2023-09-30-accounts

Chair’s Annual Report for the Year ending 30[th] September 2023 to Building Better Futures International Annual General Meeting Held on Wednesday, 13[th] December, 2023

This Report is to the fifteenth Annual General Meeting following upon our registration as a Charity by the Charity Commission for England and Wales. Our Trust Deed was signed and submitted on 17[th] November 2008 and a letter from the Charity Commission dated 25[th] November 2008 confirmed our registration as a charity in England and Wales as of that date. We have been assigned the Charity number 1126907. We are therefore duty bound to keep the Commissioners updated on any change to our details on the Central Register and to comply with all other requirements of Charity Law. Our Trustees are currently Simon Bell, Philip Brown, Andrew Crighton, Laurie Green, Gillian Hopkins, Andrew Sentance and John Wilde.

Emily Brown resigned as a trustee during the year due to pressures of work. We thank her for her service to the charity, especially by visiting our partner NGO in Tamil Nadu.

The Trust Deed for the Charity states that the objects of our Charity are “1. the relief of financial hardship, either generally or individually, of neglected poor people living, in particular but not exclusively, in the State of Tamil Nadu, South India, and in such other parts of the world as the trustees may decide, primarily by providing or paying for items, services or facilities and by aiding small businesses and other activities to create sustainable incomes.2. The advancement of the education of the public, in particular persons living in the State of Tamil Nadu South India and in such other parts of the world as the trustees may decide. 3. The relief of sickness, the protection and preservation of health, in particular but not exclusively of persons living in the State of Tamil Nadu, South India, and in such other parts of the world as the trustees may decide.”

All expenditure from our accounts has been in accordance with the aims of our Charity. All meetings have been carried out in accordance with the regulations and procedures agreed in our Trust Deed, as above.

Activities during the year ended 30[th] September 2023 have included the following. The Trustees have met on three occasions during the last twelve months with minutes of the proceedings being kept in the minute book. Two meetings were conducted remotely via Zoom and the third meeting was held in person.

We are grateful to all our officers and other trustees for their care and hard work. This year, Mr Andrew Crighton was elected Secretary, Mr John Wilde was elected Treasurer and Mr Philip Brown was elected as Chair. The Trustees have received regular and full reports of our financial situation and transactions. We have applied for and received Gift Aid tax rebates where applicable.

We seek to keep all our donors fully informed of our activities by means of our website at www.bbfintl.org.uk and by continuing email and postal communication, including our occasional Newsletter.

• 2 -

We have continued to maintain close communications with our partner NGO in Tamil Nadu.

We expect strict ethical standards to be always maintained by our partner projects in India and note that they have now undertaken safeguarding training, using UK online training resources. We receive continuing reports from all our funded projects in India and are pleased to see that our donations assist in the transformation of many poor rural villages and groups.

This year has seen the Coconut Plantation operated by our partner NGO, Rural Institute for Community Health (RICH), begin to provide income, the addition of a computer training facility to the training centre at Natham in addition to regular maintenance and further development of programmes continuing from former years. We are pleased to report that 113 women received tailoring training and 253 primary school children received educational support through evening tuition classes. During this period, the tailoring co-operative formed by women trained at one of our centres continued to expand and has now moved into its own dedicated premises. This cooperative has enabled the women to avoid sexual harassment from some of the agents of the smaller garment factories. Our partner NGO continued to provide sanitary product support to more than 100 women and girls as well as supporting small ropemaking, milk cow and coir programs.

We were fortunate this year in being able to arrange for Mr Jesuran Stanley, the Executive Director of RICH, to visit the U.K. He met with donor groups and received expert management training. He also attended a trustees’ meeting and was able to report on the activities of RICH and to answer trustees’ questions.

. We have fully conformed to Government Data Protection regulations and have published our Privacy Policy and a Legitimate Interest Statement. Personal data information is securely protected.

Our work continues to expand with emphasis on financially self-sustaining projects and such educational and building projects which underpin this employment-creating process. For our ongoing work we rely increasingly on the regularity of generous donations often made by Standing Order.

We continue to remain true to the distinctiveness of the work of our Charity as follows:

• We have good local access and knowledge of all the projects we fund.

• We support financially self-sustaining projects and programmes.

• When possible, we personally visit and monitor the projects, ensuring transparency

• Trustees claim no expenses and no one is employed in the UK by our Charity.

• We encourage self-help, by funding co-operative groups to build better futures - and all this in one of the poorest parts of our world

In this fifteenth year of our existence as a charity, our total giving to date exceeds £525,000. We are very pleased that so many important programmes are now fully functioning following the pandemic and look forward to the year 2023-24 greatly encouraged and with much gratitude to all our donors.

Additional to this Report is our Treasurer’s Financial Statement for the year ended 30[th] September 2023.

Philip Brown, Chair 13[th] December, 2023

CHARITY COMMISSION FOR ENGLAND AND WALIS Independent examinerfs report on the accounts Section A Independent Examiner's Report Report to the trust••sl members of Btjilding Better Futures International On accounts for tha y•ar ended 30th September 2023 Charity no lif any) 1126907 Set out on pages 1to3 I report to the Iruslees on my examination of the accounts of the above ch8rrty Iyhe Trust") lor the year ended 3010912023 As the charity Iruslees, you aTe responsible for the preparation of the Responsibilities and accounts in accordance wrth the Charities Act 2011 1.the Act"). basis of report I report in resped of my examination of the Trust's accounts carried out under Section 145 of the 2011 AGI and in Carrying out t¥Try examination, I have followed all the ap￿ICable Directions given by the Charty Commission under section 14515llbl of the Act. Independent I have Complet￿ my examination. I confirm that no material matters have examinorfs Statement Corne to my attention (other than that disclosed below'l in ¢onneclion with the examination which gives me cause to believe that in, any matgrial respect,. the 8ccounling records were not kept in accordance wrth section 130 of the Act.. or the accounts did not accord wrth the accounting records., or the accounts did not ¢omply with the applicable requirements concerning the form and content of accounts set out in the Charities (Accounts and Reports) Regulations 2008 other than any requirement that the accounts give a true and fair, view which is not a matter considered as part of an independent examination. I have no concems and have come across no other matters in connection with the examination lo which attention should be drawn in this report in order lo enable a proper understanding of the accounts lo be reached. Signad: Date: 1(5 LS Nam¥: bJD JIC￿> Relevant profe$$ional quallfi¢ationlsl or body Irf any}: Address: Sfo kn)tr.r.ILo Co &sri ti Qssc% IER October 2018

Section B Disclosure Only complete If the examiner needs lo highlight matters of concern Isee CC32, Independent examination of charity a¢counls." directions and guidance for oxaminersl. Give hero details of any items that the •xaminer wishes to dlscl¢so. IER OCto￿T 2018

Building Better Futures International (BBFI> YEAR END STATEMENT AS AT 30109123 RECEIPTS AND PAYMENTS ACCOUNTS Recelptsllncome Donations Thi8 year 64.226 09 Last Year total 45.828.13 Total Receipts 64,226.09 £45,628.13 PaymentslExpendlture Giants L Green This year 63,530 75 7500 Last Ygor 48.921 97 Total Paym8nt8 SurpluslDefi£il Chequelsl not presented Balanct BIF from pramous year. 63.605.75 620.34 48.921.97 02G384 S.112.37 8.4(6.21 Balancel$l pn hand. 5.732.71 5,112.37 Balances". The actual donatr'ons anLI grants for each of the restrioted ￿ndS are as follows.. 8uilding5 opening £0 + Income £6,179.67- Grants £5,926 97- £252.70 Nopkins O￿Tring -£176.11 + incorne £2,320- Grants £1.980.51 = £163.38 80￿￿oIe opening £2,110 less grant £2,110- £0 Sumrnary of fvnds hel¢J". Unresthded Building Napkins Total 5.316.63 252 70 163.38 5.732.71 Sorne restricted funds ale not lully lunded by specific donah"on5 therefore currently paid out of unrestr4cled. These are as follows as at 30109123.. Natham-£5,431.99