Hope4Malawi Annual Report for 2023
Hope4Malawi partners with government-run primary and secondary schools to help improve teaching and learning environments for children growing up in rural Southern Malawi. A skills centre offering tertiary education is also currently being developed.
Additionally, we provide bursaries to enable students to access secondary and tertiary education, students who would otherwise not be able to attend school due to lack of funding.
Hope4Malawi believes that education, in its broadest sense, has the power to break the cycle of poverty by bringing sustainable change.
Our areas of focus are:
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School building and infrastructure projects to provide new classrooms, libraries, toilets and teacher housing.
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Resourcing schools by providing feeding programmes, libraries, teaching and learning resources.
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Providing educational opportunities through secondary and tertiary sponsorships.
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Christian discipleship
Through education and development, our aim is to empower communities so they can move beyond poverty and have hope for a brighter future.
Hope4Malawi’s key values include sustainability and community involvement, working with partners both in UK and Malawi. The charity has continued its focus of partnership with the Ministry of Education in Malawi, and the communities of Jana and Mabala in T/A Somba, aiming to improve educational opportunities to students at Hope CDSS Secondary School and Mpemba, Chipwepwete, Tapani, Chimwembe and Mafunde Primary Schools, Government Schools in the district of Blantyre Rural, Malawi.
In 2023 we also built the first phase of HopeSkills Centre at Jana Village and ran our first community development courses.
Hope4Development was set up in late 2021 as a Malawian NGO. It is a limited company with four directors, two local officials and Mark and Sara Goodman (Trustees of H4M). It operates in Malawi, to recommend projects to Hope4Malawi and to implement projects, funding for which is provided by Hope4Malawi after approval from Trustees. These include building programmes, staff employment, feeding programmes and land purchases. Payments made to Hope4Development from Hope4Malawi in 2023 totalled £163,450 (2022 £139,348). In 2023 100% of Hope4Development income was received from Hope4malawi.
We are grateful for the faithful support of our donors providing both one off gifts and regular ongoing support. We are also thankful to volunteers who assist in fundraising, administration and running the charity in the UK and in Malawi.
The trustees in 2023 were Mark and Sara Goodman, Gerry and Pauline Rashbrook, Richard and Tina Guilbert, Rev Martin and Wendy Wainwright. The charity has benefitted from their support in governance, accounting, fundraising and support of volunteers.
Over 75% of Hope4Malawi’s income is from individuals. We are also grateful for the continued support of schools in the UK: Trinity School, Croydon and Kings Ely School, and to churches which have supported us this year including St Paul’s Howell Hill,
The Hope4Malawi Trustees have, this year, covered all of the charity’s costs of administration, fundraising and trustee trips by making one off donations to Hope4Malawi.
Activities in 2023
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HOPE4MALAWI EXPENDITURE 2023 £252K (2022 £239K)
Sponsorship
programmes
Feeding
Programmes
Building projects -
School equipping -
Mpemba and Skills
books
Centre
School
Maintenance
Primary School
resourcing
Relief work
Project
following storm
Management and
team costs in UK Costs of running Freddy
country charity
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Hope Community Day Secondary School
Hope Community Day Secondary School, which opened in 2021, now has 181 students in four year groups, Forms 1 to 4. Hope CDSS is a government school which Hope4Malawi partners with, to assist the school and community with the aim of raising educational opportunities and standards by providing resources and bursaries.
Sara Goodman, a trustee of Hope4Malawi, is on the Board of Governors for the School, which meets termly. Mark Goodman is secretary of the Board. Both also meet regularly with the head teacher and deputy head teacher to offer support.
Hope4Malawi provides funds for employing support staff at the school: two guards, and school librarian/lab technician.
Hope4Malawi also provides bursaries for students whose parents cannot afford school fees, and exam fees. 27 students are on full bursary and 28 are on half bursary. In addition, all students are provided support in terms of resources: uniform, exercise books and pens, calculators, and maths sets. Hope4Malawi also provides funding for end of term prizes for students, outings, form 4 graduation, monthly teacher prizes and other incentives for teachers. The school also has a feeding programme which Hope4Malawi support through its bursary scheme.
We are very grateful to our sponsors who provide monthly financial support and also write to students 2 or 3 times a year.
Trustees have approved in principle that the next phase of fundraising, starting in 2024, will be for building work which will enable the school to be a 2-form entry school with provision of four additional classrooms, more toilets, and also a school Hall, at a budgeted cost of £130,000. Part of these funds are held but completing the work is dependent upon us receiving sufficient funds from donors.
Hope is a secondary school in a remote area which is challenging for both students and teachers. Students still walk over 5km to reach school each day and others walk over rivers and rough terrain which is difficult in both the rains and the intense heat. This year we purchased a piece of land (around a third of a hectare) which will be used for organic farming, as part of a programme to teach the students alternative farming methods. A further section could be used for hostels for the girls, an idea requested by the Board of Governors. Trustees will consider this in 2025 and when more funds become available.
Development of Primary Schools
Hope4Malawi’s work in Malawian primary schools is primarily focused on helping to improve infrastructure and resourcing in the four feeder schools to Hope CDSS and also at Mpemba Primary school, government schools in the district of Blantyre Rural. The aim is to improve school completion rates and educational outcomes for all the learners so that they can proceed to secondary school.
Our long-term aim is for all the feeder schools to Hope CDSS to have adequate infrastructure including 8 classrooms, one for each year group, a library, kitchen, and adequate toilets and teacher housing.
Primary School Building Work
In 2023 Hope4Malwi was able to build a classroom block at Mpemba, the school where our work first started in 2013 by providing a kitchen and feeding programme. This build was as a result of a very generous donor as part of our 10[th] year celebrations.
The project was undertaken with close involvement of the Ministry of Education, the schools and the local community, usually with the community providing sand, water and in some cases burnt bricks.
In 2023 we also built a boys’ toilet block for Tapani primary school, after building a girls’ toilet block in 2022.
Primary School Resourcing
Hope4Malawi assists its partner primary schools with the following resources:
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Teaching and learning resources (to supplement those provided by the government)
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Support for Std 7 and Std 8 mock exams
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Ministry of Education Curriculum Textbooks
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Solar Lamps so students can revise at home in the evenings
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Teacher transport to school – bicycles or motorbike taxis
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Termly provision of exercise books, pens and pencils to each learner
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We bought over 1,000 textbooks for primary schools for standard 5 -8
Feeding Programmes
Hope4Malawi has continued to provide funding to Hope4Development for the feeding programmes at Mpemba LEA, Chipwepwete Full Primary and Hope CDSS. 2,200 children are provided each day with a mug of Phala. The cost of the feeding programme is £15 per child each year.
Monitoring
Hope4Malawi partners with Hope4Development to monitor work in schools. The Ministry of Education and Blantyre City Council also monitor all building work.
Sara and Mark Goodman, Trustees of Hope4Malawi and directors of Hope4Development spent 6 months in Malawi to oversee building programmes and to monitor and run projects.
National and District Sponsorship programme
As well as our sponsorship programme at Hope CDSS, we continue to run our National and District sponsorship programme, which enables children who have been selected to district and national schools to have the opportunity of a secondary education which otherwise they would not be able to afford. These are students who scored high grades in the national primary school leavers exams in standard 8.
The programme is now in its 7th year and currently supports 28 students with school fees, exam fees, transport, educational resources including books and uniform as needed. Students build relationship with their sponsors through letter writing and are supported in holiday time by Hope4Malawi.
We continue to support students after they have finished school, providing post school training course, work placement opportunities, and tertiary education support. We restrict this programme to students who have completed their primary education at one of our 5 partner primary schools.
University Sponsorship
We now support 9 students in tertiary education, 8 at university and 1 at teacher training college. Sponsorship covers fees, accommodation, , allowance for groceries, and mentoring, as well as use of a computer. So far 1 student has completed university with sponsorship by H4M and received a first-class degree in engineering.
Students who are sponsored in tertiary education are carefully chosen from the local communities we work in and are chosen not only by their achievements but also their character. They must commit to assist in our other programmes during the holidays when they are home.
Skills Centre
One hectare of land was purchased in 2021 by Hope4Development, near Chimwembe Primary School, 2km from the local trading centre Chadzunda and 2km from Hope secondary school. This land will be used as a skills centre, and to develop the land organically.
The vision for the skills centre is to provide additional training opportunities and skills development for students finishing secondary school which will enable them to be skilled for the workplace, or to run their businesses.
In 2022, development began with the drilling of a borehole and placing of a solar pump and tank on the land.
During 2023 Hope4Malawi provided funds to Hope4Development to build an administration block and café on the skills centre land. This was completed by August 2023, after which our first course was run ‘Building safer Homes’. Later in the year a ‘Foundations in Faith course was run and skills course including writing a CV, and computer basics
Tropical Storm Freddy
After tropical storm Freddy hit Malawi in March 2023, killing over 1,000 and with thousands more losing their homes, we made an appeal for support to respond to the crises. We are astounded by the generosity of so many which amounted to over £38,000.
Our initial response was to provide maize flour for the most vulnerable people who lost their homes and black plastic sheeting for those whose houses were severely damaged in the 20 villages which we support in Jana and Mabala.
An engineer from the UK was in Malawi assisting with projects just after the storm and assessed the damage and destruction of homes. Many had fallen down due to poor building standards. He developed a standardized plan for a model home from both burnt brick and mud bricks based on Malawi best practise and then he wrote a training course. He came in August to teach 8 builders how to teach model homes during which they built model homes at the skills centre. These 8 builders then trained people in the village to rebuild 19 homes for vulnerable people using funds from the appeal.
Governance
The trustees have had regard to the guidance issued by the Charity Commission on public benefit. None of the Trustees receive any benefit from the charity.
Fundraising for the charity is through businesses, schools, churches, and events. It is also in response to regular communication to committed supporters and through personal contact with individuals who hear about our work.
Individuals including trustees who visit Malawi on educational and teaching trips raise sufficient funds to cover the costs of each trip. The trustees fund all the running costs of the charity including administration and fundraising costs ensuring that 100% of all donations from supporters fund educational projects in Malawi.
Our monies are held at CAFBank as that bank is designed for charities and is part of the Charity Aid Foundation that helps charities fundraise. We hold no investments. Hope4Malawi Trustees – May 2024
2023 in Pictures
Phala Feeding Programme Programme at Mpemba LEA
Lack of infrastructure makes teaching challenging
New Classroom block at Mpemba LEA
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Inside the new classroom block at Mpemba LEA
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Working in Mpemba LEA library
Difficulties of getting resources to Tapani FP
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Tapani FP Library
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Literacy training for teachers over Zoom from the US
Sorting MIE text books for distribution to primary schools
Hope CDSS with circles showing potential sites for more classrooms and a school hall
Chemistry lessons at Hope CDSS
Computer lessons at Hope CDSS
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Girls’ menstrual hygiene training at Tapani FP
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Encouraging and counselling National & District bursary holders
Three of our university bursary holders
Hope4Malawi
Income and Expenditure year ending 31 December 2023
| Account | 2023 | |
|---|---|---|
| General Giving | ||
| Regular | 32,387 | |
| One offgeneralgifts | 44,411 | |
| Total General Giving Restricted funds |
76,797 | |
| Relief fund after Storm Freddy | 38,905 | |
| Income raised byTrinityschool for Chipwepwete resourcingand feeeding | 9,931 | |
| Sponsorship giving | 34,552 | |
| Total Restricted funds Other income sources |
83,388 | |
| Legacies | 19,916 | |
| Gifts to cover supporter/team and UK runningcosts | 18,317 | |
| Bank interest | 3,327 | |
| 41,559 | ||
| 201,745 | ||
| Ticket sales for Feast of Music Costs of running Feast of Music event Profit from running events Total income Expenditure |
5,347 789 |
|
| 4,558 | ||
| Total income | 206,303 | |
| Sponsorship schemes | 31,923 | |
| Feeding Programmes Building projects |
18,700 | |
| Skills Centre build | 1,591 | |
| Mpemba classroom blockpaid to HOPE4DEVELOPMENT | 38,292 | |
| Skills centrephase 1 blockpaid to HOPE4DEVELOPMENT | 68,148 | |
| Purchase of land at Hope(BOUGHT BY H4D) | 5,000 | |
| Buildingsupervision - Ant Deane | 2,603 | |
| Total Building projects | 115,633 | |
| Equippingwith longer term items | 2,433 | |
| Maintenance | 3,193 | |
| Resourcing Costs of items financed by other funds |
21,192 | |
| Items for Project MyGirl | 2,195 | |
| Staffingatprimaries - librarians & TA | 2,577 | |
| Skills centre staff | 3,444 | |
| Costs relatingto storm relief and rebuildingcosts followingStorm Freddy | 28,628 | |
| Itemspurchased from solar fund | 809 | |
| Total Costs of items financed by other funds Project Management costs in country |
37,653 | |
| Trustee travel & subsistence & data in country | 2,054 | |
| Trustee accommodation in country | 1,484 | |
| Trustee medical insurance | 892 | |
| Total Project Management costs in country Charity costs covered by Trustee donations |
4,430 | |
| Team and supporter costs in Malawi | 4,160 | |
| Trustee flights & visas | 6,589 | |
| UK Costs of runningcharity | 6,179 | |
| 16,928 | ||
| 252,086 | ||
| Deficit of income over expenditure during year | -45,783 |
CHARITY (OMMISSION FOR ENGLAND AND WALES Independent examinerfs report on the accounts Section A Independent Examiner's Report Report to the trusts•8 AopELFVIALftWI On accounts for the year ended 2D23 Charlty no (If any) S•t out on pages I report to the trustees on my examlnation of the accounts of the above charity (Ihe Trust") for the year ended S I li21¥c)> As the charitys trustees, you are responsible for the preparation of the accounts in accordance with the requirements of the Charities Act 2011 (Ihe 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 a15 the appllcable Directions given by the Charity Commisslon under section 145(5)(b) of the Act. Responslbllltles and basls of report Indopendent trhe charity's gross income 8xceeded £250.000 and l am qualified to examinerfs statement undertake the examination by b8ing a qualified member of [insert name of applicable listed body]]. Delete [ ] rf not applicable. I have completed my examination. I confirm that no matsrial matters have come to my attention in connection with the examination (other than that disdosed below ') which gives me cause to believe that in. any material respect: the accounting records were not kept in accordance with section 130 of the Charities Act; or the accounts dld not accnrd with the accounting records; or the accounts did not compty with the applicable requirements conceming the fomi and content of accounts set out in the Charities (Accounts and Reports) Regulations 2008 other than any requlrement that the accounts give a 'true and fairf 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 viith the examinatlon to which attention should be drath in this report in order to enable a proper understanding of the a¢Unts to be reached. ° Please delet8 the words in the brackets rf they do not apply. Slgned: Name: M r WoLfFS<> Relevant profess5onal qualification{s) or body Fc M Oct 2018