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2021-12-31-accounts

Uzima In Our Hands

Registered Charity Number 1153181

Trustees’ Annual Report For the period 1.1.2021 to 31.12.2021

Above photo - assembly in the pandemic

Annual Report 1 Jan 2021 - 31 December 2021

Uzima In Our Hands

STRUCTURE, GOVERNANCE AND MANAGEMENT

The Charity Uzima In Our Hands (“the Charity”) was constituted as a trust by a trust deed made on 1 st August 2013. The Charity’s primary aim is to provide funding for the Uzima Children Orphan Centre. However, Uzima In Our Hands is a wholly separate entity from Uzima Children Orphan Centre. New Trustees are appointed by the existing Trustees. All Trustees give of their time freely and no Trustee remuneration was paid during the year. During this financial year the Trustees were: - Joy Mowle (Chair) - Louise Collins (Treasurer) - Rachel Beasley (Secretary) until 26[th] February 21 - Vivienne Collins (new Secretary)

The Trustees met 10 times during this financial year: Jan 22 2021, 26 Feb 2021, 23 April 2021, 18 June 2021, 16 July 2021, 16 Sept 2021, 15 October 2021, 12 Nov 2021, 26 Nov 2021, 16 Dec 2021,

Above photo - learning in the Pandemic

Recruitment and Training:

Any Trustee can suggest a new Trustee to current Trustees. If agreement is reached, the potential Trustee is informally interviewed by one of the Trustees; if further consensus is reached, the person is then invited to a Trustees meeting where an informed discussion and exchange of views takes place between all parties. At a separate meeting (possibly on the same day if appropriate), a decision is reached whether to invite the person to join the Trust. By this stage it is normally apparent whether the person is / is not suitable and would accept the role of Trustee if offered. If the person has accepted the role, they are then formally invited to a Special Meeting of Trustees which would immediately precede the next Trustees meeting at which they would be formally welcomed to the Charity and the statutory record of Trustees would be amended accordingly. Prior to appointment, Trustees are sent full details of the Trust and Charity Commission guidance on Trustees’ roles and responsibilities.

Policies

With the growing and maturing of Uzima In Our Hands, the Charity has undertaken an inventory of the policies and either updated existing policies or written the missing policies. The following policies are available to guide the Trustees and volunteers while working for the Charity.

Keyperson exposure and continuity

Keypersons for both the UK and Kenya were identified and there are now structures to ensure continuity if something happens with these persons. The main key person identified in the UK is Joy Mowle and in Kenya it is the director Evans Bwire Barasa.

OBJECTIVES AND ACTIVITES

The purposes of the Charity as set out in its governing document:

  1. The relief of sickness and preservation of health and well-being.

  2. The advancement of education.

  3. The relief of financial hardship in particular, but not exclusively, for Uzima Children Orphan Centre in the Samia district of Western Kenya

A summary of the main activities in relation to those purposes for the public benefit

The Charity achieves its purposes for the public benefit through regular quarterly grants to Uzima Children Orphan Centre. Uzima Children Orphan Centre focuses on the public benefit of families with the care of orphaned or disabled children and children in exceptional need. Help and support are offered irrespective of tribe or religious affiliation. All children at Uzima Children Orphan Centre attend pre-school or primary school classes. During the school day they receive 2 free meals. The children at Uzima Children Orphan Centre can access basic health care without charge at the nearby Buburi Health Clinic. Uzima Children Orphan Centre has a programme to offer extra support to children with special needs, and also those who are slower learners. A further 4 attend a local special school. A social worker employed by Uzima Children Orphan Centre offers further child and family support.

Joy, the Chair of Trustees, or another Trustee, visits Uzima Children Orphan Centre every year if possible usually with a small group of supporters. In this way the communication and the understanding of the issues 'on the ground' are regularly improved and strengthened. Sadly in 2021 no visit was possible due to the pandemic and communication deteriorated somewhat.

Returning children to school post Covid

December 2020: the construction and adaptation work at school to house all the existing pupils according to strict government requirements was continuing to progress and was expected to be completed by the next month, with all children returning to school properly by mid-January. Tents had been purchased to enable this, but not yet installed. At the beginning of 2021: Evans was very happy as had been inspired with a scheme to get all remaining 180 children into school: he took to using his house and the houses of several of his relatives! Children were divided into 7 groups, based at each of 'house' stations, where they can shelter if it rains. Teachers and food available.

As this was not an official 'school' it appeared authorities did not need to be involved so both Evans and the children were very happy. Social distancing was not an issue as outdoors. Children could then gradually return to Uzima school as restrictions eased/vaccines arrived. Still a challenge however with furniture and food.

By April, all children were back at school again, making use of verandahs and shady areas outside to continue their education, whilst socially distanced from each other as much as possible.

In June each child was now required to have a Report card, in the form of a booklet, which had to be updated every month to show progress with new Gvt curriculum

By July it was clear that the new Gvt curriculum extended primary education up to Standard 9 and pressure began to be put on the Trustees to provide the funding for an additional classroom + resources room/science lab to accommodate the Standard 9 curriculum. Further hidden costs would include suitable trained teachers for what would now be called 'Lower Secondary' (Standard 7-9). Uzima Orphan Centre began to look at possibility of a reduced intake of 15 per year as a way of managing the additional financial burden...

In December Evans reported that strict re-enforcement of Covid regs following new variant means only 160 could be at school unless further work done on premises: fumigation, additional soap/sanitisers/face masks + tiling of vocational classrooms/erection of nylon sheeting on verandas (temp measure) to enable all children still to attend.

Lack of clarity about what previous Emergency funding payment of one year earlier for tiling and ceiling boards - approx £20,000 - had actually covered as Trustees had believed it to cover tiling of whole school + installation of ceiling boards throughout school. The year ended with the need to revisit how Emergency Fund spent before any further money sent.

Slower Learners and final primary exam marks

It is unclear how well the slower learners' provision has continued to be implemented as Lilian, the designated senior teacher in charge, has been absent for part of 2021 pursuing a further diploma in teaching. Children's marks in the final primary exam were not reflective of the intensive learning opportunities they should have had access to, but this is in part due to the disruption still caused by Covid.

Staffing and Teacher’s training

At the beginning of the year it appeared that there were no big issues in staffing. All teachers in training were still awaiting results, and all still at Uzima (5 year contract) - Jacinta did not take exam, helping cooks in kitchen instead, happy.

Initially Evans said no changes to staffing, then agreed that 2 had left recently, didn't know of any more, although Joy had been told of number of staff changes...This was needing to be investigated more fully.

Austine began to send brief weekly updates giving school and staffing news on Messenger. It was still not known whether teachers being trained had passed final exams, although felt to be likely, as College closed until restrictions lifted, when Austine would collect results.

By November Trustees were planning that the list of 9 teachers who completed Teacher Training to be given to Joy, so that when she visited in early 2022 she could check that all still at Uzima and receiving appropriate salary.

Secondary School training

In April the Trustees put the proposal to Evans that UIOH might provide sponsorship to fund 2 places - one boy and one girl - to attend secondary school, where there was an exceptional need but insufficient finance in the home situation. At that stage there were two people so

far interested in sponsoring pupils with outstanding exam results/potential to go to secondary school, at a cost of £15 pcm per child:

i) this would be for one boy and one girl per year

ii) sponsorship would last for 4 years while the child was at secondary school Continuation of the annual sponsorship would be dependent on a positive report of progress + photo of exam results being provided by child for sponsors at the end of each academic year

Contact with individual children not foreseen at this stage, although a general message from sponsors might be sent after results received, before new academic year begun. Selection would be made during the first week of new school year to ensure that it was the truly vulnerable children who were provided with a place. The scheme was to be promoted in the UIOH newsletter.

In June Trustees agreed to sponsor 2 pupils (1 boy and 1 girl) according to criteria of who would benefit most from secondary school education - which could include academic ability, sporting ability, character, work ethic... Joy to contact Austine to ask him to consult teachers and make selection [future years this would be made before Y8 children leave school at Easter], ensuring also that conditions of sponsorship (as agreed previously) were understood by recipients.

By July 2 children had been identified as suitable for sponsorship. Both these children were made aware of the conditions for sponsorship.

By November 4 further children had been named as being sponsored to attend secondary school by private individuals,

appeared that there wasn't such a need in this direction as we had thought (60% figure attending Sec Sch for past 5 years)! Joy was asked to investigate further when out in Kenya.

Five Talents Project

Uzima in Our Hands spent much of 2021 seeking ways to improve the life chances of the children who leave the Orphan Centre with no prospect of follow-on work or a livelihood. Much research was completed in the first half of this financial year. Trustees desired to help alleviate poverty with fees however being paid through UIOH.

By the end of the year, UIOH Financial Report now included a new Secondary School Sponsorship page, with tight records of the 9 children who were by now being sponsored, kept by our Administrator. Viv Collins was appointed Co-ordinator for the scheme. However, it and make a lasting change to the whole community (ie. In broad terms, move away from hand outs).

In 2017/8 UIOH raised a large sum of money to build Vocational Classrooms - we wanted to equip school leavers with a trade and employ vocational skills teachers to train the older children. For several key reasons this had not worked and with hindsight we are thankful as these new classrooms were needed to ensure the school stayed operational under new Government regulations. This model of employing more teachers in the Vocational Classrooms would not have been sustainable, given how challenging it has become to raise funds to operate the Orphan & Day Care Centre as it is for over 300 children.

The community in the Samia area is desperately poor with some children not eating at weekends (because they don’t attend school Saturdays and Sundays) and so there was massive potential for lasting change. We believed strongly that this change could be achieved through entrepreneurship and so after some research, we ran a pilot programme in business training in February 2020. Trustee

Louise Collins, with help from a fellow visitor and school teacher, Martin, ran this pilot programme based on work by a group called ‘reconcile’, with support from the leadership at the Orphan Centre. This took time to get going, the older children did not at first see they could run a business themselves, by the end of the week they were brimming with ideas and discussing with us how they could market their product/service. They came alive! The entire class came back for further training when offered. Once business is explained, local people can often see for themselves the power it has to radically improve their prospects.

Entrepreneurship radically reduces poverty, and so on this basis a joint initiative of financing and business training to equip the community to set up small business enterprises was our agreed aim to move forward.

As a result Trustees initiated a micro financing programme for the Samia community surrounding Uzima - this means to provide basic, local and appropriate business training and financial services (a safe place to save and access to small loans) enabling them to save and/or start their own small businesses. With this help, they can move from a hand to mouth existence, to one where they can feed their families and considerably improve their own life chances.

We began a relationship and partnership with Five Talents, a global micro financing charity and funded a two week training programme to train our own facilitators, which cost £5k.

Once trained, our facilitators were tasked to set up between 6-12 savings groups with around 20-30 members and an elected committee (treasures, leader, secretary etc.) in each group, to begin a long term programme of mentoring members in savings and business skills. Some of these group members would be older children from Uzima (standard 8, 16/17 year olds) with their guardians. Members are encouraged and coached to set up their own small businesses and begin trading. This is likely to be in local trades such as chicken farming, bee keeping, sewing, childcare, woodwork, brick making and laying and laundry services.

This was our 2020 timeline :

Timeline

Jan/Feb - Discussed and agreed the programme objectives with Evans, director

Feb/March - learned from another project, took part in discussions organised by FT

March/April - identified potential Facilitator(s), who could start ‘scouting’ for members - set up fundraising platform to raise monies needed in UK

Summer - Drew up Modus Operandi with FT to plan 2 week training programme in Autumn 21.

Sept/October - booked FT 2 began a 2 week training for Facilitator, after which they start process of setting up savings groups.

Wrote to business contacts and interested parties to raise funds

Trustees hosted an online update on the work of our charity, and introduced the micro-financing business project to them.

November - training took place and two local trainers, Frida and Reuben were employed for a 3 year project.

And so the project began in November 2021, with the help of FT mentor and trainer, Emmy. Trustees agreed to work closely, and monitor an agreed set of criteria to measure the progress of the project.

Uzima In Our Hands

CC16a

Charity Name Uzima In Our Hands

Charity number (if any) 1153181
For the period from 01/01/2021 to 31/12/2021

Section A Receipts and payments

A1 Receipts Unrestricted
Funds		 Restrited
funds		 Endowment
Funds		 Total Funds Per.
(From - To)
121,170
2,758
9,157
-
-
3
100
133,187
-
133,187
60,584
-
479
-
-
-
255
-
561
-
-
-
61,879
-
-
61,879
-
71,307
0
-
19,388
90,696		 Last Year
Donations 121,170 - 121,170 63,473
Fund Raising 2,758 - 2,758 15,978
GiftAid 9,157 - 9,157 13,498
Grants - - - 1,000
Other Income - - -
Interest 3 - 3 3
** Question - In ** 100 - 100 -
Sub total
A2 Asset and investment sales, etc.
Total Receipts
A3 Payments		 133,187 - - 133,187 93,952
- -
133,187 - - 133,187 93,952
Grants to Uzima Orphan and Day-Care Centre 60,584
-		 - 60,584
-		 97,385
-
Grants to Uzima Orphan and Day-Care Centre S/N
Five Talents Programme 8,490
-
Bank charges 479
-		 - 479
-		 331
-
FOB Transfer - -
Cost School Shirts - - - 682
-
Fund Raising Cost 255
-		 - 255
-		 50
-
Admin Cost 561
-		 - 561
-		 -
- -
- - - -
Subtotal
A4 Asset and investment purchases, etc
Total Payments
Net of recipts / (Payments)
A5 Transfer of funds
A6 Cash funds last year end
Cash funds this year end		 70,370
-		 - - 61,879
-		 101,568
-
- -
70,370
-		 - - 61,879
-		 101,568
-
62,817 - - 71,307 7,617
-
5 5
-		 0
-		 0
19,383 5 - 19,388 9,294
82,205 - - 90,696 1,678
0
-		 0 0

~~Uzima In Our Hands~~

~~CC16a~~

Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period

B1 Cash funds
B2 Other Monetary Assets
B3 Investment assets
B4 Assets retained for the charity's own use
B5 Liabiities
Signed by one or two trustees on behalf of all the
trustees		 Details Unrestricted
Funds		 Restrited
funds
-
-
0
-
-
0
-
-
-
-
-
0
-
Restrited
funds
Cost (Optional)
Cost (Optional)
Cost (Optional)		 Endowment
Funds
Bank - Main 15,816 -
Special 1,527 -
Coop Current Acount 1,801 0
-
Coop Savings Account 61,396 -
Vocational Room 0
-		 0
-
Give As You Live - -
Paypal 1,652 -
Paypal Giving Fund 6 -
Stripe 9 -
Details
Total cash funds		 82,205 0
-
Unrestricted
Funds		 Endowment
Funds
Details Funds to which
**asset belongs **		 Current Value
(Optional)
Details Funds to which
**asset belongs **		 Current Value
(Optional)
Details Funds to which
liability relates		 Current Value
(Optional)
signature Print name Date of approval

Independent examiner's report on the accounts

Report to the trustees/ Charity Name members of On accounts for the year Charity no ended (if any) Set out on pages

(remember to include the page numbers of additional sheets)

I report to the trustees on my examination of the accounts of the above charity ( DD / MM / YYYY .

Responsibilities and As the charity trustees of the Trust, you are responsible for the preparation basis of report of the accounts in accordance with the requirements of the Charities Act .

I report in respect of my examination under section 145 of the 2011 Act and in carrying out my examination, I have followed the applicable Directions given by the Charity Commission under section 145(5)(b) of the Act.

Independent I have completed my examination. I confirm that no material matters have examiner's statement come to my attention (other than that disclosed below *) in connection with the examination which gives me cause to believe that in, any material respect:

accounting records were not kept in accordance with section 130 of the Act or the accounts do not accord with the accounting records

I have no concerns and have come across no other matters in connection with the examination to which attention should be drawn in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached.

Signed: Date: Name: Relevant professional qualification(s) or body (if any): Address:

October 2018

1

IER

Section B Disclosure

Only complete if the examiner needs to highlight matters of concern (see CC32, Independent examination of charity accounts: directions and guidance for examiners).

Give here brief details of any items that the examiner wishes to disclose .

October 2018

2

IER