HOPE FOR COMMUNITIES eport ••P' ## **Charity Information** ## **Trustees of Hope for Communities** (all acted for the entire year) David John Nunn—Chair Vivienne Lesley Nunn Andrew David McCullough Sarah Anne Louise Harris John Douglas Henry Greenway _Note: All trustees have confirmed that they have regarded the guidance issued by the Charity Commission on public benefit._ ## **Corporate Trustees (Directors) of Hope for Communities** Sharo Ahmedi Alexis Rachel Ahmedi ## **Charity Commission Registration Number** 1180747 ## **Charity Uk address** 121 Drummond RD Bermondsey London England SE16 2JY ## **Charity website** www.hopeforcommunities.com ## **A Summary of the Purposes of Hope for Communities as set out in our Governing Document** _The prevention or relief of poverty or financial hardship anywhere in the world, but in particular Iraq, by providing or assisting in the provision of, primarily but not limited to, education, training, healthcare projects and all the necessary support designed to enable individuals to generate a sustainable income and be self-sufficient._ ## **A Summary of the Main Activities and Achievements of Hope for Communities** ## **Working in Orphanages in the Kurdish Region of Northern Iraq** This year Hope for Communities started working in some of the orphanages (homes for children without carers) in our city. Children who grow up in the care system in this Trustee Annual Report region are especially vulnerable in terms of being able to develop self sufficiency. Traumatic experiences that have led to them being placed into care make it difficult for them to pursue education and/or training. ,This has a huge impact on their ability to find employment as adults. Also in this region, many employment opportunities arise through family 2020/2021 connections which most of these children and young people won’t have. We go into different homes (orphanages) for a couple of hours each week. The homes vary depending on age, and in most cases gender, and so our activities vary accordingly. Our team spends time encouraging the children, through the activities and exercises that we do. We have seen the children grow in confidence and have seen the joy that can come from this time that we are able to invest. We want them to learn and develop the necessary skills to help them achieve their full potential in the future. Going forward, we hope with further funding to be able to support some of the older children who will soon be too old for the homes. We are exploring how Hope for Communities can support and train them to be self sufficient as adults. ## **Community Centre in Barika, Kurdish Region of Northern Iraq** Hope for Communities has continued to run projects in it’s Community Centre in Barika. The centre is in a community where there are refugees, internally displaced people, and people that may be originally from the region, but living amongst the community due to poverty. At present children attending the centre are mostly Iranian Kurdish with some children coming from an Iraqi Kurdish, Syrian or Iraqi Arabic background. Before starting our projects we spent time speaking with the community and seeing what we could provide that would support them, as a way to seeing hope restored. Most of the parents wanted us to provide English Language classes for their children, and most of the children wanted us to provide Karate lessons, and so that’s what we do. It is a joy and privilege for our team to see how these children have grown in confidence. Although the parents wanted us to offer English classes, we decided to make these lessons as fun and interactive as possible e.g. with games, songs, and crafts. Trustee Annual Report We were also able to open a library in our centre, which the children have absolutely loved. We can see the delight that the opportunity to come and borrow books each week brings **,** it will be the first library most of these children will have ever been in. Our staff training has helped devel-2020/2021 op how we see these lessons as being a real opportunity to shape and invest in children’s lives and the wider community. We are helping them to develop skills and characteristics that will be hugely beneficial to them in the future. Our centre did have to close for a few months due to Covid, following government guidelines. However when it was safe to reopen we were very happy to do so, again following the local guidance and advice to keep the community as safe as possible. ## **Hope for Communities’ response to COVID** Hope for Communities mostly runs projects that are more focused on long term investment and community development. However as coronavirus was impacting the whole world, we saw the huge impact it was having on communities like the one where we ran our centre. The small amount of money that comes into certain families in the community for example through day labouring was no longer coming in. The opportunity arose for us to apply for some funding which was specifically for helping to provide food for those im- pacted by Covid. It was a great way to check in and connect with the community at a time when the centre was closed. It was a good opportunity to build relationships with some of the community leaders, as they were able to help us support the most vulnerable families. It was heart breaking to hear that Trustee Annual Report for some of the families, the food that we gave was the only food that they had eaten n days. At the time when the community centre had to 2020/2021 be closed due to Covid, Hope for Communities explored how we could use our skills and resources to continue to serve our community and the wider communities in the region. We noticed that around the world resources were being made available online for people to use at home whilst isolated and in lockdown. We realized that these resources weren’t as widely available in the Kurdish language. And so as a team we made a number of Youtube videos to support people and families whilst at home during lockdown. We put up English Language classes, exercise videos and crafts and game ideas to support children and their families in lockdown. These videos have met the original purpose of serving the needs of a community at a time of lockdown, but also have remained available online for people to access, at the time of writing this report our videos have had over 6000 views in total. ## **Staff Training** It is important for us as a charity that the people we work with receive support at the highest possible standard. This is why it is so important to Hope for Communities to invest a significant amount of energy in training our staff. As an example of this is, when we were planning to start working in the local orphanages we realized we needed to think about what would be helpful for us to learn as a team, before we took on this new challenge. Some friends of Hope for Communities in the UK, with a background in social care were able to provide training on how we approach working with children in these contexts. We looked at ‘safeguarding children, understanding children who have experienced trauma, and managing challenging behaviour in a positive way.’ This training was really beneficial for our projects in the orphanages as well our other projects. **----- Start of picture text -----**
Trustee Annual Report
2020/2021
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## **Contribution made by Volunteers** Hope for Communities had three members of staff from the UK volunteering for the charity throughout this time period; Sharo Ahmedi, Alexis Ahmedi and Joanna Martin. The charity is thankful for their contribution. ## **Financial Review** Hope for Communities is very grateful to all of its supporters who have so generously helped us in being able to continue with all of our projects, start new projects and respond to the Covid crisis. **Statement explaining the policy for holding reserves stating why they are held:** _The trustees have agreed to hold three months of the charities running cost in reserve. This is to enable projects to continue in the event of a drop in income._ Amount of reserves held at end of financial year: _£15,111_ This is more than the amount needed. However due to the impact of Covid and the uncertainty this caused we were restricted in developing or starting new projects. Also as we want the majority of our projects to focus on long term investment in communities, we are hoping as a charity to see more of our donations becoming regular gifts, as opposed to one off gifts,. While we are very grateful for these it can make it more challenging to budget and plan for projects in the future. |Reasons for holding zero reserves|Para 1.22|n/a| |---|---|---| |Details of fund materially in deficit|Para 1.24|n/a| |Explanation of any uncertainties
about the charity continuing as a
goingconcern|Para 1.23|n/a| ## **Funds held as custodian trustees on behalf of others** |Description of the assets held in this capacity
|n/a| |---|---| |Name and objects of the charity on whose behalf the assets
are held and how this falls within the custodian charity’s
objects
|n/a| |Details of arrangements for safe custody and segregation
of such assets from the charity’s own assets

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