Trustees aim to hold a minimum of three months’ salaries for our local staff in reserves. The charity is operating within their reserves at the year end.
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7. Forward Strategy
New Centres
Tea Leaf Trust feels like it is gaining momentum. Having developed a cost-effective Satellite Centre Model, where small centres for 50 students are embedded within isolated tea estate communities, enabling us to reach 500 children and benefit 15,000 community members through our leadership and service projects, we are beginning to gain funding partners and local NGO partnerships.
We are committed to achieving our strategic goals of opening three new centres by the end of 2023, a goal that is within reach given that we have three new satellite centres in the pipeline. These would be in Bogawantalawa, Udapussalawa and Monaragala, and each centre would serve 50 f/t main diploma students, 500 children through the CEP, 500 children through the CAP and 15,000+ in the community. Please note, Monaragala is not a tea estate community rather Sinhalese subsistence farming community that we have been asked to support by ChildFund who will be our direct partner and funder. We believe this is an important project due to the extreme hardship being faced by these communities and our overarching focus on social and ethnic cohesion.
With these opportunities and partnerships, we are on target to meet our strategic objective of 6 centres by the end of 2023.
Provision of Expertise
We are also being approached by other organisations to provide them with high quality, communityminded English teachers. Currently we have four alumni teachers running the educational programmes in Reconciliation Centres for Sri Lanka Unites - teaching Sinhalese, Muslim, and Sri Lankan Tamil youth. We are particularly proud of this as these ethnic groups often stereotype Indian Tamils as being uneducated and as we have experienced in the past, refusal to engage in being taught by them. In addition, through our partnership the Church of the American Ceylon Mission has sent four students to our Tea Leaf Udapussalawa centre from areas of the East and North to study and learn how we do what we do by going through the process.
Ongoing Projects
Rotary International Project: This has been an overwhelming success and we will be working with Rotary Clubs in 2023 to gain a Global Grant to continue, improve and expand this project.
Kindernothilfe: The Zero Phase of the project was originally scheduled to last 18 months, from January 2021 to June 2022. Because of the Covid pandemic, all project partners, including TLT, were unable to deliver all modules, so the project was extended until June 2023. The Main Phase of the project will begin after June 2023.
Future partnerships
We are working to engage much more with the Sri Lankan, particularly Tamil, diaspora. We continue to grow our regular giving community to increase our financial resilience.
We also hope to bring on board one main partner from the tea industry, and to gain funding to cover our central team costs to manage the expansion opportunities outlined above.
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8. Trustees’ Responsibilities in Relation to the Accounts
The Charities Act 2011 requires the trustees to prepare accounts for each financial year which give a true and fair view of the situation of the charity and of the incoming resources and application of resources, including the income and expenditure, of the charity for that year.
In preparing these accounts, the trustees are required to:
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1.Select suitable accounting policies and then apply them consistently;
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2.Observe the methods and principles in the Charities SORP;
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3.Make judgements and estimates that are reasonable and prudent; and
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4.Prepare the accounts on the going concern basis unless it is inappropriate to presume that the charity will continue in operation.
The trustees are responsible for keeping adequate accounting records that disclose with reasonable accuracy at any time the financial position of the charity and enable them to ensure that the accounts comply with the Charities Act 2011. They are also responsible for safeguarding the assets of the charity and hence for taking reasonable steps for the prevention and detection of fraud and other irregularities.
Approved by the board on 16[th] June 2023
Signed on behalf of the board of trustees.
……………………………………………………………
Trustee
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| THE TEA LEAF TRUST Charity Name |
THE TEA LEAF TRUST Charity Name |
THE TEA LEAF TRUST Charity Name |
THE TEA LEAF TRUST Charity Name |
THE TEA LEAF TRUST Charity Name |
THE TEA LEAF TRUST Charity Name |
CC16a | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| For the period from |
01/01/2022 Period start date |
To | 31/12/2022 Period end date |
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| Section A Receipts and payments | |||||||
| A1 Receipts | Unrestricted funds to the nearest £ 62,629 14,074 - - - - - - 76,703 - - - 76,703 53,974 - 1,705 2,960 1,212 10,920 2,933 - - 73,704 - - - 73,704 2,999 - 13,832 16,831 |
Restricted funds to the nearest £ 122,289 - - - - - - - 122,289 - - - 122,289 122,289 - - - - - - - - 122,289 - - - 122,289 - - - - |
Endowment funds to the nearest £ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |
Total funds to the nearest £ 184,918 14,074 - - - - - - 198,992 - - - 198,992 176,263 - 1,705 2,960 1,212 10,920 2,933 - - 195,993 - - - 195,993 2,999 |
Last year to the nearest £ |
||
| Donations andgrants | 62,629 | 67,087 | |||||
| Gift aid | 14,074 | - | |||||
| - | - | ||||||
| - | - | ||||||
| - | - | ||||||
| - | - | ||||||
| - | - | ||||||
| - | - | ||||||
| Sub total(Gross income for AR) |
76,703 | 67,087 | |||||
| A2 Asset and investment sales, (see table). |
|||||||
| - | |||||||
| - | - | ||||||
| Sub total | - | - | |||||
| Total receipts A3 Payments |
|||||||
| 67,087 | |||||||
| Charitable activities - Donations to Tea Leaf Vision |
53,974 | 67,333 | |||||
| Trustees expenses | - | - | |||||
| Fund raisingcosts | 1,705 | 3,000 | |||||
| Admin Costs | 2,960 | 1,038 | |||||
| Social media | 1,212 | 3,021 | |||||
| Programme management | 10,920 | - | |||||
| Travel | 2,933 | - | |||||
| - | - | ||||||
| - | - | ||||||
| **Sub total ** | 73,704 | 74,392 | |||||
| A4 Asset and investment purchases, (see table) |
|||||||
| - | |||||||
| - | |||||||
| **Sub total ** | - | - | |||||
| Total payments Net of receipts/(payments) A5 Transfers between funds A6 Cash funds last year end Cash funds this year end |
|||||||
| 74,392 | |||||||
| 2,999 | - | - | 2,999 | - 7,305 | |||
| - | - | - | - | - | |||
| 13,832 | - | - | 13,832 | 21,137 | |||
| 16,831 | - | - | 16,831 | 13,832 |
CCXX R1 accounts (SS)
18
Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period
| Categories Signed by one or two trustees on behalf of all the trustees B5 Liabilities B3 Investment assets B2 Other monetary assets B4 Assets retained for the charity’s own use B1 Cash funds |
Details Details Details Details Total cash funds (agree balances with receipts and payments account(s)) Details Signature |
Unrestricted funds Restricted funds to nearest £ to nearest £ 16,831 - - - - - 16,831 - OK OK Unrestricted funds Restricted funds to nearest £ to nearest £ - - - - - - - - - - - - Fund to which asset belongs Cost (optional) - - - - - Fund to which asset belongs Cost (optional) - - - - - - - - - Fund to which liability relates Amount due (optional) - - - - - Print Name L Ajayi |
Endowment funds to nearest £ |
|---|---|---|---|
| - | |||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| OK | |||
| Endowment funds to nearest £ |
|||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| Current value (optional) |
|||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| Current value (optional) |
|||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| When due (optional) |
|||
| Date of approval |
|||
| L Ajayi | |||
CCXX R2 accounts (SS)
18
Independent examiner's report on the accounts
Section A Independent Examiner’s Report
Report to the trustees/ Charity Name THE TEA LEAF TRUST members of
On accounts for the year 31 DECEMBER 2022 Charity no 1123427 ended (if any) Set out on pages 18 to 19
(remember to include the page numbers of additional sheets)
I report to the trustees on my examination of the accounts of the above charity (“the Trust”) for the year ended 31/12/2021 DD / MM / YYYY .
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 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:
-
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.
Signed: Hilary Adams Date: 26 June 2023 Name: Hilary Adams Relevant professional ICAEW qualification(s) or body (if any): Address: 41 Freeman House, Keepers Close Canterbury CT1 3YG
Section B Disclosure
October 2018
IE
20