OpenCharities

This text was generated using OCR and may contain errors. Check the original PDF to see the document submitted to the regulator.

2021-03-31-accounts

Trustees' Annual Report for the period

Period start date Period start date Period end date Period end date
01 April 2020 31 March 2021
From To

Section A Reference and administration details

Charity name
Other names charity is known by
Registered charity number (if any)
Charity's principal address		 Across Borders
1170882
20 Ringlet Drive, East Leake
Loughborough
Leicestershire
Postcode LE12 6XU

Names of the charity trustees who manage the charity

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20		 Trustee name Office (if any) Dates acted if not for whole
**year **		 Name of person (or body) entitled
to appoint trustee (ifany)
Fiona Cameron Chair
Rosie Watt Secretary
Temitope Yusuf Treasurer appointed - 7 November
2020
Emma Goldie
Wafa Sulieman appointed - 19 August
2020
Abuzar Abagna 9 September 2020
Names of the trustees for the charity, if any, (for example, any custodian trustees)
Name Dates acted if not for whole year

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Names and addresses of advisers (Optional information)

Type of adviser Name Address

Name of chief executive or names of senior staff members (Optional information)

Section B Structure, governance and management

Description of the charity’s trusts

Type of governing document

Constitution

Charitable Incorporated Organisation How the charity is constituted

Trustee selection methods

Other trustees

Additional governance issues (Optional information)

You may choose to include additional information, where relevant, about:

Across Borders works in partnership with the University of Nottingham and St Andrew’s Refugee Services in Cairo.

Section C Objectives and activities

Summary of the objects of the charity set out in its governing document

(1) To advance the human rights of and relieve poverty of migrants and refugees in the Middle East and North Africa (Across Borders engages with refugee and migrant service providers operating in the MENA region, which we define as Algeria, Bahrain, Djibouti, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Malta, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, West Bank and Gaza, and Yemen.) (2) in particular but not exclusively by working in partnership with

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Summary of the main
activities undertaken for the
public benefit in relation to
these objects (include within
this section the statutory
declaration that trustees have
had regard to the guidance
issued by the Charity
Commission on public
benefit)		 organisations that provide advice, training and assistance in the Middle
East and North Africa, including but not limited to St Andrews Refugee
Services.
(3) To advance education and promote racial harmony for the public
benefit by providing information, sharing best practice and raising
awareness on issues relating to migration and refugees.
This year started with the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. The
lock down in March affected the remote legal project we run in
partnership with the University of Nottingham, as well as the work of our
partner organisation in Egypt, and as the effects of the pandemic began
to be felt across the world, Across Borders switched its focus to raising
funds for StARS COVID response.
As we all learned to manage in the “new normal”, our legal project started
up again remotely, and we have just trained our second cohort of
students.
In September last year we went through a strategic planning process with
the help of Alice Johnson of CCIP which helped us to develop our
priorities for the coming year, and as a result of which we re-wrote our
Vision and Mission for the organisation.
We have also been lucky enough to recruit two fantastic comms
volunteers, Sharon Natt and Julia Dezso who have worked hard on
managing our social media and who have been instrumental in building
up our reputation and helping us with fundraising. We have also recruited
three new trustees to the board, which has greatly increased our
capacity.
In addition, we received funding from the National Lottery, Awards for All
to set up a new project, Real Resettlement which aims to better support
refugees from Egypt resettled to the UK.

Additional details of objectives and activities (Optional information)

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You may choose to include further statements, where relevant, about:

Section D Achievements and performance

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Section D Achievements and erformance p

Summary of the main achievements of the charity during the year

Please see below

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Section E Financial review

Across borders has a policy in which three months of running costs for Brief statement of the the charities activities should be held in the case of the charity winding charity’s policy on reserves down.

Details of any funds materially in deficit

Further financial review details (Optional information)

You may choose to include additional information, where relevant about:

A grant has been received from the National Lottery Awards for All. Other funds have been raised through individual donations.

Section F Other optional information

Section G 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) Fiona Cameron Position (eg Secretary, Chair, Chair etc)

Date 09/01/2022

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Trustees' Annual Report and Financial Statements for the Period 1 April 2020 to 31 March 2021

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Trustees’ Annual Report

Fiona Cameron – Chair Temitope Yusuf - Treasurer (date appointed - 7 November 2020) Rosie Watt – Secretary Emma Goldie Wafa Suleiman (date appointed - 19 August 2020) Abuzar Abagna (date appointed - 9 September 2020)

Report from the Chair

Across Borders was founded in December 2016 to promote refugee rights using refugee perspectives to support programming for refugees so that people can meaningfully access their rights and entitlements. We do this through capacity building, supporting refugee-led organisations and sharing good practice across borders.

The objectives of the charity are as follows:

(1) To advance the human rights of and relieve poverty of migrants and refugees in the Middle East and North Africa (Across Borders engages with refugee and migrant service providers operating in the MENA region, which we define as Algeria, Bahrain, Djibouti, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Malta, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, West Bank and Gaza, and Yemen.)

(2) In particular, but not exclusively by working in partnership with organisations provide advice, training and assistance in the Middle East and North Africa, including but not limited to St Andrew’s Refugee Services. (3) To advance education and promote racial harmony for public benefit by providing information, sharing best practice and raising awareness on issues relating to migration and refugees

This year started with the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. The lock down in March affected the remote legal project we run in partnership with the University of Nottingham, as well as the work of our partner organisation in Egypt, and as the effects of the pandemic began to be felt across the world, Across Borders switched its focus to raising funds for StARS COVID response.

As we all learned to manage in the “new normal”, our legal project started up again remotely, and we have just trained our second cohort of students.

In September last year we went through a strategic planning process with the help of Alice Johnson of CCIP which helped us to develop our priorities for the coming year, and as a result of which we re-wrote our Vision and Mission for the organisation.

We have also been lucky enough to recruit two fantastic comms volunteers, Sharon Natt and Julia Dezso who have worked hard on managing our social media and who have been instrumental in building up our reputation and helping us with fundraising. We have also recruited three new trustees to the board, which has greatly increased our capacity.

In addition, we received funding from the National Lottery, Awards for All to set up a new project, Real Resettlement which aims to better support refugees from Egypt resettled to the UK.

Remote Legal Clinic

Introduction

The Remote Legal Clinic project, which launched in 2019, trains law students in the UK so that they can support St Andrew’s Refugee Services’ (StARS) Refugee Legal Aid Department (RLAD) in Cairo with its caseload. The innovative model is a partnership between Nottingham University and StARS and provides law

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students with an opportunity to train in International Refugee Law and gain real-life experience of practicing law as well as increasing the capacity of access to legal aid for StARS’ clients in Cairo.

Being recognised as a refugee in Egypt provides for protection against detention and deportation and without registration documents individuals are not able to access medical services or education, or services such as registering a birth. RLAD is currently the only service that provides legal aid for people seeking asylum in Egypt. The service includes access to information and counselling and where representation is considered to make a significant difference in a case’s determination, RLAD provides full representation in the refugee status determination, protection, or resettlement process.

The remote legal clinic supports this important work by increasing RLAD’s capacity. As a remote-working model, the project isn’t affected by the security situation and travel restrictions which can impact the supply of staff and interns at RLAD, and provides an alternative to those who want to support this work but don’t have the means to travel to Egypt. As well, complex regulation in the UK doesn’t allow students to practice law and so this opportunity is highly desirable because it allows students to apply newly acquired legal knowledge and skills in international refugee law.

What’s happened so far?

Two cohorts of university students have received training (in 2019 and 2020) which enables them to work on cases with support from their tutor along with remote guidance from lawyers in Egypt. The 2019 training was delivered in-person by the RLAD Refugee Status Determination Coordinator. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic this approach wasn’t feasible for the 2020 cohort and so the training was instead delivered by Nottingham University, using existing materials previously developed. Once the students have completed the training they are ready to take on one case per week. Following a first instance interview in Cairo, the RLAD coordinator preps the case, pulling together the precedents that the students will use, and gets these as well as the interview transcript to the University lead who reviews it ahead of sharing the materials with the students. The students then draft over the next few days, each taking on either research to corroborate the account or working on the legal argument. Their work is reviewed by their tutor and then returned to Cairo for finalisation ahead of submission to UNHCR. This process takes one week.

During the first year of the project, Covid-19 brought severe disruption to Refugee Status Determination (RSD) services in Egypt with UNHCR pausing all its operations from March 2020. RSD has resumed in 2021 via a remote model but at reduced capacity and the workflow has been difficult to predict because advanced schedules aren’t shared with RLAD. RLAD has also had a resourcing issue because of travel restrictions in Egypt and the economic insecurity resulting from the pandemic.

This work has been completed with generous funding from the Matrix Causes Fund.

What’s next?

We’re exploring the project model, looking to diversify the students’ workload so that they take on Resettlement work as well. This will mean that when the Refugee Status Determination workflow is lighter students will be able to pivot and work on protection work instead. For students this additional area of learning allows them to expand their knowledge base further. We’ve also applied for funds to consolidate the project’s training package.

Fundraising for StARS

Building on the fundraising efforts from FY 2019-20, we were able to help fundraise £9,717.86 via online donations throughout this financial year, of which £9,441.26 was done on behalf of St Andrews Refugee Services (StARS). These were from one-off donations and recurring donations from regular donors.

All funds raised for StARS will be paid to them via bank transfer which will be used to fund the range of activities they provide. Due to the adverse impact of Covid-19, StARS has seen a large reduction in international aid and we are pleased this donation sum will go towards helping plug the much needed income gap.

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The Real Resettlement Project

Resettlement is now a key part of the UK immigration system. However, refugee resettlement is not always successful and much of this is predicated on the refugees’ understanding of what they can expect when they get in the UK.

The main purpose of the resettlement project is to provide accurate information about the life in the UK, such information include education, employment, service providers etc, thereby, the newcomer refugees from Egypt should guide by this information to integrate easily into UK culture.

These guidelines will be provided by refugees who were previously resettled and who are trained former StARS staff as well and the guidelines will be reachable in drive with /or website. Further, the program is led by two refugee coordinators who used to work at StARS.

Experience of refugees in supporting their community and leading in managing their challenges was a successful experience in Egypt. We believe that refugees can support each other with the resources and training we provide.

The program has two phases to work on, the first phase starting in Egypt through an awareness sessions to refugees lead by StARS and the second phase will start in the UK when the refugees arrived, then monitoring and follow up will take place until they settled and engage as needed with the future view that

those refugees could be part of future support to other newcomers and the experience to be circled with across borders support in any training or support.

The project is planned for one year starting from April 2021 to April 2022, by the end of the project, we would have a very good information system in place to help refugees to achieve their goals depending on available information, manage expectation, and set up a clear way to understand UK system, how it works and how they can engage in as they wish.

Plans for 2021/2022

We hope to develop both the legal project and the resettlement project during the coming year, and to raise further funds to develop them.

As part of the resettlement project, we hope to set up a network of resettled refugees in the UK, and to host an event, when conditions allow. We have already secured £10,000 grant funding from National Lottery from MidMarch 2021 which will fund the next 12 months’ activities within the resettlement project.

We will be developing community training programmes, starting with a community interpreting training which will be delivered in partnership with Voices in Refuge (www.voicesinrefuge.com).

If you are interested in volunteering for the organisation or becoming a trustee, please contact us on info@acrossborders.org.uk.

If you would like to donate to StARS, or to Across Borders please go to https://www.acrossborders.org.uk/donate.

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Accounts

Across Borders
1170882
Receipts andpayments accounts
For the
period from
01-Apr-20
To
31-Mar-21		 Across Borders
1170882
Receipts andpayments accounts
For the
period from
01-Apr-20
To
31-Mar-21		 Across Borders
1170882
Receipts andpayments accounts
For the
period from
01-Apr-20
To
31-Mar-21		 Across Borders
1170882
Receipts andpayments accounts
For the
period from
01-Apr-20
To
31-Mar-21		 Across Borders
1170882
Receipts andpayments accounts
For the
period from
01-Apr-20
To
31-Mar-21		 Across Borders
1170882
Receipts andpayments accounts
For the
period from
01-Apr-20
To
31-Mar-21		 Across Borders
1170882
Receipts andpayments accounts
For the
period from
01-Apr-20
To
31-Mar-21		 Across Borders
1170882
Receipts andpayments accounts
For the
period from
01-Apr-20
To
31-Mar-21		 CC16
a
Section A Receipts and payments
Unrestricted
funds		 Restricted
funds		 Endowment
funds		 Total funds Last year
to the nearest to the nearest to the nearest to the nearest to the
£ £ £ £ nearest £
A1 Receipts
Souter Trust - - - - 3,000
National Lottery - 10,000 - 10,000 -
Individual donations 277 9,441 - 9,718 789
Other 81 - - 81 -
- - - - -
- - - - -
- - - - -
- - - - -
Sub total(Gross income for
AR) 358 19,441 - 19,799 3,789
A2 Asset and investment
sales, (see table).
- - - -
- - - - -
Sub total
-		 - - - -
Total receipts 358 19,441 - 19,799 3,789
A3 Payments
Volunteer expenses
- - - - 1,069
Consultancy fees
- - - - -
Donation platform costs
114 - - 114 -
Website maintenance costs
202 - - 202 209
- - - -
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- - - - -
- - - - -
- - - - -
- - - - -
Sub total 316 - - 316 1,278
A4 Asset and investment
purchases, (see table)
- - - -
- - - -
Sub total
- - - - -
Total payments 316 - - 316 1,278
Net of
receipts/(payments) 42 19,441 - 19,483 2,511
A5 Transfers between funds
- - - - -
A6 Cash funds last year end
- - - - -
Cash funds this year end 42 19,441 - 19,483 2,511

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

Unrestricted
funds
to nearest £
42
-
-
42
OK
Unrestricted
funds
to nearest £
-
-
-
-
-
-		 Restricted
funds
to nearest £
19,601
2,351
-
21,952
Agreement
Error
Restricted
funds
to nearest £
-
-
-
-
-
-		 Endowme
nt funds
to nearest £
-
-
-
-
OK
Endowme
nt funds
to nearest £
- - -
- - -
- - -
- - -
- - -
- - -

Categories Details B1 Cash funds Cash in Bank Cash in PayPal account Total cash funds

(agree balances with receipts and payments account(s))

Details

B2 Other monetary assets

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B3 Investment assets

Details

Fund to Current Cost which asset value (optional) belongs (optional) - - - - - - - - - -

B4 Assets retained for the charity’s own use

B5 Liabilities

Fund to Current Cost which asset value (optional) Details belongs (optional) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Fund to Amount due When due which (optional) (optional) liability Details relates - - - - -

Signed by one or two trustees on behalf of all the trustees Signature

Date of Print Name approval 09/01/202 Fiona Cameron 2

Signed, on behalf of the Trustees,

Fiona Cameron

Independent Examiner: Rachel Chiu

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