Trustees' Annual Report for the period
Period start date Period end date Day Month Year Day Month Year From 01 12 2020 To 30 11 2021
Section A Reference and administration details
Charity name Liberty Children’s Home Other names charity is known by
Registered charity number (if any) 1136713 Charity's principal address 123 High Road Wilmington Dartford, Kent DA2 7DP
Names of the charity trustees who manage the charity
| 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 |
Trustee name | Office (if any) | Dates acted if not for whole year |
Name of person (or body) entitled to appoint trustee(if any) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mrs Meryl O’Shea | Chairman | |||
| Mr Douglas Hunter | Treasurer | |||
| Mrs Jeanette Hunter |
Secretary | |||
| Mrs Susan Sebborn |
||||
| Miss Helen Case | ||||
Names of the trustees for the charity, if any, (for example, any custodian trustees)
Name Dates acted if not for whole year
TAR
March 2012
1
Names and addresses of advisers (Optional information)
Type of adviser Name Address
Name of chief executive or names of senior staff members (Optional information)
Section B Structure, governance and management
Description of the charity’s trusts
Type of governing document Trust. 30/05/2010
- (eg. trust deed, constitution)
How the charity is constituted Trust (eg. trust, association, company)
Trustee selection methods Appointed by trustees (eg. appointed by, elected by)
Additional governance issues (Optional information)
You may choose to include additional information, where relevant, about:
-
policies and procedures adopted for the induction and training of trustees;
-
the charity’s organisational structure and any wider network with which the charity works;
-
relationship with any related parties;
-
trustees’ consideration of major risks and the system and procedures to manage them.
TAR
March 2012
2
Section C Objectives and activities
Summary of the objects of the charity set out in its governing document
1) To relieve poverty and advance the education of school age children and college age adults resident at the Liberty Children’s Home and Student Hostel Located in Chintalapudi, Andhra Pradesh, India, (administered by the Indian charity Abundant Life Ministries, Indian registration number 390/2001), by providing funds to enable the provision of educational equipment, shelter, food, clothing and medical care.
2) To prevent or relieve poverty of adults and children in Andhra Pradesh, India by providing: grants, items and services to individuals in need through Abundant Life Ministries (registered as charity number 390/2001 in India).
To avoid confusion in this summary, the term ”the charity” refers to the English charity Liberty Children’s Home and the term “the Home” refers to the actual Liberty Children’s Home in Chintalapudi village, India. The trustees are aware of the importance of complying with the Charity Commission guidance on public benefit and have considered this when awarding grants to Abundant Life Ministries in India. They also recognise the need to confirm the use of the funds, once transferred, by either periodic visits to the Liberty Children’s Home in India or live video communication with the Home and proof of purchases.
Provides grants to Liberty Children’s Home and Student Hostel
Summary of the main activities undertaken for the public benefit in relation to these objects (include within this section the statutory declaration that trustees have had regard to the guidance issued by the Charity Commission on public benefit)
The charity funds the Home, which is a foster home for some children, with one or both parents alive, and an orphanage for others, who do not have parents, providing a secure place for the children and students to live in. The orphan children have usually been looked after by aged grandparents or close relatives. Some of the children have been rejected in re-marriage situations where the new step-parent does not want the child in the house. Others have parents who have long term illness or had an accident and cannot earn enough to look after their children. What they all have in common is that, without the Home, they would not grow healthily or regularly go to school to receive an education. The children, who this year were aged between 5 and 22, are provided for by the Home through to university education or completion of training in a trade. The funding from the charity enables the Home to provide food, clothing, medical care and meet the costs associated with the children attending the village schools and colleges. The children come from Chintalapudi and other villages in Andhra Pradesh and there is a much greater demand than can be met by the Home.
Education
The children are provided with all of their educational equipment such as notebooks and pens, etc and have any fees paid at the schools or colleges that they attend. The elementary and high school children are also provided with after-school tutors to help them understand their school work and homework. Other children in the village are invited to join with the Liberty children at the Home for extra tuition, at no cost to their parents. The Home, from our charity funding, provides some of the village children with notebooks, pens, etc and with clothing to enable them to attend school.
TAR
March 2012
3
Self-supporting project
The Home is dependent upon the funds that are sent from the UK from our charity. Financial markets can be very unsettled, resulting in variations in the exchange rate, which can make the Home vulnerable when the exchange rates fall. Therefore, to give some security, the charity is working with the Home to locally develop a means of income. The Home has approximately 4 acres of farm land and we have previously worked with the Home to utilise this for their benefit. The land has been used for growing crops, housing a dairy farm, leasing to local farmers and raising chickens. Each use has presented its own problems and whilst we have gained valuable experience, none of the projects have been economically sustainable for a long term. The extreme climate conditions, crop and animal diseases and unreliable labour have played major parts in these results together with difficulties in obtaining rent from those who have leased the land. The current project is growing palm oil trees to produce cooking oil for sale.
Helping Chintalapudi village residents
Many people in the village are poor and when funds permit, we try to help both children and adults, close to the Home, with the greatest need. This has also included provision of items to the village schools that the Liberty children attend.
Additional details of objectives and activities (Optional information)
You may choose to include further statements, where relevant, about:
-
policy on grantmaking;
-
policy programme related investment;
-
contribution made by volunteers.
TAR
March 2012
4
Section D Achievements and performance
Summary of the main To avoid confusion in the following summary, the term “the charity” refers achievements of the charity to the English registered charity Liberty Children’s Home and the term during the year “the Home” refers to the actual Liberty Children’s Home in India. The charity “Liberty Children’s Home” was started on 1st December 2009 and attained registered status at the Charity Commission of England in July 2010. The charity was started to provide financial support for an Indian registered charity having the name of Abundant Life Ministries, run by a Pastor Hezekiah, in a village called Chintalapudi. Abundant Life Ministries runs a children’s home, called Liberty Children’s Home and also provides help to residents in the village. The Indian charity submits requests to the English charity, for funds to maintain the Home and carry on its work. The English charity considers the requests and issues grants where it is deemed suitable. This report refers to all the young people supported by the Home as “children”. This does not necessarily mean that they are immature, as some are late teens or early twenties, but relates to the Home being a “family home” and not an “institutional home”, they being treated as sons and daughters. There were no visits to the Home during 2021, due to the Covid pandemic. However, daily contact with Pastor Hezekiah was maintained. This was by phone, WhatsApp and Skype. We have therefore managed to keep up-to-date with all of the needs of the children. We have continued to hold a minimum of weekly and monthly Skype meeting with Pastor Hezekiah, for him to inform us of the Home’s expenses and give him the opportunity to justify them. Funds have only been transferred once we were fully satisfied. We are confident that the funds are being used for their designated purpose. The Home - children
For some children, with one or both parents living, the Home is a foster home and for those children without either parent it is an orphanage. Nevertheless, no matter what their situation, the Home provides a secure place to live in a healthy environment. Usually through each year, some of the children will leave for various reasons, including an improvement in family circumstances, their nearest relatives have moved away or they may have to care for a sick parent or grandparent. The Home started December, supporting a total to 51 children, of which, 39 were boys and 12 were girls. The Home is physically large enough to accept more children and the demand for places at the Home is great, but the number is restricted by the funds available for their daily needs – sufficient food, decent clothing and provision of school books and medical care. We have to make the decision as to how many children we can support at the Home, in June. The reason for this is that, for a child to move from their village, they require a school transfer certificate which normally can only be obtained at the start of the academic year in June. This has been another year of disruption for the children at the Home, in India, because of the Covid pandemic. Following further rises in Covid cases in India, the Indian Government again closed the schools in May 2021. They also instructed Pastor Hezekiah to return the children to their villages but different to last year, all of the children had to go unless there was a very good reason not to. This left 12 children being cared for at the Home. Just as the previous year, to protect everybody at the home, the
TAR
March 2012
5
Section D Achievements and erformance p
front gate of the compound was locked and nobody was allowed in or out. Food supplies were ordered by phone and they were delivered to the outside of the gates. This obviously proved effective, as there have been no cases of Covid, in the Home, during this 12 month period. Whilst the children were away, Pastor Hezekiah maintained phone contact with the children to stay informed as to how they were coping.
In August, the government agreed that the children could start to return to the home in September. We agreed to pay for a “safe” return plan. This included collecting each child from their village, by auto, to avoid public transport. As reported last year, when the children returned from villages in 2020, they were malnourished, as the people who had been looking after them, struggle to be able to afford feeding them. This time we decided to take a food supply to each of the children or, if they were living too far away, provide money to buy sufficient food. Although this took a lot of organising and was hard work, it did achieve a successful outcome. So that when they started to return from September onwards, it was noticed that the children were much healthier than in 2020.
Once again this year, the Home has been a place of safety, providing care and protection for the children. All of the children, of all ages, have been supplied with all their clothes, food and medical care. Two resident cooks are employed to provide the children with 2 or 3 meals each day, depending upon whether it is a school day, as they receive a midday meal at school. The general health of the children is good although they have suffered with normal seasonal colds and fevers. We have continued to fund the hygiene regime that was introduced for Covid, which includes the provision of hand sanitizer and liquid soap, together with regular disinfectant of the washing and toilet areas.
Some of the children arrive at the Home with no previous schooling and cannot read, write or use numbers. These can be of any age up to 10 years old but they would have to enter the Elementary school in Year 1. This can be embarrassing for them, which has a negative effect on the education of these children. Therefore we have now employed a teacher at the Home to raise these children to an academic level which will enable them to enter a class year, at the school, closer to their age.
As stated in our “summary of main activities”, the Home will commit to supporting a child through to at least obtaining their first job. Although for various reasons, as previously mentioned, very few of the of the children stay to achieve this. However, this year there are 5 boys who are now in further education, training to obtain qualifications which should eventually help them obtain a good job:
-
1) Two boys (A Raj Kumar & B Raj Kumar) have almost completed their second year in college, training to be medical technicians.
-
2) One boy (Venu) has completed his first year in college, training to be a medical technician
-
3) One boy (Visampali) has almost completed his first year in college, training to be a nurse.
-
4) One boy (Vijay) is enrolled into college, to study computer engineering.
These children are living away in college hostels and the Charity pays for all their course, exam and lodging fees, as well as clothing, books, other personal items and travel between the Home and the college.
TAR
March 2012
6
Section D Achievements and erformance p The Home – building, grounds and facilities
The Home, which was constructed in 2007, has no major building problems. The general appearance of the buildings tends to deteriorate over time, because of the climate. This year, the dormitories and the dining hall have had the exteriors painted. There have been other repairs and renewals such as replacing water pumps and pipework.
The original 2 solar water heaters, which provide the children with warm water for washing, were installed 12 years ago. Their efficiency has dropped and now cannot supply sufficient hot water for all of the children. We therefore decided to replace these with new ones and now there is plenty of hot water for all of the children.
In last year’s report, it was mentioned that we had commissioned 30 bunk beds to be constructed and that because of material supply problems, due to Covid, they could not be completed. These have now been finished, installed in the dormitories and the children are using them. Also, to provide adequate air movement between the beds, the dormitories have all been fitted with new fans.
Self-supporting project - Farm
As mentioned last year, the farm is now planted with palm oil trees. These have been growing well but do require some expenditure on fertilisers and labour to periodically clear the ground of weeds. We are hoping that they will soon be producing their first harvest.
Helping Chintalapudi village residents
The Home is close to the centre of Chintalapudi and through the efforts of Pastor Hezekiah, representing Abundant Life Ministries, adults and children in the village are being helped. Not only does this benefit the villagers but it creates a supportive community for the Home and satisfies Indian government inspectors that Abundant Life Ministries is a “Social” charity. Once again, we have managed to provide the following support:
1) Two tutors are provided for the children at the Home, after school each day, to help them with any problems they may have in understanding their day’s lessons. The children, in the part of the village close to the Home, can come and benefit from this free of charge.
2) There are many old people in the village who have suffered because of the effects of Covid and the restrictions that the Indian government placed on movement. It was decided that as a gesture from the home, 94 of the most needy (identified by Hezekiah) would each be given a food parcel. The recipients were invited to the Home for a presentation from local dignitaries. This proved to be very popular, confirming to the government and village elders, the social support that the Home gives to villagers
3) The Charity’s main objective is to support the Home, but we also have a concern for the people of the village. This year we have again helped 30 of the neglected old ladies in the village, buying them saris and paying for a tailor to stitch a blouse for each of them, replacing their tattered ones. Also, we provided 27 old men, each with a new shirt and lunghi.
TAR
March 2012
7
Section D Achievements and erformance p
THIS PAGE IS LEFT INTENTIONALLY BLANK
TAR
March 2012
8
Section E Financial review
Brief statement of the charity’s policy on reserves
Details of any funds materially in deficit
The primary concern of the charity is to raise sufficient funds to provide the children of the Home with their basic daily needs. The charity does not have a policy regarding the amount of reserves that it keeps but budgets to have a minimum of one month’s grant available for transfer, when it is required by the Home, usually at the beginning of each month. With a number of children on college courses, we do ring-fence some of reserves to ensure that we have sufficient funds to always be able to pay all their fees, books and living expenses. We would normally decide, in the period June to August of the following year, how many children we can support, based on our projected income and our reserves.
None
Further financial review details (Optional information)
You may choose to include additional information, where relevant about:
The Charity continues to operate on the basis that all administration costs of the Charity in the UK are paid for by the Trustees, so that all donations that are received, are used to fulfil its “Objects” laid out in Section C.
-
the charity’s principal sources of funds (including any fundraising);
-
how expenditure has supported the key objectives of the charity;
-
investment policy and objectives including any ethical investment policy adopted.
Section F Other optional information
TAR
March 2012
9
Signature(s) |
r |
|
|---|---|---|
Full name(s) |
Douglas Hunter |
Helen Case |
Position (eg Secretary, Chair,etc) |
Treasurer |
Trustee |
Date |
20/08/2022 |
*CHARITY COMMISSION |
*CHARITY COMMISSION |
|||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
FOR ENGLAND AND WALESLiberty Children's Home |
1136713 |
|||||||||
Receipts and payments accounts |
CCI6a |
|||||||||
For the periodfrom |
01/12/2020 |
To |
30/11/2021 |
|||||||
Section A Receipts |
and |
payments |
||||||||
Unrestrictedfunds |
Restrictedfunds |
Endowmentfunds |
Total |
funds |
Last year |
|||||
to the nearest |
to the nearest f |
to the nearest f |
to the nearest E |
to the nearest |
||||||
Al |
Receipts |
|||||||||
Direct donations |
30,796 |
- |
- |
30,7961 |
22,540 |
|||||
Donations for items |
4,296 |
- |
- |
4,296 |
I |
3,930 |
||||
HMRC Gift AidReclaim |
4,370 |
- |
- |
4,370 |
4,004 |
|||||
- |
Sub total(Grossincome |
forAR) |
39,462 |
-- |
- |
39,462 |
30,474 |
|||
A2 |
Asset and investment sales, |
|||||||||
(see table). |
||||||||||
Subtotal |
- |
- |
- |
|||||||
I |
||||||||||
Total receipts |
39,462 |
- |
- |
39,462 |
30,474 |
|||||
A3Payments |
||||||||||
Currency transfers to India |
30,868 |
- |
- |
30,868 |
31,467 |
|||||
Bank transfei1comrriiQsioncharges |
216 |
- |
216 |
191 |
||||||
Sub totall |
31,084 |
- |
- |
L |
31,084 |
31,648 |
||||
A4 |
Asset and investment |
|||||||||
purchases, (see table) |
||||||||||
Subtotal |
- |
- |
- |
- |
- |
|||||
Total payments |
31,084 |
- |
- |
31,084 |
31,648 |
|||||
Net of receipts/(payments) |
8,378 |
-: |
-'' |
8,378 |
- |
1,174 |
||||
ASTransfers between funds |
- |
- |
- |
- |
||||||
A6 |
Cash funds last year end |
21,778 |
- |
- |
21,778 |
22,952 |
||||
Cash funds this year |
end |
30,156 |
- |
30,156 |
• |
21,778 |
| Unrestricted | Restricted | Endowment | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| funds | funds | funds | ||||
| to nearest £ | to nearest £ | to nearest£ | ||||
| BI Cash funds | Current Account 90188654 | 27,813 | - | - | ||
| Current Account 50000795 | 1,094 | - | - | |||
| Cash | 1,248 | - | - | |||
| Total cash funds | 30,155 | - | - | |||
| (agree balances with receipts and payments | ||||||
| account(s)) | ||||||
| Unrestricted | Restricted | Endowment | ||||
| funds | funds | funds | ||||
tonearest Z |
tonearest. | to nearest | ||||
| B2 Other monetary assets | Unclaimed Gift Aid 06/04/21 -30111/21 | 2,501 | - | - | ||
| Unclaimed GASDS_06104/21_-30/11/21 | 24 | - | - | |||
| M | - | - | ||||
| Fund towhich asset belongs |
Cost (optional) | Current value (optional) |
||||
| B3 Investment assets | - | - | ||||
| Fund to which asset belongs |
Cost (optional) |
Current value (optional) |
||||
| B4 Assets retained for the | - | - | ||||
| charity's own use | - | - | ||||
| Fund to which | Amount due | Whendue | ||||
| liability relates | (optional) | (optional) | ||||
| B5 Liabilities | - | |||||
Signedbyone or two trusteesonof all the trusteesbehalf |
gnature Si |
Name | Date of |
|||
| T. | _Ti1cxC_L+' | - iZ, | _a2/o'I_a~ | |||
| tLC— |