FOR THE SECOND CONSECUTIVE YEAR, L.A.B'S INTERNATIONAL PROJECTS ARE GROWING. WE NOW SUPPORT MORE PEOPLE THAN WE EVER HAVE!
L.A.B ANNUAL REPORT 2023 - 2024 A summary of the projects delivered and the progress made by Learn Achieve Become (L.A.B) UK registered charity no.1174514 www.labcharity.org
Sometimes, when working on something everyday, it's often hard to see the progress made. Take carpentary as an example - When fixing nails into joints and sanding down rough edges, it becomes difficult to step back and admire the beauty of the finished product coming together. When writing this annual report, it gave me a chance to take a step back and reflect upon the progress made by L.A.B. Through the projects we deliver, the people that we support, and the vision that we have now, I can only look to the future with excitement of what is to come.
Measuring progress in our world can often be difficult... Is there a way to gather data on the amount of smiles created, happy moments shared and knowledge taught? Not always, but through the rest of this report, my intent is to share with you all as accurately as possible where we are working, why it is necessary and how we are creating change.
As L.A.B enters another year, with many more projects lined up, it seems that 2024 and 2025 may finally be the years that we look towards expanding our UK administration side. But with the increasing costs of life in the UK, we'd much rather keep the majority of our spending towards our international projects, as we always intended to do when L.A.B was founded back in September 2017.
As we've now reached the halfway point in 2024, 2025 fills me with excitement. When I write our next annual report, I hope to be writing from the new Sunrise Centre in Madagascar, as we're soon to be building a permanent and ongoing support facility, purposebuilt to accomodate the needs of people with disabilities on our beloved island of Nosy Be. I also hope that our Ny Fianarantsika program is expanding onto other island across the Nosy Be archipelago. I also hope that our work in Guatemala will be prospering, supporting more villages around Lake Atitlan.
Thank you all sincerely for the support you have provided us, long may it continue.
Our aim always has been, and always will be, to dedicate the vast majority of all the funding we recieve, directly upon our projects. This may not mean to say that every penny directly contributes towards a textbook or a school dinner, but it does mean that all funding is spent in relation to this project - Paying teachers salaries, renting classrooms, staff travel, emergencies, materials, transport and more - We make sure that we stick to our aim.
Between May 2023 and May 2024, our spending was as follows:
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GUATEMALA
£3645 | 7.5%
TRUSTEE EXPENSES
£856 | 2%
ADMINISTRATION COSTS
£830 | 2%
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Within the same period of time, we raised £34,520 - All in unrestricted donations and grants. Although unrestricted, the majority of these funds are raised with the aim to be dedicated towards Madagascar and were spent accordingly. Our funding came from:
Aeonian Foundation £23500 | 68%
Public Funds Raised £6320 | 18.5% Bishop Grosseteste University £2000 | 6% The Allen Trust £1500 | 4%
Business Donation - Classic Rugby Shirts £1000 | 3.5%
As it always has been, our work in Madgascar remains the highest priority of L.A.B. Here, we remain working across Madagascar's largest island - Nosy Be. Nosy Be is home to around 70,000 people, and situated in the North West of Madagascar.
Our current programs take place across Nosy Be, but in the future we aim to replicate these models into different areas of Madagascar. With the programs that we deliver, we aim to reach the most diadvantaged of individuals, specifically those that don't recieve any support from elsewhere. Currently, our 3 programs in Nosy Be are reaching 2 demographics of people - Children / adults with disabilities and their families and children that don't attend school.
Our 3 programs across Nosy Be are:
The Sunrise Centre
The Sunrise Centre is Nosy Be's first centre for the support and education of people with disabilities, and of the first in all of Madagascar. Here, we provide free education, life skills, new opportunities and work based training. At the Sunrise Centre, taking care of our 40+ students, there are 5 full-time employees, with over 20 part-time employees, all of which being family members of our students, that we have employed through our families co-operative.
Tsareee! Social Enterprise
The idea for Tsareee! came around after realising that beyond the Sunrise Centre, there were no future opportunities for people with disabilities. So, we created this enterprise, through which we create profit-generating start ups, managed entirely by people with disabilites.
Ny Fianarantsika
Ny Fianarantsika, meaning 'our education' is our program to support out of school children across Nosy Be. Rather than enroling students into schools, which would lead to high levels of dropping out, instead, we bring the schools to the students. Our team of 4 teachers, visit 5 different locations across Nosy Be, from rock mines to rural villages, reinfrocing knowledge on basic skills, such as reading, writing and number work.
Through 2023/2024, our work in Madgascar has expanded across every area, and looking into the near future, we have many projects throughout 2024/5 that will ensure we can keep making an impact to those in need through education and sports:
Ny Fianarantsika: With the ongoing success of this model of delivering free education to out of school children in Nosy Be, we are currently in talks with a range of NGO's and other non-profits across the entirety of Madagascar to share our curriculum and educate out-of-school children. We are looking into alternative methods of supporting those in rural areas too, such as educational radio broadcasts, worksheet deliveries and visits from a 'mobile library' too. For the thousands of children in Madagascar who do not recieve an education, these methods of support may be a beacon of hope for sharing basic academic skills.
The new Sunrise Centre: The current Sunrise Centre facility is rented and does not belong to LAB. The lease of the centre is due to expire in July 2024, and therefore, we would be required to move into our own facility.
Knowing this, Jacob's Well Charitable trust have agreed to provide us with £23,000 in funding, allowing us to construct a permanant facility, upon which there will be no expiration date, and we will be able to support the disabled community of Nosy Be forever. In early 2024, a personal supporter of the Sunrise Centre learned of this issue, and visited Madagascar to purchase 1656m2 of suitable land, upon which we'll build the new centre. Due to the upcoming expiration date for the lease of the current facility, we are beginning the process of construction as soon as possible, and aim to have an opening ceremony in late September/October of 2024. Within the new Sunrise Centre, we will have a dedicated agricltual space, which will be funded by the donations made from the family of the late Charles Dickinson, a fellow British man living in Nosy Be who unexpectedly passed away in March 2024.
With the construction of the new Sunrise Centre, we become increasingly closer to our overall goal of creating a 'blueprint' for effectively supporting people with disabilities in Madagascar, which can likely be replicated in the future, either by ourselves or by other verified organisations.
In January of 2024, inspired by previous work in Guatemala, we decided to finally create a permanent project, on the shores of Lake Atitlan, in Guatemala's heavily mayan-influenced Solola region.
In 2021, when LAB had previously delivered a '50-days of change' project in Central America, we met many children who were out of school, and speaking in a language that had no resemblance to Spanish. After cinversating with these children, we learned that the language they were speaking was called 'Tz'utujil', and is one of many ancient Mayan language stil spoken around Lake Atitlan. Alhtough this was the first language of all of these children, upon some small testing, we realised that none of the children had any literacy skills in this language. This provided us with the inspiration to return and make an ongoing difference.
The project that we have created is named 'Escuelita Rixiin Ya', which means 'Little School on the lake' in Tz'utujil. Through this project, our local teacher makes regular, scheduled visits to 2 key locations, providing free basic education and access to other cultural activities. The main aim of this project is to improve the literacy rates of Tz'utujil in communities where it is commonly spoken, especially amongst children, as there is a constantly decreasing incentive to teach the language in local schools.
Upon conducting the initial surveys for the project, we interviewed 58 children, aged between 6-16, of which only 48% of them could write thir name, and only 27% of whom had any skills in literacy.
Since beginning the project, the students have made great progress in literacy skills, which is soon due to be measured through informal testing. Alognside the academic progress, students have also had access to sports, permaculture, arts, music, yoga and other holsitic activities, which makes the Escuelita one of the only projects in the area specifically focusing on the pursuit of culutural activites and the preservation of literacy skills in the Tz'utujil language.
Looking back, we're extremely grateful for the support we have recieved, which has enabled us to support hundreds of people in both Madagascar and Guatemala on a limited budget.
After evaluating the average costs of both projects, we are striving to recive £30,000 per year in unrestricted funding, which will be used to cover all of our operating costs - From trustee expenses, to project costs. This is our financial goal going forward.
We are still looking to create new systems, to expand our work and to bring direct and meaningful support to individuals in need, in areas where our services are most required.
As mentioned, it's difficult to measure to the actual impact of our work in statistics and data, but, here, we'll share some of our favourite facts from the past year:
We must mention our extreme gratitude towards the Aeonian Foundation, whose generous unrestricted grants have provided us with the vast majority of the funding necessary to implement these projects.
THANK YOU! FOR TAKING THE TIME TO READ ABOUT OUR WORK. IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS, PLEASE CONTACT US THROUGH THE ADDRESS BELOW: www.labcharity.org learnachievebecome@gmail.com