## **RURAL INDIA SCHOOL ENTERPRISE (RISE)**
**REGISTERED CHARITY NUMBER: 1158920**
## **Report of the Trustees and Financial Statements**
For The Year Ending 31[st] March 2021
Verdant Accountants Ltd 167 Clarence Avenue New Malden Surrey KT3 3TX
## **RURAL INDIA SCHOOL ENTERPRISE (RISE)**
## **CONTENTS**
FOR THE YEAR ENDING 31 MARCH 2021
||**PAGE**|
|---|---|
|**Legal and Administrative Information**|**1**|
|**Trustees’ Report**|**2**|
|**Statement of Financial Activities**|**3**|
|**Balance Sheet**|**4**|
|**Notes to the Financial Statements**|**5 – 7**|
|**Appendix 1**|**8 – 13**|
## **RURAL INDIA SCHOOL ENTERPRISE (RISE)**
## **LEGAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE INFORMATION**
FOR THE YEAR ENDING 31 MARCH 2021
|**Trustees**|Jeremy Glover|
|---|---|
||Chris Magennis|
||Sanju Pal|
||Charles Stubbs (Resigned April 2020)|
|**Charity registration number**|1158920|
|**Registered Office**|225–229 Seven Sisters Road|
||London|
||N4 2DA|
|**Accountants**|Verdant Accountants Ltd|
||167 Clarence Avenue|
||New Malden|
||Surrey|
||KT3 3TX|
|**Bankers**|HSBC PLC|
||50–52 Kilburn High Road|
||Kilburn|
||London|
||NW6 4HJ|
Page 1
## **RURAL INDIA SCHOOL ENTERPRISE (RISE)**
## **TRUSTEES’ REPORT**
FOR THE YEAR ENDING 31 MARCH 2021
## **See Appendix 1**
Page 2
## **RURAL INDIA SCHOOL ENTERPRISE (RISE)**
## **STATEMENT OF FINANCIAL ACTIVITIES**
|FOR THE YEAR ENDING 31 MARCH 2021|FOR THE YEAR ENDING 31 MARCH 2021|FOR THE YEAR ENDING 31 MARCH 2021|FOR THE YEAR ENDING 31 MARCH 2021||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|**INCOMING RESOURCES**
Incoming resources from
charitable activities
**Total incoming resources**
**RESOURCES EXPENDED**
Charitable expenses
Governance expenses
**Total resources expended**
**NET INCOME/ (EXPENDITURE)**
Net income / (expenditure)
**RECONCILIATION OF FUNDS**
Total funds brought forward
**TOTAL FUNDS CARRIED FORWARD**|Notes
2
3
4|**Unrestricted**
**Funds**
**2021**
**£**
**7,360**
**7,360**
**3,186**
**150**
**3,336**
**4,024**
**40,318**
**44,342**|**Total**
**Funds**
**2021**
**£**
**7,360**
**7,360**
**3,186**
**150**
**3,336**
**4,024**
**40,318**
**44,342**|**Total**
**Funds**
**2020**
**£**
**3,199**
3,199
**5,816**
**200**
6,016
(2,817)
**43,135**
40,318|
Page 3
## **RURAL INDIA SCHOOL ENTERPRISE (RISE)**
## **BALANCE SHEET**
FOR THE YEAR ENDING 31 MARCH 2021
|**CURRENT ASSETS**
Debtors
Cash at bank
**CURRENT LIABILITIES**
Amounts falling due within 1 year:
Accruals
Net current assets (liabilities)
**TOTAL NET ASSETS**
**RESERVES AND FUNDS**
Unrestricted funds|Notes
5
6|**2021**
**£**
**1,063**
**43,629**
**44,692**
**(350)**
**44,342**
**44,342**
**44,342**
**44,342**|2020
£
1,063
39,455|
|---|---|---|---|
||||40,518
(200)
40,318
40,318
40,318
40,318|
The financial statements were approved and authorised for issue by the Trustees On 23 January 2022 and signed on their behalf, by:
**----- Start of picture text -----**
Ms Sanju Pal
**----- End of picture text -----**
**----- Start of picture text -----**
Trustee
**----- End of picture text -----**
Page 4
## **RURAL INDIA SCHOOL ENTERPRISE (RISE)**
## **NOTES TO THE ACCOUNTS**
FOR THE YEAR ENDING 31 MARCH 2021
## **1 ACCOUNTING POLICIES**
## **1.1 BASIS OF ACCOUNTING**
The financial statements have been prepared under the historical cost convention and in accordance with Accounting and Reporting by Charities: Statement of Recommended Practice applicable to charities preparing their accounts in accordance with the Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland (FRS 102) (effective 1 January 2015); Financial Reporting Standard 102 the Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland (FRS 102), and the Companies Act 2006.
## **1.2 FUND ACCOUNTING**
Unrestricted funds are available for the use at the discretion of the trustees in furtherance of the general objectives of the charity.
Restricted funds are those funds which are to be used in accordance with specific restrictions imposed by donors which have been raised by the charity for particular purposes. The cost of raising and administering such funds are charged against the specific fund.
All income is included in the statement of financial activities when the charity is entitled to the income and the amount can be Quantified with reasonable accuracy.
## **1.3 EXPENDITURE**
Expenditure has been recognised in the accounts on an accrual basis including post balance date liabilities.
All expenditure that includes any VAT which cannot be fully recovered, and is reported as part of the expenditure to which it relates
Charitable expenditure comprises those costs incurred by the charity in the delivery of its activities and services for its beneficiaries. It includes both costs that can be allocated directly to such activities and those costs of an indirect nature necessary to support them.
Other costs include those costs associated with meeting the constitutional and statutory requirements of the charity and include the examination fees and costs linked to the strategic management of the charity
All costs are allocated between the expenditure categories of the SOFA on a basis designed to reflect the use of the resource. Costs relating to a particular activity are allocated directly, others are apportioned on an appropriate basis as seen by the Trustees.
Page 5
## **RURAL INDIA SCHOOL ENTERPRISE (RISE)**
## **NOTES TO THE ACCOUNTS (Continued…)**
FOR THE YEAR ENDING 31 MARCH 2021
|**2**
**INCOMING RESOURCES FROM CHARITABLE ACTIVITIES**
Monthly donations
One-time donations
Individual donations
Fundraising
Corporate donations
Survival Week donations
**Total Incoming Resources**
**3**
**CHARITABLE EXPENSES**
Staff salary
Payroll liability costs
Office rent & interest
Recruitment
Staff training
Office miscellaneous
Marketing/social media & Telephone
Insurance
Staff travel
JustGiving charge
Website hosting
Marketing – Survival Week
ROAR marketing
ROAR event
Yearn to Learn
Staff food/entertainment
**Total Resources Expended**
**4**
**OTHER COSTS**
Accountancy & Independent Examination
**Total Other Costs**|**2021**
**£**
**588**
**3,364**
**3,408**
**0**
**0**
**0**
**7,360**
**2021**
**£**
**0**
**0**
**2,257**
**0**
**0**
**120**
**0**
**333**
**0**
**216**
**260**
**0**
**0**
**0**
**0**
0
**3,186**
**2021**
**£**
**150**
**150**|**2020**
£
459
2,740
0
0
0
0|
|---|---|---|
|||3,199|
|||2020
£
0
0
4,515
0
0
59
110
333
332
216
244
0
0
0
7
0|
|||5,816|
|||2020
£
**200**|
|||200|
Page 6
## **RURAL INDIA SCHOOL ENTERPRISE (RISE)**
## **NOTES TO THE ACCOUNTS (Continued…)**
FOR THE YEAR ENDING 31 MARCH 2021
|**5**
**GRANT DEBTORS**
Eastbury Comprehensive
Platanos College
**Total Grant Debtors**
**6**
**CREDITORS & ACCRUALS**
Accountancy & Independent Examination
**Total Creditors & Accruals**|**2021**
**£**
**450**
**613**
**1,063**
**2021**
**£**
**350**
**350**|2020
£
450
613|
|---|---|---|
|||1,063|
|||2020
£
200|
|||200|
Page 7
## **RURAL INDIA SCHOOL ENTERPRISE (RISE)**
## **APPENDIX 1**
FOR THE YEAR ENDING 31 MARCH 2021
Page 8
**Trustee Report** _FY 2020 – 21 1[st] April 2020 – 31[st] March 2021_
## **STRUCTURE, GOVERNANCE AND MANAGEMENT**
## **Governing document**
The charity is controlled by its governing document, a constitution for a Charitable Incorporated Organization, compliant with the Charities Act 2011.
## **Recruitment and appointment of new trustees**
At 31 March 2021, the charity had 3 trustees, with Charles Stubbs stepping down as Trustee in April 2020. No trustees received any remuneration. The charity is grateful to all Trustees for the time they give to help move RISE forward.
This year in the UK there were no full-time staff. In India, team members Soma Hazra, Curriculum Officer, and Debu Sen, Operations Manager and Mahuya Garai, Curriculum Developer, continued in their roles on a full-time basis for the duration of the year.
## **Induction and training of new trustees**
All new trustees are given, in the view of the Board, sufficient training, which, although of an informal nature provides adequate knowledge of their specific field to understand the nature of the charity and fully comply with its objectives and aims.
## **Organisational structure**
RISE (referred to as 'the charity' in the remainder of this report) is registered with the Charity Commission as of 21[st] October 2014. Our Memorandum and Articles of Association provides for a minimum of two trustees. The Board of Trustees is required to monitor the affairs and the general business of the charity and meets as required.
**----- Start of picture text -----**
@RISEprojects
**----- End of picture text -----**
Registered Charity No. 1158920 www.rise-online.co.uk
## **Risk management**
The trustees have a duty to identify and review the risks to which the charity is exposed and to ensure appropriate controls are in place to provide reasonable assurance against fraud and error.
The trustees are aware of the risks faced by the charity and endeavour to deal with those risks appropriately. The major risk in this fiscal year continued to be the Covid-19 pandemic, with the RISE school premises closed for the duration of the year as per Government guidelines and the team in mandated lockdown. Whilst we were considering the recommencement of the ROAR Challenge programme, the continued pressures of the pandemic meant operations in the UK continued to be paused.
## **Volunteers**
RISE has always engaged a large cohort of volunteers to help with the delivery of ROAR Challenge workshops in schools and to engage with Yearn to Learn students in India. This year we engaged volunteers to support with fundraising events to support students through the pandemic including with food camps, donations of books and online learning devices.
## **OBJECTIVES AND ACTIVITIES**
RISE was set up to raise the aspirations of disadvantaged young people in the UK and rural India. Our innovative model enables students in both countries to connect and communicate - a life changing experience to broaden their horizons and inspire them to aim higher.
In the **UK** , RISE have devised a programme that empowers secondary school students by exposing them to the experience of setting up their own social enterprise and meeting the children they are helping in India over videoconference. **The ROAR (Reach Out And Rise) Challenge** , does this by developing key skills for employability and actively builds students’ understanding of the social sector and business world. The ROAR Challenge has been commended by Headteachers for the positive impact it has uniquely building keys skills – by connecting young people in the UK and rural India through a tangible student partnership.
In **West Bengal, India,** where 46% of 10-year-olds are at least 3 years behind their expected reading level, RISE runs a literacy intervention programme, **Yearn to Learn** , free of cost to first generation learners most at risk of dropping out of school. In addition to attending Yearn to Learn, our students in rural India have had the opportunity to meet and learn about students in the UK, who participate in our ROAR Challenge programme, over video-conference.
Registered Charity No. 1158920 www.rise-online.co.uk
@RISEprojects
RISE is currently focussing on our work in India where we run Yearn to Learn. The purpose of our Yearn to Learn programme is:
1. To improve literacy rates and increase school retention
2. To empower students to develop skills and have higher aspirations
Using the literacy parameter framework that we have devised, we are able to assess and identify a child's literacy level through an initial baseline assessment and therefore pursue the appropriate intervention for them. The literacy curriculum has been written against our own criteria for innovation, ensuring activity-based learning that engages a child.
Our programme delivery model that we use to measure our impact normally includes:
1. Fun and engaging literacy sessions with innovative activities increase student enjoyment and interest in learning
2. Ratio of 10 students to 1 teacher gives children the support they need to develop away from class sizes of over 100 at school
3. Sessions delivered by dynamic undergraduate students who undergo specific training;
4. Session Coaches are responsible for monitoring the development of teachers;
5. Parents are engaged through home visits and regular progress updates;
6. Student trips to the State capital Kolkata, that children from rural communities have never been to, are organised to raise their aspirations
We work with children in rural communities who struggle to keep up in school because they are illiterate and are therefore likely to drop out. We believe that by understanding the impact of the changes that we are enabling, inspires our beneficiaries and stakeholders; we therefore invest our time this:
1. Beneficiaries take regular tests against the literacy framework levels, the marks are shared with them so they understand the progress they have made and which areas require focus for improvement
2. We conduct quantitative surveys and qualitative discussions with our beneficiaries so that they can share their feedback in relation to the progress they are making on all aspects of the Yearn to Learn programme
3. Our Teacher training centres around the impact they are making on their students’ literacy and we openly discuss what is working well and what challenges need to be overcome to make greater impact in the classroom
4. We make regular visits to parents to update them on their child’s progress and we seek to hold more parents’ evenings
5. We share end of year impact reports with donors
6. We share information on our impact via email communications to supporters
Registered Charity No. 1158920 www.rise-online.co.uk
@RISEprojects
## **ACHIEVEMENT AND PERFORMANCE Charitable activities**
This year has been a challenging one for all small charities, significantly impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. The Covid-19 crisis raised a lot of questions for RISE, both about the communities we serve, and about our internal survival and role as an organisation. We faced funding cuts and had staff in rural Krishnagar who were not able to access the technology to work from home during lockdown which presented challenges. However the Board of Trustees along with the team worked hard to make sure we adequately adapted our operating model so that we could impact our 350 students in rural West Bengal in their time of need, which includes:
- Regular phone contact during the first lockdown to ascertain student wellbeing
- Disseminating information on provisions of benefits by the Government
- Running food camps for students and their families while parents were unable to work with the support of Magma Foundation, Prayatna Foundation and Rural Health Care Foundation
- Commencing online learning for students who have smart phones
- Creating and delivering bi-weekly workshop for students who could not access online classes
- Donating smart phones with the help of Sushila Birla Girls School in Kolkata
- Donating books to students
In 2020, despite the challenges Covid-19 presented to our teaching and learning capability, 88% of our first-generation learner students in rural India passed their Madhyamik exams (equivalent to GCSEs) and 83% of our 1st ever batch of students passed their Higher Secondary exams (equivalent to A-Levels). This is the first time any of our students have sat this level of exam and the highest educational qualification that a member of their family has achieved, therefore a huge milestone in their life.
We were able to participate in the nationwide 2.6 Challenge fundraising event held over April and May 2020 which raised significant engagement of our work to our supporters at the start of the pandemic. We are grateful to everyone who got involved by conducting a 2.6 Challenge and making a donation to RISE.
We were also thrilled to be connected with volunteer Tajona Karhu through Editors for Impact who supported us by building out a series of videos for our fundraising campaign. All our videos can be viewed at on www.youtube.com/RISEProjects.
Registered Charity No. 1158920 www.rise-online.co.uk
@RISEprojects
## **FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS**
ln 2021-22 RISE will continue to run operations as best we can whilst the pandemic continues. We hope to raise enough funds to reopen the RISE school in lines with Government regulations. We will continue to strive to make the greatest impact in providing the most under-served children in rural West Bengal with the tools to learn.
Approved by order of the board of trustees and signed on its behalf by:
RISE Founder and Trustee
31[st] January 2022
Registered Charity No. 1158920 www.rise-online.co.uk
@RISEprojects