Uzima in Our Hands
Registered Charity Number 1153181 Trustees’ Annual Report For the period 1.1.2022 to 31.12.2022
Photo – Family supported by Uzima
Annual Report 1 Jan 2022 - 31 December 2022 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) temporary while Joy was in Kenya, January – March 2022 - Vivienne Collins (Secretary)
There were 13 trustees meetings in 2022
7 January 2022, 14 February 2022, 8 March 2022, 21 March 2022, 30 March 2022, 20 April 2022, 19 May 2022, 29 June 2022, 5 August 2022, 7 September 2022, 14 October 2022, 3 November 2022, 8 December 2022
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
The following policies are available to guide the Trustees and volunteers while working for the Charity. • Anti-bribery and corruption • Conflict of interest • Equality, Diversity and Inclusion policy • Financial Policy, including Reserve and Expense Policy • Privacy and Data protection • Roles and Responsibilities • Code of Conduct for Trustees • Safeguarding policy (including Social Media Policy)
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 accessed basic health care without charge at the nearby Health Clinic. Sadly, Buburi Health Clinic shut early in 2022. 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. Therefore, a longer trip of 3 months was undertaken by Joy in January 2022 to ascertain what was truly happening on the ground.
Over the 3 month period of her visit, it came to light that there was corruption in the management of Uzima Orphan Centre and although many ideas and possible ways forward were floated, finally Joy left Kenya having decided that we could no longer trust that the grants we were sending were being used entirely for the Orphan Centre.
This led us to make the unanimous decision not to continue supporting the Orphan Centre but trying to find a way forward to still help the children who were as much in need as ever. Initially during 2022 we decided to close the charity in line with the end of our Five Talents project in November 2024. We hoped to hand over the support of these children to a different charity or NGO. We paid the staff at Uzima Orphan Centre for the rest of the year keeping the centre open and also paid for food direct to the supplier. Meanwhile we negotiated and started working with another Kenyan charity ‘Rise to Shine Education Foundation,’ the founder who Joy had met in January 2022 during her visit.
The staff were told about the upcoming change on Joy’s second visit in October and were given a redundancy payment at Christmas 2022 when all financial ties were cut with Uzima Orphan Centre. We still had the children in mind however and had arranged for the most vulnerable children to be assessed by our new contact in RTSEF – Emily Bakhitah Okoth. She made arrangements for the most vulnerable from the centre (67 initially) to attend 4 different local Government Primary schools. The social worker from Uzima Orphan Centre was employed plus an administrator social worker to organise uniform, bags, shoes and school equipment for the children, all of which are needed to attend a Government school. Fees were also covered, and ongoing support should a child need it was given from the social workers office in Nanderema.
This was a difficult period of change especially as the Orphan Centre’s management were angry at the funds not being sent anymore and the new charity staff were sometimes threatened. However
the new scheme was welcomed by the local chiefs and people who wanted the scholarships for the most vulnerable.
During all the massive changes of 2022, we kept our supporters informed of our decisions and what we were doing to continue to support the vulnerable children in the area around Uzima. Many people stopped their financial support as a result of this but equally, many kept supporting us, trusting that we would find a way forward. The year has been one of change but we ended it feeling that a way forward had opened up and the future was better for the children we seek to support than it had been when we supported a centre.
Five Talents
Our Uzima Savings Group project was set up in November 2021 with the assistance of Five Talents, a global charity that specialises in savings groups. This new initiative was embarked upon to help vulnerable local people learn to save together in community groups and then eventually learn the skills to run their own small businesses – to literally work their way out of poverty. By the beginning of January 22, we had trained two Savings Group leaders, and set up the first few groups, and we were still in regular contact with the main trainer from Five Talents, Emmy Ronoh. In February there were 6 saving groups with 31 members.
Emmy proved to be so trustworthy and valuable over the first few months of the project, that we employed her in a leadership role to oversee the project, as we realised we needed this assistance on the ground to give the project the best start. Emmy was from that point also responsible for dispersing salaries to the team.
Our two trainers were Frida and Reuben. We also hired an independent accountant for the project, Peres, crucially to keep accounts separate from Evans, the Director found to be corrupt from Uzima Orphan Centre. This was a good move, though a bit scary at first for the new team, who had to keep their heads down. Peres the accountant, was employed to keep accounts for the whole project, but also to help train group leaders in book keeping skills.
An office was procured in May/June, which was lockable and safe for the laptop and printer, and located away from the school.
Later in the year, evidence was gathered demonstrating that sadly Reuben wasn’t being trustworthy, he had taken too many days sick, and extra unauthorised time for a family funeral, and he was not working when he said he was. Eventually, we terminated his position (which was self employed status) in November. Emmy advised that she felt confident that Frida could manage the 16 groups as we had then on her own, with Emmy and Peres’ support.
Emmy met with the local chief, James, in Nanderema, to ensure that the project was under his watchful eye and therefore had a level of protection.
Bye the end of the year, we had almost 400 people in Savings groups, and they had grown from 6 to 20 groups. We are very pleased with this progress, and that we were able to keep this project separate from the Orphan Centre.
Pictured, one of the early members of a savings group, meeting Joy and selling her some tomatoes (Feb 2022).
Uzima In Our Hands
CC16a
Charity Name Uzima In Our Hands
| Charity number (if any) | 1153181 | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| For the period from | 01/01/2022 | to | 31/12/2022 |
Section A Receipts and payments
| A1 Receipts | Unrestricted Funds |
Restrited funds |
Endowment Funds |
Total Funds Per. (From - To) 35,990 938 9,384 - - 101 - 46,413 - 46,413 11,224 - 360 - - - - 255 - - - 11,838 - - 11,838 - 34,575 0 82,205 116,780 |
Last Year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Donations | 35,990 | - | 35,990 | 63,473 | |
| Fund Raising | 938 | - | 938 | 15,978 | |
| GiftAid | 9,384 | - | 9,384 | 13,498 | |
| Grants | - | - | - | 1,000 | |
| Other Income | - | - | - | ||
| Interest | 101 | - | 101 | 3 | |
| - | - | - | - | ||
| Sub total A2 Asset and investment sales, etc. Total Receipts A3 Payments |
46,413 | - | - | 46,413 | 93,952 |
| - | - | ||||
| 46,413 | - | - | 46,413 | 93,952 | |
| Grants to Uzima Orphan and Day-Care Centre | 32,202 - |
- | 11,224 - |
97,385 - |
|
| Grants to Uzima Orphan and Day-Care Centre S/N | |||||
| Five Talents Programme | 35,675 - |
||||
| Bank charges | 360 - |
- | 360 - |
331 - |
|
| FOB Transfer | - | - | |||
| Cost School Shirts | - | - | - | 682 - |
|
| Fund Raising Cost | - | - | - | 50 - |
|
| Admin Cost | 255 - |
- | 255 - |
- | |
| - | - | ||||
| - | - | - | - | ||
| 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 |
68,492 - |
- | - | 11,838 - |
101,568 - |
| - | - | ||||
| 68,492 - |
- | - | 11,838 - |
101,568 - |
|
| 22,079 - |
- | - | 34,575 | 7,617 - |
|
| 0 | - | 0 | 0 | ||
| 82,205 | 0 - |
- | 82,205 | 9,294 | |
| 60,127 | 0 - |
- | 116,780 | 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 | 33,626 | - | ||
| Special | 2,036 | - | ||
| Coop Current Acount | 1,383 | 0 - |
||
| Coop Savings Account | 23,019 | - | ||
| Vocational Room | 0 - |
0 - |
||
| Give As You Live | - | - | ||
| Paypal | 31 | - | ||
| Paypal Giving Fund | 0 | - | ||
| Stripe | 32 | - | ||
| Details Total cash funds |
60,127 | 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 |
CHARITY (OMMISSION FOR ENGIAND AND WALES Independent examiner's report on the accounts Se¢llon A Independent Examiner's Report R•port to th• trustees I£) cxwz tréwos On accounts for the year •ndèd Ch8rity no Ilf any) 11sJili Sot oul on pag•S I report lo the truslees cfft rny examinatton of the accoL¢Ats of the above charity {Ihe Trust'l lor the year ended 3 1 I X 2oAI R•sponsibiliti•$ and bas1$ of r•port As the charws trustees, you ale spOnSible lor the preparafjon of the accounts in awdance ¥th the requirements ol the Charities Act 2011 rthe Act"). l Trport in respect of my examinalicn ol the Trust's aco)unls ¢amed out undèr sedh)n 145 of the 2011 Act and in caffwng out my examination. I have folk)wed all the applicable DireclNJn5 given by the Charity Commission under sedn 1495Xbl of the Act. Independent Tr chariVs gross ir& exceded £250,000 and l am qu81ified lo examlnerfs ststement undertake thè 8xarninatJn by b8ing a qualified m&mb8r ol linrt name of apF4abI& listed bodyll. Delete I l rfnol applKable. I ha¥ CLxmp18te(I my exami1. l Lyyffimi Ihat no maleri81 mattèr5 have come lo my altenlion in 9)nnti1)n wth the examination (other than Ihal disdose(1 bdow.) gNes me cause to bgligve thal in, any malefial respecl.. the accountirvJ recdS tre not keFrt in accor(18nce wlh section 130 of the Chanlies Aci., or the accounts not aecord wth the awxjnling records.. or the accounts dKI not compty wilh the applicable requirements concemir4J iho form and conlenl ol accounts sel out in the Charities IA¢o)unls and Re[Nts) Regulations 2CK]8 other than any requiremènl that the accounts give 8 'te and lair. eW which is not a matter onsidered as part ol an independenl examination. I have no concems and have u)me across no other matters in connection with the examination to which allenlion shoukl be drawn in this report In order lo en8ble a proper uTrJerslanding of the 8cwun15 to be reached. ' Please delele the words in the brackets rfthey do nol apply. Signed.. 2J/L*lJtyl) Name.. Q5F Relevant prof&sslonal qualificatiot)Is) or body IER Oct 2018
lif any): Address: R6ftL)r Section B Disclosure Only complete Il the examine¥ needs lo highlight material matter5 01 concern (see CC32. Independent examination ol chaiily accounts.. directions and guidance for eyaminersl. Glve here brfef dotalls of any Items that tho •xamin8r wish•s to dlscloso. IER Ocl 2018