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2020-09-30-accounts

“For Tomorrows Young People, Today”

Ocean Youth Connexions, Stepney Way, Stepney Green, London E1 3DG w: https://oceanyc.org e: info@oceanyc.org Registered Charity No.: 1129378 Company Limited by Guarantee: 04543565

Contents

Contents
Page
Chairs Forward 3
Board of directors 2019/20 4
Honorary Supporters of OYC 4
Ocean Youth Connexions 5
Reporting period 1st October 2019 – 30th September 2020
Staff team 5
Number of registered young people 5
Programme and activities for 2019/20 5
Youth Club Sessions 6
October Half term and summer project delivery 8
Bow East Project (Caxton Hall) 9
Jack Petchey 11
Dr. Bike 12
Violence Reduction Unit 13
Outreach and Detached Intervention Work
Accounts for Finance Year (2019 – 2020) 13
Acknowledgments 14
2

Chairs Forward

We have witnessed challenging times as a result of the current pandemic, which has impacted our lives. Society has changed and many youth provisions within the borough have remained closed. Where possible, Ocean Youth Connexions (OYC) has tried to stay open in order to deliver much needed support to local residents through new ways of delivering youth work. Young people entering our centres and provisions with masks, being sanitised and having their temperature checked felt like something out of a movie. We await to see the full impact the pandemic has had on the voluntary and community sector, we have seen many organisations closing down in the past year, leaving a vacuum which is yet to be filled.

OYC has become a part of young people’s lives on the Ocean Estates and the Bow West area. This has only been possible through our commitment to continue to work in those areas and seeking funding to develop new and innovative projects to positively engage young people. Our team have remained the same although we have lost our long serving Service Manager, Adnan Miah, who has been working for the organisation since 2008 and was a young person and service user previously - we wish Adnan all the best in his new post.

The pandemic has impacted our income, which has seen a drop of 33%. We lost two long term contracts and some grant funding at the start of the pandemic. However, we have managed to provide a service to cater for local needs. As an organisation we still rely heavily on successful annual bids but the majority are for small amounts lasting from two months to a year. We are extremely grateful for all the funding, grants and donations we received throughout 2019/20 and this has allowed us to run seven youth club sessions in two youth clubs, one summer project and one half-term activity. We have managed to deliver two weekly Taekwondo Club sessions and, due to demand, hope to expand these sessions. We have provided a study support tuition class and have also have two active outreach teams working to deal with the recent rise in youth crime and youth violence in the borough.

During these uncertain times, the organisation will be revisiting its long-term strategy and will be looking to update its vision and plans to ensure we continue to be resilient and fit for purpose. I am very proud of what the organisation has achieved during a difficult time and look forward to a better, brighter and more prosperous year.

OYC’s financial situation is stable and we are in a good healthy position, the Project Coordinator has actively been sourcing and securing funding to provide activities for young people and I personally thank him for the effort made.

I would like to personally thank our Management Committee members for their patience, help and support throughout this difficult year in getting the organisations policies up-todate, in assisting on attending online meetings and our invaluable staff for ensuring that we continue to make a positive difference in the lives of our local residents.

Mohammed Abdul-Ahad

(Chairperson, appointed October 2020)

Board of directors 2019/20

Chairperson: Abdul Munim Secretary: Mohammed Abdul Ahad Treasurer: Abdul Mu’min Yahya Trustee: Imdadur Rahman Trustee: Mohamed Musa Trustee: Shahin Ullah

Trustee: Imran Khan (appointed 7th September 2020) Members: Anwar Hussin Members: Mohammed Abdul Gofur

Honorary Supporters of OYC

Brenda Daley and Derek England

Chairperson and Secretary, Ocean Estates Tenants Leaseholders Association

Robert Gibson and Aminul Hoque

Tower Hamlets Careers: Learning and Achievements

Master Shujahat Fiaz and Instructor

Junjian Zheng

Team DJB Taekwondo

Sennie Emanuel and Neros Augustus

Pro-AM Development

Junel Uddin

Vallance Community Sports Association

Dr Elizabeth Venables

Trustee, Stepney City Farm

Ishaque Uddin

Secretary, Stepney Fathers Group

Nahimul Islam

Chairperson - Wapping Youth FC

Akik Miah

Secretary, Stepney Foundation

Bablu Miah

Head and Founder, Trapped In Zone One

Ocean Youth Connexions

Reporting period 1st October 2019 – 30th September 2020

Staff team

Mohammed Kamal Ahmed: Project Coordinator Mohammed Adnan Miah: Service Contract Manager Mozahid Hoque: Youth Support Worker/Outreach Worker Hobibur Rahman: Youth Support Worker/Outreach Worker Nicos Antonio Shuttler: Youth Support Worker/Outreach Worker Mehmet Hasan: Youth Worker In-charge Zurain Hussean: Youth Support Worker Kamrul Islam: Youth Support Worker Meryem Day: Youth Support Worker Mosammat Rafia: Holiday Youth Support Worker Rajmina Begum: Holiday Youth Support Worker Ruma Zaman: Holiday Youth Support Worker Syeda Farjana Ali: Holiday Youth Support Worker Jun Jian Zheng (Stephen): Taekwondo Instructor Mark Louis Norman: Taekwondo Instructor Hamza Ahmed: Taekwondo Instructor Shujahat Fiaz: Taekwondo Instructor Zubair Ahmed: Volunteer

Number of registered young people

We currently have 214 registered members as of 30th September 2020

Programme and activities for 2019/20

Youth Club Sessions

Ocean Estates Tenants Association (OETA)

During the challenging fiscal climate, we were unable to secure any long-term funding for the TLA youth club sessions from January 2020, but the organisation committed itself to keeping two youth club sessions open until the end of March 2020, and until funding was secured. The Ocean TLA management allowed us to use their hall at no cost. Our Staff offered volunteering support to keep the club open until the first lockdown.

We took part in organising our annual Parliament Week in November 2019 where we spoke about the upcoming general election and what each candidate and party stood for. We also spoke about Bexit and why is it still being delayed and the debates in relation to border control and future relations with the EU. We discussed when Bexit will actually be implemented and how it may affect everyone’s lives.

Ocean TLA applied for Tower Hamlets Homes Inspiration funding to have boxercise classes delivered during our sessions and we delivered sessions for them. They were successful classes being run by a fitness tutor who showed the many exercise routines, workouts, how to eat healthy and look after your body as well as teach the various stances on the art of boxing to working out with the pads.

We reopened the centre with summer funding secured from the LBTH hunger programme and BBC Children in Need which allowed us to finish off the year on a positive note. Unfortunately, we did not secure any future funding from October 2020, however we did ask BBC Children in Need if we could change our project delivery programme to which they agreed and this allowed us to operate two youth club sessions for another year. Jack Petchey Foundation funding allowed us to organise a trip and a social gathering with young people.

We held a wide range of programmes for young people from feeding young people lunch during whole summer to learning how to cook healthy alternatives on a budget. We organised workshops and seminars on child sexual exploitation and knife crime, provided arts and craft classes, boxercise classes and football training activities. We ended the summer with an invite only BBQ and funday with limited young people coming in their social bubble.

We had around 18-20 young people attending our youth provisions and 65 people who were registered users. Our

Boxercise sessions have been very popular and our investment in boxing equipment has helped young people to be engaged in sparing, doing pad work and skipping. The girls have gained a great interest in boxing and they come and use the equipment frequently.

Through our outreach and detached work, we got to see new young people that have recently moved into the area and it seems like more people are likely to move into the area when the rest of the new builds are completed, this will undoubtedly increase the need for additional services.

Some of our young people have been really focused on their tests and mock exam results and their attendance in our study support sessions meant that many do not attend our youth provisions throughout the year. The only time we get to see them is in the summer period. We hope to continue our study support programme and we will ensure that this programme will continue in the long term. The 2020 exam results saga included concerns on the algorithm being used to determine results, this caused many of our year 11 young people see their predicted grades fall by one or two grades. The government decision was quickly overturned and young people managed to get into their choice of studies and colleges.

October Half term and Summer project delivery

With funding from Ocean Regeneration Trust we organised a one-week October half term programme for 8–19-year-olds. The week consisted of exciting activities from arts and crafts, make up tutorials,

mendhi art, clay modelling, to making bracelets, hama designs and food activities. We provided lunch for over 20 young people daily and we were busy every day.

Unfortunately, due to the pandemic we were not able to offer an Easter holiday play scheme or a May half term programme.

We have been very successful and lucky this year especially around the COVID-19 pandemic to have received funding from two funders who gave us the opportunity to deliver a different type of summer project. Many of the regular funders withdrew their funding for summer and we thought that we would not be able to deliver a programme over the holiday period. With restrictions in place on the numbers allowed in the centre we managed to work with 40 young people throughout the summer with 22 young people attending daily. We provided them with a healthy hot meal every day and organised activities in small social bubbles, maintaining social distancing. We delivered an exciting, fun and action packed, summer

project from the Ocean Estate TLA but a little different than in usual years and our community BBQ was cancelled due to restrictions on numbers allowed being in place.

We had six members of staff that were working on the project in two parts, one in the morning from 11am-3pm and the other session from 4pm to 8pm. The staff delivered a varied programme consisting of Arts and Crafts, indoor social games, competitions, cooking sessions, knitting and textile, outdoor games and boxercise. This year there were no trips organised as everything was closed due to the pandemic. Both the projects attracted over 70 young people to the project and it was a very successful delivery programme. On average we had around 24 young people attending each of our sessions especially with a high volume of younger girls that do not attend normal club sessions. This year the summer programme was needed especially

after a three-and-a-half-month lockdown. The fit and hunger programme funding supported 20 other organisations to deliver summer programmes.

Bow East Project (Caxton Hall)

Caxton Hall youth centre was rescued from closure by the management and they gave the team a six-month lifeline to run and an opportunity for them to secure potential funding. In December 2019 a one-year funding contract from Action for Bow for two sessions a week was secured, for who we are proud of. They realised the gap in youth services in the Bow West Area and supported our club delivery proposal. We hope our relationship with them will continue on the long term. Our

target was to work with 90 young people in the Bow West area to reduce anti-social behaviour, increase educational attainment and offer information and referral services for young people to engage in youth provisions and services across the borough.

This six-month rescue plan and funding programme has helped to redevelop the area, provided continued access to a centre where the ethnic and gender mix is very diverse and that young people can attend, feel welcomed, relaxed and be safe. Thus, enabling us to improve the image of the area and make it a better place for everyone to live, work and play.

The centre remained closed from April to September as the centre was being used as a food distribution hub for the elderly. Some of our staff members volunteered and supported their food distribution programme. We could not deliver a summer programme at the centre and all staff had to be furloughed throughout this six-month duration.

Malmesbury Resident Association funded a two-month outreach work grant to encourage positive engagement with young people and for them to refrain from negative and risky behaviour. This pandemic saw many young people not coming out especially during the summer period, many stayed indoors and avoided engaging in anti-social behaviour but it was always the few that needed reminding and we were there to deal with the situation.

Many other youth centres, provisions and services were also closed throughout the whole pandemic and many went online to provide a digital service. We found this to have minimal impact on young people so we were calling them up individually to see how they were doing, if they needed any help assistance and whether their mental health was being impacted in any way.

Two of our staff worked closely with Key Workers in Tower Hamlets, Social Workers, Youth Offending Team so that we can make referrals to these agencies to assist our young people during this pandemic. We dealt with a missing person case and found the young person through our contacts and now he has been reunited with his family.

This is our third year in delivering the Taekwondo classes and this year we have been fortunate in securing funding from Awards for All, Charles S French, London Sport and Jack Petchey. We have around 28 young people registered for the teen sessions and on average 18 young people attend regularly.

We opened up a Junior Dragon Taekwondo session for a younger age group 4-10 years of age due to parental demand. We did not have funding to support this session but parents were willing to pay for the sessions without hesitation. We recruited 16 students which covered the cost for a twelve-week period.

The Taekwondo sessions had a great impact on those that attended, and you can see it in their behaviour and their attitude, showing humility and courtesy to each other during the session. We have seen good team work and support for each other and their willingness to learn and advance is improving.

We have had one grading session this year due to the lockdown and centre closures: Grading was achieved for two people on yellow tag belts, three on green tag and five on green belt.

Taekwondo has helped these young people to work together as a team, improve their communication skills and significantly built their confidence levels. Young people are becoming more creative, active and learning fast the different patterns and styles being taught. The sessions have improved young people’s ability to solve problems, improve their resilience, they are able to deal with conflicts and difficult situations and we have seen a vast improvement in their self-motivation and an increase in levels of self-esteem.

Jack Petchey

We have been put on the Bronze Scheme recently by the Foundation Coordinator due to not having a high number of young people attending at the Ocean TLA. We used the funding to take a group of young people on a bowling trip and arranged the social trip. During the lockdown the foundation closed its nomination process and decided to reopen when there is certainty of a safe return back to normality.

We spent last year’s Leaders Award Grant funding on providing Boxercise classes for our young people and this was very much enjoyed by them. This year we have nominated Mehmet Hasan AKA Ozzie to be our outstanding Leader for encouraging young people to engage in local youth democracy, participate positively in our youth activities and motivating young people to find work.

Dr. Bike

We are still delivering Dr Bike Sessions within our own Youth Centres on the Ocean Estate and Caxton Hall, teaching young people how to repair bikes and make them roadworthy. We are thankful for Zero Emission Network in providing us free bike maintenance workshops with an experience bike mechanic to teach our young people how to remedy minor and major faults. Since the first lockdown the demand for bikes surged and shops did not have any bikes to sell. Our workshops helped young people to have their bikes ready to travel and use as a mode of transport when the fear of travelling on public transport was scary for them.

We have continued to deliver free bike maintenance sessions as part of our commitment to get as many people cycling as possible especially during the summer period. We have also been exploring cycling routes in and around Tower Hamlets especially the Island route that goes all around Island with an option to go Greenwich via the foot tunnel. Although we have

not received any funding to maintain this project, we will be collaborating with a few local charities that raise funds using cycling as a fun way of raising money for children.

WHEEL POWERING “Young People”

Violence Reduction Unit

MAYOR OF LONDON VRU

Outreach and Detached Intervention Work

We were successful in securing a second year of Violence Reduction Unit knife crime funding for October 2019 - Sept 2020 and our first task was to work with 60 young people from four different areas. Our aim was to work with them, to liaise with them, to support their individual needs and to stop them from committing acts of violence or be influenced into violent crime and conflicts. We carried out outreach in the Bow West and Mile End in the first part of this grant. We were mainly dealing with anti-social behaviour issues and drug dealings on the stairwells. We tried to encourage them to attend local youth clubs and worked with a few to get them onto training. Our project was working well and relationships were established to push these young people onto doing courses and workshops when we went into lockdown. Our project stalled before we could arrange any form of training and trips for young people to attend.

When we reopened our sessions in July we saw a spike in youth-on-youth violence, anti-social behaviour and noise nuisance late into the night. We played a major in a fight that broke out between two areas and we amicably resolved it using all our contacts, local parents and local community leaders. Statutory youth centres around the borough remained closed and it was difficult to refer young people to their local youth centres. A lot of other centres could not reopen mainly due to the COVID-19 restrictions, deep cleaning and workers not returning back to their offices.

We were also restricted to the numbers we could work with having all the government conditions in place for our centre, see saw that the majority of young people had nowhere to go.

The project saw some positive outcomes as we saw knife crime slightly drop in those areas but anti-social behaviour reporting surged, noise nuisance increased and young people smoking drugs was more a common sight. We managed to make contact with 103 young people, got 71 registered, in our youth centres, 30 young people accessed support services, 4 young people became youth leaders and peer mentors plus they supported our programme and 32 young people confirmed that they will remain in mainstream education.

Accounts for Finance Year (2019 – 2020)

Ocean Youth Connexions Ltd Company limited by guarantee

Detailed trading profit and loss account for the year ended 30 September 2020

Income
Awards For All
BBC Children in Need
Jack Petchey
LB Tower Hamlets - IYCS
LB Tower Hamlets – MSG

Tower Hill Trust
MOPAC
OYC contribution
Societylinks
London Sport

Ocean Regeneration Trust
Osmani Trust YIF
Charles S French
Tower Hamlets Homes
Action For Bow
Mark Mason benevolent Fund
LB Tower Hamlets – Summer
Government Furlough Scheme
 2020
£
10,000
10,000
-
-
-
-
50,000
-
1,845
-
-
-
2,000
3,000
5,310
3,680
5,500
18,899		 2019
£
10,000
5,000
2,250
86,666
16,250
2,000
25,000
61
8,140
1,440
5,000
480
1,000
5,000
-
-
-
-
168,287
(120,325)
47,983
110,983
Administrative expenses
Operating surplus/(loss)		 (91,289)
19,694

Acknowledgments

Contents
Page
Company Information 1
Directors' Report 2
Accountant's Report 3
Independent Examiners Report 4
Profit and Loss Account 5
Balance Sheet 6
Notes to t h e Financial Statements 7
The following pages do not form part of t h e statutory accounts:
Trading Profit and Loss Account 8

Dit
recors Mr Mohammed Ahad
Mr Imdadur Rahman
Mr Shahin Ullah
Mr Imran Khan
Mr Abdul Munim Yahya
Mr Mohamed Musa
Charity Registration Number 1129378
Company Number 04543565
Registered Office Stepney City Farm
Stepney Way
Stepney Green
London
E l 3DG
Accountants The Stuart Maurice Partnership
Radiant House
28-30 Fowler Road
Ilford Essex
IG6 3UT

2020 2019
Notes £ £
INCOME 110,983 168,288
110,983 168,288
Administrative expenses (91,289) (120,325)
NET MOVEMENT IN FUNDS 19,694 47,963
2020 2019
Notes £ £ £
CURRENT ASSETS
Cash a t bank and in hand 188,702 173,591
188,702 173,591
Creditors: Amounts Falling Due Within One Year 3 (5,137) (4,583)
NET CURRENT ASSETS (LIABILITIES) 183,565 169,008
TOTAL ASSETS LESS CURRENT LIABILITIES 183,565 169,008
NET ASSETS 183,565 169,008
Restricted Funds 183,565 169,008
TOTAL FUNDS 183,565 169,008

2020 2019
Office and administration 10 7
10 7
3. Creditors: Amounts Falling Due Within One Year
2020 2019
£ £
Accruals and deferred income 5,137 4 , 5 8 3
5,137 4,583

2020 2019
INCOME
Awards for All - AFA 10,000 10,000
LB Tower Hamlets - IYCS 86,667
Tower Hill Trust 2,000
LB Tower Hamlets - MSG 16,250
Jack Petchey 7 5 0 2,250
MOPAC 50,000 25,000
OYC Contribution 6 1
BBC Children in Need 10,000 5,000
Society Links 1,845 8,140
Tower Hamlets Homes - THH 3,000 5,000
London Sport 1,440
Ocean Regeneration Trust 5,000
Osmani Trust YIF 4 8 0
Charles S French 2,000 1,000
Action for Bow - AFB 5,310
Mark Mason Benevolent Fund - MMBF 3,680
LB Tower Hamlets - S u m m e r 5,500
-Government Furlough Scheme 18,899
110,983 168,288
Administrative Expenses
Wages and salaries 71,737 77,682
Travel expenses 2 5 2,167
Rent 10,650 19,970
Training costs 2 4 0 5,080
Holiday Activities 4 , 2 8 6 11,954
Accountancy fees 8 5 0 7 0 0
Sundry expenses 3 , 5 0 1 2,772
(91,289) (120,325)
OPERATING SURPLUS FOR THE FINANCIAL YEAR 19,694 47,963