Trustees Annual report 2021
Charity name: Friends of the Anglican Church in Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa
Registered charity number: 1139834
Address: 82, Lindon Drive, Alvaston, Derby, DE24 0LN
Trustees:
| Trustee name | Office (if any) | Dates acted if not for whole year |
|---|---|---|
| Christopher John Haywood | Chair | |
| Darrell Dale Hannah | ||
| Christina Dorothy Foyle Bailey | ||
| William Poole | Treasurer | |
| Sally Margaret Lynch | Minutes | |
Structure and management:
The charity is constituted as a trust with a trust deed of 15[th] December 2010 as the governing document.
Trustees meet approximately quarterly to agree broad strategy, review finances and reserves policies, and decide on any grants to be made. An additional on-line meeting was held with the Bishop and a clergy leader from Gambella in July 2021. The situation and needs in Ethiopia and in particular the Gambella area were discussed.
All trustees give their time voluntarily and receive no remuneration or other benefits.
Trustees are appointed for a five year term of office by resolution of the existing trustees. New trustees are sourced through the personal networks of the trustees and patron; they then meet one of the existing trustees to assess suitability and appropriate checks are carried out, after which they attend a board meeting at which they are appointed, if all trustees and the candidates agree this is appropriate.
Activities and Objectives:
Our key objectives are:
To advance the Christian religion in the Anglican Episcopal Area of the Horn of Africa (the “Area”), by providing support to the Anglican Church in Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa,
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In partnership with the Anglican Church in Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa to relieve poverty, suffering and financial hardship, distress and ill health amongst people living in the Area, including refugees and displaced people.
A number of activities are conducted to achieve these objectives:
Grant applications are assessed in context with the above objectives and approved when it is considered that a significant proportion of the request is in line with one or more of the objectives.
Regular communication is made in order to understand situations, needs and processes with reviews, as required, of factors that influence grant requests.
Appropriate assessment is made of financial factors, such as exchange rates and potential partnerships with other similar charities that support activities in the region.
Achievements and Performance:
Grant Requests:
During 2021 grant requests were received from St. Matthew’s church in Addis Ababa and from the Anglican Church in the Gambella region of Ethiopia as follows:
Grants totalling £23,125 to St. Matthew’s have been used for the general running of the church (£16,422) and supporting the Breakfast Club (£3,672) and Community Library (£3,031). This support has been important during the civil unrest when many overseas personnel were advised to leave Ethiopia. It also allowed the Breakfast Club to be sustained along with the Community Library.
In early January two grants were issued to the Mothers Union (MU) for work in the Gambella region.
A grant of £6,070 was made for the Literacy Project. In the grant application the MU commented that being unable to read “affects all aspect of life and is a barrier to awareness of rights, socioeconomic well-being, career options, and good self-esteem. Not being literate can affect nutrition, health, hygiene, and the schooling of both current and future generations” . Learning to read builds faith and gives them access to services in the area such as health, hygiene and opportunities to build peaceful inter-tribal relationships.
The second MU grant of £9,554 was for the Eagle Project in which takes a holistic approach to faith and self-help. The grant looks to build on existing work and envisages Eagle topics to include “facilitation skills, foundational bible studies, resource mobilisation bible studies, relationship building bible studies, savings group formation and management skills. ”
Both these projects have proceeded well despite the challenging conditions and the MU provides regular periodic progress reports, abstracts of which have been included in the Episcopal/Anglican Diocese of Gambell and FACE Newsletters.
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As in previous years, a contributing grant to aid the easing of the effects of poverty in the Gambella region was made to the church’s Samaritans Fund (£3,000).
The church in the area brings the Christian faith to many people and to ensure that this continues a grant of £6,000 each was issued in July to support over 25 clergy and support staff salaries. One social aspect of the work of the church in the area is to reduce ethnic tensions.
Significant work had been carried out on building the new Cathedral in Gambella but clergy were regularly required to take action to prevent “land grabbers” from seizing Cathedral land. The government in the area advised on fencing the property to prevent loss of land. A grant of £20,000 was approved following a request from Gambella that was supported with an approved quotation for the work. The Leadership team in Gambella provided regular progress reports including photographs of the new fencing. This work is now complete thus securing the Cathedral compound.
An appeal to support the Eden Project in the Tigray region was declined by the Trustees because of significant uncertainties in this war-torn area.
Other activities during the year included the following:
As in 2020 with the on-going pandemic, the trustees continued to work hard as a team to maintain the activities by using email and on-line video meetings. The support and encouragement of our patron, Bishop Andrew Proud during this transition has been much appreciated. The Board of Trustees met on 4 occasions in 2021 met with an additional meeting with the Gambella church leadership. These meetings also helped to maintain good contact with St. Matthew’s Parochial Church Council during their interregnum.
Archbishop Mouneer was thanked on his retirement for his partnership, hard work and dedication that has successfully resulted in the development of the Anglican church in Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa. Subsequently Bishop Samy was welcomed and congratulated on his appointment as the new Archbishop of the Province of Alexandria. We have continued to work with the Partnership Office in Cairo, and welcomed the formation of the Episcopal Diocese of Gambella in Ethiopia.
We have also maintained our communication with the Friends of the Anglican Province of Alexandria (FAPA) and the Jerusalem and Middle East Church Association (JMECA) that helps each charity to coordinate their work efficiently whilst maintaining their specific identity.
An on-line meeting with the Ethiopian Ambassador took place on 13[th] May. The Ambassador’s briefing on the current conflict situation in Ethiopia had 27 in attendance representing a number of charities including FACE, HOPE and Crosslinks.
An essential element of the activities of the Friends of the Anglican Church in Ethiopia is prayer support for the church in the country and this has been enhanced by periodic reports from St Matthew’s in Addis Ababa and the church in Gambella and specific prayer requests. Information received is shared with our donors both on the web site and through newsletters.
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Trustees Annual Report
Financial Review:
At 31[st] December 2021 we held cash at the bank of £46939 (£88,644 in 2020). Within this figure is an amount of £21,864 which is separately restricted to support the work of St Matthew’s Church in Addis Ababa. The trustees have adopted a policy to retain all funds for this purpose in reserves unless grant requests, within the charitable objectives of FACE, are made by St Matthew’s which the trustees consider it appropriate to agree to fund.
Apart from the above, our policy on reserves is to hold at least £10,000 of unrestricted funds at any time to enable the Charity to respond to emergency requests for grants to the Anglican Church in Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa, eg: food emergencies.
In normal times, an upper limit on unrestricted reserves has been set at £20,000 at the end of any financial year. Apart from funds held for St Matthew’s Church, we have not deemed it prudent to make grants until we can be certain that they are applied as required by our statement on public benefit, at the end of 2021, we retained £18,148 (£43,241 in 2020) in unrestricted funds. We are ready therefore to continue to apply funds in excess of our reserves as and when the needs of the people in the area are truly identified.
Our main sources of income are both restricted and unrestricted donations from individuals, churches and other charitable trusts including in response to specific appeals. We have to date received no funds from central or local government in the UK or any other country.
Expenditure in furtherance of our objectives has been in the form of grants made to the Anglican Church in Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa or specific Anglican churches within that area, e.g. St Matthew’s Church in Addis Ababa.
As a very small charity we do not have many written policies, but financial matters are reviewed and management accounts produced at every trustees meeting, and we annually review our financial controls against the checklist provided by the Charity Commission. We have also adopted an ethical fundraising policy to guide our fundraising activity.
Custodian Trustee Funds:
Not applicable.
Declaration: The trustees declare that they have approved the trustees’ report above.
Signed on behalf of the charity’s trustees:
Signature(s):
Full name(s): Reverend Christopher John Haywood
Position (eg Secretary, Chair, etc): Chair
Date of Approval: 24-02-2022
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Trustees Annual Report
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