2024-03-31-accounts - Embraceability

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EMBRACEABILITY ANNUAL RETURN 2023 -2024

TRUSTEES ANNUAL REPORT April 2023 - March 2024

Charity Name: EmbraceAbility

Registered Charity Number: 1173877

ADDRESS OF PRINCIPAL OFFICE

30A York Place Brighton East Sussex United Kingdom BN1 4GU

REFERENCE AND ADMINISTRATIVE DETAILS OF THE CHARITY, ITS TRUSTEES AND ADVISERS

EMBRACEABILITY DIRECTORATE

Maja Grahn: Chair of Trustees Kwai Chi: Trustee Klaudia Kranc: Treasurer Gwenith Chimwaza: Trustee

Jodie Le Marrec: Director

STATEMENT FROM THE FOUNDER AND CHAIR OF THE BOARD

In 2023, we launched a range of new programmes across Cambodia and Malawi. We were proud to launch Preventing Violence Against Women and Girls with Disabilities in Cambodia; we responded to the humanitarian crisis in Malawi after Cyclone Freddy by providing clean water packages, food, and temporary shelter to over 1,000 people, and empowering 19 disabled children to attend school in Malawi.

Despite the scale of success of the programmes for a micro organisation, disability and poverty remain a pervasive problem. There are over 1 billion people with disabilities, and over 80% live in the global south. Disabled households are twice as likely to be poorer than their non-disabled peers. They are more likely to stay trapped in poverty as they face multiple barriers to accessing education, securing a livelihood, and fully participating in society. Disabled people living in poverty are often the last to benefit from programmes designed to reduce poverty. Without specific awareness, they are often left out of policies, and other programmes limit disabled people to a lifetime of chronic poverty.

We recognise that inclusion accelerates the economy, society and communities. We are committed to building a disability-led model that improves the livelihoods of disabled people and their families. Our team will continue to work alongside households affected by poverty, gender inequality, climate crisis and exclusion through targeted programmes.

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We thank our donors and supporters for their long-term support and dedication to EmbraceAbility. Without support from the community, trusts, and foundations, we could not deliver our work.

We are looking forward to the year ahead and our new projects.

On behalf of the EmbraceAbility team, we hope you will enjoy reading about our successes and what we hope to deliver in the future.

Many thanks, Jodie Le Marrec and Maya Grahn

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

The Board of Trustees

Structure, Governance and Management

EmbraceAbility’s structure is that of a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO). Its governing document is a ‘foundation’ model constitution, in which EmbraceAbility’s only voting members are its trustees.

EmbraceAbility is run by a Board of Trustees who manage the charitable objectives, strategic direction, and affairs of the organisation. EmbraceAbility’s Directors are responsible for running its day-to-day operations.

All EmbraceAbility staff, trustees and volunteers are subject to EmbraceAbility’s hiring policy. EmbraceAbility believes that hiring qualified individuals to fill positions at the charity contributes to the overall strategic success of EmbraceAbility. Each trustee is recruited for their specific skill set, in order that they can make significant and targeted contributions to EmbraceAbility.

Every trustee is subject to an interview process, reference checks and criminal record checks (DBS checks) to ensure good governance. Trustees are invited to EmbraceAbility induction training to cover procedures and policy which is essential for the fulfilment of their functions and duties. Each trustee has a designated role within the organisation to ensure EmbraceAbility is able to perform its objectives and activities effectively.

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EXECUTIVE BOARD

Jodie Le Marrec, Director

The Director is responsible for the day-to-day operations, managing partners in Cambodia and Malawi, fundraising, developing and implementing strategy and programme budgets in collaboration with the Trustees.

The Director works closely with the Chair of Trustees and serves as a member of the Board of Directors. This position’s primary responsibility is ensuring organisational effectiveness by providing leadership for the organisation's financial and operational functions.

Working on project management, this position also contributes to developing and implementing organisational strategies, policies and practices.

Our Approach and Values

As an organisation, we reflected on what drives us and revised our vision, mission and values. We hope in the next 3 years to move towards a model of co-production where people with disabilities are involved at every stage of the programme design, delivery and evaluation.

Being led by the people we serve is vital if we provide inclusive services. This year we will formalise steering committees in Cambodia and Malawi to give us feedback on our programmes and ensure that we provide the best services possible.

EMBRACEABILITY’S PRIMARY AIMS 2023-2024

CAMBODIA

We are honoured to deliver our programmes in partnership with Gender and Development in Cambodia, who have been working in Cambodia since 1997 to improve the livelihoods of women and girls across the country.

1) Project Management - Community Outreach: signposting and providing girls with disabilities and support carers with mental health support.

2) Preventing Violence Against Women and Girls with Disabilities: providing 345 women and girls with disabilities with weekly self-help group sessions focussing on advocacy training.

3) Disability Training: we have delivered two intensive 10-day training sessions to over 30 staff at GADC. This is part of our pilot Disability Training programme, where we aim to give organisations the knowledge and confidence to improve the inclusion and accessibility of programmes.

MALAWI

1) Emergency Relief: In response to Cyclone Freddy, we provided over 1,000 disabled households with food, cholera packs, water buckets, hygiene packs, and materials to repair their roofs.

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2) Inclusive Education: ensuring every child with disabilities has access to education and teacher training for school teachers.

UK

5) Research: EmbraceAbility is invested in providing sustainable projects with demonstrable impact. Our organisation ensures all projects are well-researched, monitored and evaluated through a mixed methodology of participatory qualitative and quantitative research methods.

6) Campaigns: EmbraceAbility runs campaigns via different media outlets to raise awareness of disability and development in Cambodia to promote social inclusion.

7) Fundraising: We aim to raise enough funds to sustain our active programmes and our key research initiatives.

ACHIEVEMENTS AND PERFORMANCES

people in poverty supported through our Emergency Relief 19 Project

disabled children integrated into mainstream schooling.

1000

35 staff trained in Disability 2 Awareness and Inclusion Training

new projects across Cambodia and Malawi.

ACTIVE PROGRAMMES

This year, we strengthened our partnership with Gender and Development in Cambodia (GADC) and expanded our programmes to Malawi.

In 2023, we focussed on implementing our new strategy, which focuses more on inclusive development. Our new approach means we can work with organisations that are already delivering fantastic programmes and ensure all organisations have the skills, knowledge, and training to provide disability-inclusive programmes.

Community Outreach

Our flagship programme now takes a different approach. Service users are offered healthcare alongside community interventions. We work with existing service providers to provide healthcare to children with disabilities and mental health support to carers.

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Preventing Violence Against Women and Girls with Disabilities

The two-year pilot project aims to prevent violence against women and girls with disabilities through training, advocacy and support. Women and girls with disabilities are ten times more likely to be physically and sexually assaulted than their non-disabled peers. Although, they are less likely to access services, leaving them more vulnerable to violence.

The project uses the S.A.S.A (Start, Awareness, Support, Action) approach, an evidence-based community mobilisation approach to prevent violence against women. It seeks to change community attitudes, norms, and behaviours around gender and violence against women. These adapted activities engaged women with disabilities, carers, young people and community leaders.

Disability Training

EmbraceAbility delivered 10 training days to staff at GADC, including training the trainer and disability budgeting to ensure staff felt confident to deliver cascade training to other staff members.

ACTIVE PROGRAMMES IN MALAWI

Malawi faces a climate crisis that includes more frequent and severe droughts, floods and storms. Climate change has impacted water and food security and pushed health systems to the brink, causing disproportionate issues for disabled households.

Emergency Disaster Relief

In 2024, a cholera outbreak hit the district of Phalombe due to vital infrastructure being damaged by Cyclone Freddy. We provided over 1,000 people with cholera packs to ensure households access to clean water for 3 months.

Cyclone Freddy destroyed over 80% of crops, and Phalombe faced severe food shortages. This led to six children needing specialised support for acute malnutrition; the team provided specialised healthcare and malnutrition for disabled children.

Inclusive Education

This year, we have provided 19 children with disabilities access to education in Malawi and hope to run our first-ever teacher training programme this summer.

Accessible Compostable Toilets and Solar Panneled Water Pumps

We successfully launched a fundraiser via the Big Give Christmas Campaign to raise money to build four accessible compostable toilets in Malawi and solar-panelled water pumps, ensuring that over 600 people had access to clean water and sanitation.

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FUNDRAISING

EmbraceAbility successfully fundraised £31,777.87 through the fundraising efforts of the EmbraceAbility Fundraising Team.

EmbraceAbility receives voluntary donations from the public, grants and in its fundraising activities, the organisation adheres to the Charity Commission and Institute of Fundraising’s guidelines and best practice. The organisation has received no fundraising complaints and we protect people’s privacy through our data protection policy.

Campaigns

EmbraceAbility successfully raised the profile of international development issues relevant to disability and social inclusion in Cambodia across a broad readership. EmbraceAbility effectively disseminated social media campaigns, articles and blog posts with increasing reach and engagements. Analysis of our online activity shows a marked and continued increase in the numbers of people and organisations engaging with our online campaign materials.

RISK MANAGEMENT

The processes for identifying, evaluating and managing the significant risks faced by EmbraceAbility are ongoing, the Board of Trustees and the Director regularly review the financial accounts. The elements of the control framework, incorporating the key sources of evidence utilised by the Board in reviewing the effectiveness of the system of internal control, include:

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a comprehensive risk management framework which identifies key risks to the charity on a regular basis and seeks to mitigate and monitor the risks and the associated mitigation; - an organisational structure with clearly defined lines of responsibility and delegation of authority set out in the organisation’s financial regulations;
a code of ethics supported by a framework of policies and procedures which volunteers and trustees must adhere to;
the monitoring of action plans and reviewing recommendations made by the Board;
approval of the annual budget and budget outlined by the Board.

The Board is aware of and committed to ensuring EmbraceAbility is compliant with the new General Data Protection Regulations. Compliance with GDPR is closely monitored by EmbraceAbility’s Data Protection Officer.

The Board’s review of the effectiveness of the organisation’s system of internal control has identified no significant failings, weaknesses, or instances of fraudulent activity that have resulted in material misstatement or loss that require disclosure within the financial statements for the year ended 31 March 2024 and up to the date of signing these financial statements.

PRINCIPAL RISKS AND UNCERTAINTY

EmbraceAbility has a well-established process for the identification and management of risk. The organisation has identified a range of risks and uncertainties, the principal ones being:

the sudden loss of funding from major donors;
-staff shortages which impacts operations and fundraising capacity.
and,the lack of grants for disability care projects.

EmbraceAbility’s Board of Trustees and Directors have identified the main financial risks to the organisation to be:

failure to meet financial targets;
failure to achieve profitable growth and achieve our fundraising targets;
failure to meet the operational requirements of the organisation.

After a risk assessment of the organisation's financial position and resources, together with a review of the budget for 2024/2025 and financial forecasts, the Board believes that the organisation is well placed to manage its business risks. The Board, therefore, has a reasonable expectation that the organisation will have adequate resources to continue operating for the foreseeable future and thus continues to adopt the going concern basis of accounting in preparing the annual financial statements.

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VOLUNTEERS

All volunteers are subject to EmbraceAbility’s strict recruitment policies and protocols. All volunteers that work directly with children must have an up-to-date criminal record check. All volunteers must submit a CV and cover letter, and they must interview with the Chair of Trustees prior to their selection.

FINANCIAL REVIEW

The summary financial information on these pages contains data from EmbraceAbility's management account for the year ended 31 March 2024 and provides an overview of the income and expenditures for the year.

Income: £31,177.87 Expenditure: £16,757.22

Financial Activities Statement

REVIEW OF EXPENDITURE

The EmbraceAbility Board of Trustees is committed to providing services to all its beneficiaries. Therefore, the Board is committed to monitoring its financial obligations to fund its charitable activities.

We are pleased to report that £16,757.22 of £31,777.87, 47% of our income, was spent on our charitable activities and the furthering of our charitable objectives.

Balance Sheet

REVIEW OF EXPENDITURE

We are pleased to report that £16,757.22 of £31,777.87, 47% of our income, was spent on our charitable activities and the furthering of our charitable objectives.

Method of Transfer

EmbraceAbility banks with Triodos, one of the world’s leading sustainable banks, which focuses on positive social, environmental, and cultural change.

All EmbraceAbility expenditures in Cambodia have been run through EmbraceAbility and GADC financial systems and protocols. This involves sending budgeted quarterly project costs from our Triodos account to a designated organisation bank account before the beginning of each financial quarter and withdrawing the necessary funds as required in the country.

EmbraceAbility also sends money to Malawi via World Remit in emergencies, often the most reliable funds transfer. The team still sends financial reports and receipts to the IK to ensure we meet financial protocols.

PLANS FOR THE FUTURE

Accessible Compostable Toilets

EmbraceAbility started to build the toilets and finished the project at the end of 2024.

Disability Support Cash Transfer Programme

Monthly cash transfer for disability support for 86 disabled households to help them live out of poverty for families living in Malawi.

Mobile Community Healthcare Programme

We are fundraising for a mobile healthcare van that will launch in 2026 and offer checkups and occupational and physiotherapy to disabled children and their families.

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Report to the members of: EmbraceAbility

On accounts for the year ended: 31 March 2024 Respective responsibilities of The Treasurer as appointed by EmbraceAbility is trustees and examiner responsible for the preparation of the accounts. The Charity consider that full in depth audit is not required for this year and that a thorough independent examination is needed.

It is my responsibility to:	It is my responsibility to:
•	examine the accounts.
•	confirm that the figures present a true and fair view of
	the position.
•	to state whether particular matters have come to my
	attention.

Basis of independent examiner’s My examination was carried out in accordance with general statement Directions given by the EmbraceAbility and Accountancy bodies. An examination includes a review of the accounting records kept by the Treasurer and a comparison of the accounts presented with those records. It also includes consideration of any unusual items or disclosures in the accounts and seeking explanations from the Charity concerning any such matters. The procedures undertaken do not provide all the evidence that would be required in an audit, and consequently no opinion is given as to whether the accounts present a ‘true and fair’ view and the report is limited to those matters set out in the statement below.

Partners: Sam Gooding FMAAT FMATT FIAB Katy Gooding BSc FCA Company No: 09087439 Registered in England and Wales as ; Gooding Accounts Ltd Registered Office : 24 Warminster Road, Westbury, Wiltshire, BA13 3PE

Independent examiner's statement

In connection with my examination, no matter has come to my attention

which gives me reasonable cause to believe that in, any material respect, the requirements:
to keep accounting records in accordance with regular Accounting procedures.
to prepare accounts which accord with the accounting records and comply with the necessary accounting requirements of the EmbraceAbility.

have not been met; or

to which, in my opinion, attention should be drawn in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached.
which would give rise to any concern in relation the full disclosure of all financial matters in relation to the EmbraceAbility.

Signed: Date: 29/01/2025 ~~|~~ Name: Katy Gooding ~~po~~

Relevant professional ICAEW qualification(s) or body:

Address: Gooding Accounts Ltd 24 Warminster Road, Westbury Wiltshire BA13 3PE