Accelerating Community Empowerment (ACE Projects)
1182685
Trustees Annual Report & Accounts For the Year Ending 31 December 2020
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Accelerating Community Empowerment Report & Accounts 2020 1182685
| Legal and Administrative Information | 3 |
|---|---|
| Public Beneft | 3 |
| Objectives | 4 |
| Objectives | 4 |
| Activities | 5 |
| The Pandemic & Brazil | 5 |
| Growth in 2020 | 6 |
| Leaders 2020 & Extra-Curricular Education and Inspiration | 7 |
| Overview - ACE Projects by the numbers in 2020 | 9 |
| Other Impact | 9 |
| Training and Advance for Local Staff/Leaders | 9 |
| Outreach | 10 |
| Events Local | 10 |
| Events International | 10 |
| Past Leaders & Projects Impact 2019 | 11 |
| Achievements & Performance | 12 |
| Youth | 12 |
| Local Leaders | 12 |
| General | 12 |
| Events | 13 |
| Example Benefciaries | 13 |
| Financial Review | 15 |
| Principle Funding Sources | 15 |
| Reserves Policy | 15 |
| Plans for Future Periods | 15 |
| Structure, Governance and Management | 15 |
| Governing Document | 15 |
| Recruitment and Appointment of The Board of Trustees | 16 |
| Trustee Induction and Training | 16 |
| Volunteers | 16 |
| Risk Management | 16 |
| Signature | 17 |
| Independent Examiners Report | 18 |
| Accounts (prepared on receipts and payments basis) | 19 |
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Accelerating Community Empowerment Report & Accounts 2020 1182685
Legal and Administrative Information
Board of Trustees
S J D Collins Chair L E Lopez Treasurer A Q Parker Secretary
Executives
G M B Crawley Chief Executive Officer (Appointed: 01/01/2020) D P Brown Chief Operating Officer (Appointed: 01/01/2020)
Charity Secretary
J A Barrett Appointed: 01/04/2020
Accountants
Jo Shenton J Leon & Company 32 Hampstead High Street London NW3 1JQ (+44 (0) 20 7435 7800)
Independent Examination
Julie Burling Ingenhaag LLP 39 Eastcheap London EC3M 1DT (+44 (0) 20 7626 6355)
Charity Offices
GRD Floor 90 Bartholomew Road Kentish Town London NW5 2AS
Charity Registration Number 1182685
Public Benefit
In accordance with Section 17 of the Charities Act 2011, the Trustees have given careful
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consideration to the Charity Commission's general guidance on public benefit and in particular to continue maintaining its principal objects.
The trustees present their report and accounts for the period ended 31st December 2020
The report has been prepared in accordance with the Statement of Recommended Practice (SORP) 2005 and CC16 guidance.
The charity has chosen to prepare its accounts on a receipts & payments basis due to it not being a company and having an income of less than £250,000, which also complies with the charity’s governing document and the Charities Act 2011.
Reference and administration details:
Charity name: Accelerating Community Empowerment Registration number: 1182685
Principal address: GRD Floor, 90 Bartholomew Road, London, NW5 2AS
Trustees
The trustees who manage the charity are named on page 3.
Structure, governance and management
The charity is governed by the CIO dated 27th March 2019 . The charity obtained charitable status on 27th March 2019.
Apart from the first charity trustees, every trustee must be appointed for a term of three years by a resolution passed at a properly convened meeting of the charity trustees. In selecting individuals for appointment as charity trustees, the charity trustees have regard to the skills, knowledge and experience needed for the effective administration of the CIO.
Objectives
Objectives
The Objects of the CIO are for the benefit of children and young people aged 3-18 living below the poverty line in the developing world.
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To advance in life and relieve needs of children and young people aged between 3-18 living below the poverty line in the developing world through:
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a. The provision of recreational and leisure time activities provided in the interests of social welfare, designed to improve their conditions of life;
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b. Providing support and activities which develop their skills, capacities and capabilities to enable them to participate in society as mature and responsible individuals; and
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c. Advancing their education in particular but not exclusively by the provision of native and English language classes, geography classes and the study of art, dance, photography and media.
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d. Preserving and protecting of health and mental wellbeing of such children and young people, experiencing emotional, behavioural and other challenges and complex needs by providing art-as-therapy programmes and family therapy sessions, that, amongst other things, promote engagement with learning and inclusion in schools and communities, for the public benefit.
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The advancement of education for the public benefit by providing training and support for those who work with the children and young people experiencing challenges in their lives.
Activities
Our main activities and services are described below. All our charitable activities focus on accelerating existing local social leaders, motivating and empowering both future generations and their predecessors and are undertaken to further our charitable purpose for the public benefit.
The Pandemic & Brazil
Whilst COVID-19 threw many challenges at ACE in 2020 we were able to step up to the task and provide meaningful and physical assistance to favela based residents in a country that wholly ignored international COVID guidelines. Following our fundraising dinner on 5th March 2020, ACE Projects and the board of trustees made a decision to close its impact spaces and community centres. This decision was not made lightly but was necessary to help stop the spread of the virus through some of the poorest communities globally. Whilst ACE lost impact in terms of its service hours for local community children, we were able to continue paying local leaders and staff 80% of their total salary providing them vital financial assistance to get them through the pandemic, in turn, these salaries were used to help to combat local economic depression.
The pandemic also offered ACE an opportunity to call on its stakeholders and wider community (social media followers) to step up and support some of the most marginalized communities globally. Leveraging Brazil's controversial response to the pandemic, we fundraised for funds that were all directed toward food and sanitation baskets for local favela residents. These baskets consisted of a month's food for an entire family (4-5 persons) and
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sanitation equipment. We were delighted to provide over 1,000 favela based residents with emergency care and are in awe of our global followers who stepped up and helped raise over £7,000 throughout the campaign.
ACE also directed local leaders to not only hand out these vital food packages in full PPE, but also create meaningful and powerful ‘stay at home’ videos which we promoted on social media and sent (on WhatsApp) to all parents and children from ACE Projects who had access to phones. The videos included how-to videos, admired local leader videos prompting local residents to stay at home (NOTE: the federal government was doing the opposite), positive mental health videos specific to the pandemic and also videos for children to keep occupied, including ‘how to make a home football’ and ‘good mental health practice’ videos.
ACE also was able to host a webinar, ‘The Pandemic and Brazil’, which saw over 50 attendees and many more who watched the recorded version following the event. The money raised from tickets sales was used to promote the above information and more specifically, a link on our website which gave useful insights on how to stay safe in a pandemic. The event also acted as a platform for raising awareness; the guests included were as follows;
Pamella Lessa representing - ACE Projects: Pamella gave us an insight into how the pandemic has impacted the community leaders and children we work with within the favelas.
Ana Carolina Fernandes - A worldly renowned photographer and documentarian based in Rio de Janeiro: Ana Carolina showed us how the pandemic impacted favelas across Brazil.
Dr. Alexandra Abello-Colak - A researcher in Latin American and Caribbean studies at LSE: Dr. Alexandra Abello-Colak provided insight on the impacts of the pandemic on human security in communities in Latin America.
Furthermore, during the pandemic, we were able to host more online local and international events including, Stay at Home Samba Classes with ‘Sambalicious’ and breakdancing sessions with JP Black Soul’. These helped to keep our students and followers engaged in the projects and continuing to learn new skills. We later partnered with Zumba for an online fundraising event that saw over 100 attendees dancing at home and learning about ACE Projects. We teamed up with local NGO Move Rio to raise £2000 for emergency aid.
Growth in 2020
Despite the pandemic, ACE Projects made huge progress in 2020. We partnered with multiple new leaders and hired a new operations manager. We have over 200 new weekly students, spreading our impact across the city. We have plenty of new leaders and classes including:
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Girls empowerment football class hosted by local leader Tamires in Vidigal favela
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Tennis for children in Vidigal Favela hosted by local leaders Rogério, Leonardo & Aguinaldo
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A new breakdancing project for children in Pavao is hosted by local leader Rafael (aka - Bala)
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Another girls empowerment football project hosted by local leader Gagui in Mandela
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Theatre class hosted by local leader João at our flagship community centre in Rocinha favela
Leaders 2020 & Extra-Curricular Education and Inspiration
Graciara Silva (Gagui)
Gagui is responsible for hosting a girls football project in Mandela, currently, she is offering 4 hours of football coaching for 60 girls in her community. But her project goes much further than the game of football.
Gagui has been an activist for over 20 years, offering women’s football training to youth in the area. She is a wonderfully strong role model for girls in the community to look up to. Football is seen as part of the Brazilian ‘machismo’ culture. Gagui is teaching the girls in her community that they can play, they can excel, and they can change the culture around football to be more inclusive and representative of everyone who loves the game. The boys may make fun of them, but they return every week because Gagui teaches them that they can stand up to sexism and have a place on the football pitch. She runs a 2-hour session twice a week, for over 60 registered kids. She provided 80 hours of football during the pandemic giving them purpose and exercise at a difficult time. Gagui was instrumental in helping to deliver food packages to families throughout the pandemic, teaching us that we can influence our communities through many different avenues. She is an excellent addition to our team and embodies the values we hold so dearly at ACE.
Tamires
Tamires is responsible for hosting a girls football project in Vidigal favela, but her impact space (local name: Play life) also offers mixed tennis offering a total of 10 hours of tennis and football coaching every week to 110 local children.
Tamires is the head of Playlife in Vidigal. She is another strong female role model for the girls in the favela to look up to, and she makes sure they understand their worth on and off the pitch. In the lockdown, she even taught the students how to make footballs at home to keep them entertained and learning new skills! Tamires didn’t know what she wanted from life, but after participating in a football project until she was 18, she went to university to study Physical Education. She then founded Playlife for girls in the favela, later developing the tennis project with the help of ACE. She is a perfect role model for the girls, showing them how sport gave her a direction in life, and how she can pave that path for others. She runs three football classes a week, clocking over 120 hours in the past 5 months for 75 kids per week. The impact she is having on so many young girls, encouraging them into sports they have not previously felt they could play, is extraordinary! She also runs the tennis project, providing over 10 hours to 35 children who arrive every week. Her ability to bring the community together
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through sport is inspirational, but she didn’t stop there. Tamires also helped hand out the ‘cestas basicas’ (food packages) to families in her community, providing food and sanitation to families most in need during the lockdown.
Rafael (Bala)
Another new leader at ACE Projects, Bala offers 2 hours of breakdancing every week to 60 children from his community (Pavao).
Rafael is one of the original break dancers from Rio. There is a direct lineage that you can follow back to Luke BRC, the first breakdancer in Rio. Rafael was a part of his crew, learned from Luke, and is on a mission to pass his knowledge onto others. He lives and breathes his culture, and just wants to pass it on. You can’t get through a conversation with Rafael without him circling back to the fact that he considers it his life mission to share his culture!
Pavãozinho is a favela that straddles Ipanema and the Copacabana, meaning it rests between two very wealthy, touristic areas of Rio. The cultural divide between the tourists and the favela residents is huge, and Rafael is keen to get his kids down to the beach, and tourists into the favela, to show how much each can learn from the other. Rafael gives two classes a week (2 hours a class) but we often find him at the community centre on his days off giving extra classes. He gives classes to 60+ students in Rio. Tio (uncle) Bala has become famous in the area, with everyone wanting to come to join his classes and follow his culture and way of life. A true leader.
Tio Lino (Uncle Lino)
Our flagship collab community centre in Rocinha favela has grown considerably throughout 2020, now offering 20 hours of extracurricular support to 40 children in Rocinha favela.
We have introduced two new classes to the community centre. We now offer a theatre class and one-to-one Tutoring sessions, to help those struggling with their school work.
Theatre is a great way to get the kids to express themselves, move outside their comfort zone, and work as a group to make something together.
Coupled with academic help, we hope these new projects aid the social and academic skills of all the kids at the centre. And judging by their enthusiasm, we think it’s working!
We have 50 kids across our four classes (Breakdancing, Theatre, Tutoring and Art Therapy). We have five classes a week, with over 20 hours of extracurriculars available. As schools closed in lockdown, we knew that tutoring would become more important at the centre. We want our children to thrive on all fronts, and we refuse to let the pandemic get in the way of their academic success. Being stuck at home can damage the self-esteem of anyone, but particularly children. By reinforcing the academic side of life, Tio Lino has become a centre of
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learning as well as extra-curricular activities, providing a safe, all-rounded space for the kids to rediscover their confidence.
Overview - ACE Projects by the numbers in 2020
ACE Projects is delighted to have grown its leader intake from 6 in 16 in Brazil. Boasting 6 incredible and impactful projects across 5 favelas in Rio de Janeiro. Currently, ACE Projects has 300 young beneficiaries, split 45% young girls, 55% young boys, coming through our projects regularly (3-5 times weekly) but saw well over 1000 children through our projects in 2020. Every month, ACE can provide over 38 hours of extracurricular class to 300 favela based children, that’s 11,400 individual hours for beneficiaries, moreover, it is important to note children often if not always spend most of their time in our impact spaces and thus ACE provides multiple 1000’s of hours for safe space for children to grow and develop away from negative influences violent communities face.
Other Impact
Throughout the year we were also able to provide several outings and field trips for local leaders and children. Due to the pandemic, these were limited but we were delighted to take children to museums and regular beach trips. Each project is also provided with a budget to feed children daily and thus we provided thousands of meals throughout 2020.
Training and Advance for Local Staff/Leaders
Throughout 2020, we were able to host 2 team days dedicated to each leader standing up and sharing impact concerning their projects. Leaders gave useful insights into some key topics such as ‘how to engage children from the outset’ and ‘how to report on impact’. These training sessions provided useful information for leaders to take home to their projects and will lead to greater impact in 2021.
In September 2020 we conducted a confidential survey for local leaders. We were delighted that all 16 leaders took part in the online survey and we were happy with the results:
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100% Feel as if they are making an even bigger impact in their students’ lives collaborating as an ACE Project.
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100% Feel they either always or frequently receive the necessary aid from ACE Projects.
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100% Are excited about their professional goals in 2021.
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100% Feel comfortable and happy with our partnership arrangement and collaboration.
In 2020, local director, Pamella, was able to sit down at least 5 times with each leader one to one. These sessions offer vital advice on impact and smooth runnings of operations for local leaders and their initiatives.
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Outreach
ACE has dedicated more time and effort to blogs and online outreach. These useful bits of writing can be found in the blog section of our website. Whether they are reports on our impact or useful insights into urban violence, this platform hosts a great opportunity for well over 6,000 ACE followers to get involved.
As specified in the ‘Pandemic & Brazil’ section, ACE was able to host online classes and activities for well over 1,000 beneficiaries including, Zumba Classes, Samba Classes, Breakdance Classes, Webinars and more. This outreach meant 1000+ more individuals are clued up and talking about ACE Projects and problems favela based residents face.
Events Local
Local Grassroots Leadership Documentary
We were hugely fortunate to have Emil Walker (a documentarian from the USA) visit us and the projects in Rio de Janeiro. Last year, Emil, a professional freelance videographer came to Rio to shoot a film about community leaders in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. He partnered with us to film the project with the kids from the organization and Tony Barros’ students. They helped film and interview the leaders. The film showed the hidden stories in the favelas, and how communities have so many talents and creative outlets that are overlooked by the media. It will go a long way to breaking the negative stereotypes reinforced by the media and give a platform to the people making positive changes in the favela. If you would like to watch the here. film please do so
Rocinha Breakdance Battle
We hosted our inaugural Rocinha community breakdancing event. Held over two days, the event brought together 45 kids from three different favelas, and hosted dance classes, break battles, and a front-row seat to watch the professionals work their magic. We wanted the event to go beyond simply dancing: We hosted a forum about the importance of Hip Hop in Community Development so that the dancers and kids in attendance understood the wider goals for bringing people together to perform.
On Sunday, the dancing was hosted in a theatre at the top of Rocinha, which has been disused for years. The funding fell away many years ago as government budgets refused to stretch to favela areas. We cleaned it up, installed lights and electricity, and soon the amphitheatre was booming with local community residents. Overall, we had 32 dancers from across Brazil, and everyone received medals from a world-famous breakdancer.
Best of all, over 100 kids from our community projects came to get involved and support, and it was amazing to see them integrated with all these talented people, knowing they too could be on that stage. The event was a huge success, and we’re looking forward to our next one.
Events International ACE Projects Fundraising Dinner 2020
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On the 5th March 2020, ACE Projects hosted its first charity fundraiser. We were incredibly fortunate to host this event prior to the national COVID-19 lockdown. It was a huge success. The dinner, fittingly held at the Queens Tennis Club, had over 100 guests in attendance and was followed by an auction. We were completely blown away by the generosity of everyone who was there, with their help we managed to raise a total of £82,000.00 (excluding Gift Aid) and we are so proud to see the ACE family come together in such a communal sense. With this money, we ensured that all of our projects continue to expand and the local salaries are covered for the whole year. Moreover, we can extend into new favelas with larger outreach projects, ensuring that ACE Projects reach more communities and allow them to thrive. We are endlessly indebted to all those who have contributed to ACE, and it is a pleasure to share the progress of our children and the community leaders, who are thriving with your help.
Online Events
ACE Projects hosted many online events in 2020 to both keep beneficiaries engaged throughout the pandemic but also raise awareness to its global audience. Below are some of the events that were a success
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Sambalicious x ACE Projects fundraising and impact event saw charity followers from across the world tune in and support ACE Projects via contributing to the charity in exchange for learning Samba.
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JP Black x ACE Projects, JP is a world-famous breakdancer who did an ‘Instagram takeover” for all ACE Projects dance students to tune in and learn from one of the best dancers in the world.
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Zumba x ACE Projects, we hosted an online Zumba event that saw over 100 donors buy tickets for the event. The Zumba teachers (Rodrigo and Benjamin) were great advocates for the charity and gave a good insight into the work we carry out day to day.
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The Pandemic & Brazil, in partnership with Dr. Alexandra Abello Cork and Ana Carolina, gave over 50 viewers a good insight into the effects of COVID-19 across the Latin world. The event was ticketed and funds raised were used to promote stay-at-home material and advice for favela based residents.
Past Leaders & Projects Impact 2019
Victor - Tennis Rocinha
Our collaborating tennis project in Rocinha favela established external funding which is a credit to the ACE Projects charity model. We were delighted to play our part in the acceleration of leader Victor and his 150 students. In December 2018 Victor’s project wasn't able to host any tennis classes or children to the impact space due to financial problems, court maintenance and a lack of direction. ACE accelerated this project for an entire year investing over £20,000. This included financial help for all staff salaries, court repairs, student meals and equipment (supported by HEAD UK). We are so happy to see the project achieving impact on an autonomous level and excited to see what the future holds for local leader Victor and his project.
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Tony Barros - Photography Rocinha
Our photography exhibition curated by students from Rocinha is no longer running. We accelerated local leader Tony Barros for a year in Rocinha favela to carry out photography classes twice a week. The project was a massive success and saw a photography exhibition curated by children from Rocinha favela exhibit 6 times globally, including exhibitions in London, France and Ireland. The exhibition saw over 4000 attendees who all benefited from learning about what the favela was straight from the children's eyes and was used as a fundraising initiative to cover the costs of the exhibitions. Tony was unable to continue his work with children from Rocinha favela due to travel restrictions. Tony is from a favela in the west zone and the commute was just too far to continue. We are hoping to do something in Tony's home favela (Cidade de Deus) in the future. Whilst Tony was not able to continue his work Emil highlighted above was able to provide his students with fantastic involvement in 2020.
Achievements & Performance
As indicated in the above section ‘Activities’ the charity has successfully carried out thousands of hours of extracurricular support in a wide range of classes for hundreds of beneficiaries and Local Leaders. Although at this early stage it is very difficult to read any tangible long-term sustainable development for the communities we look to serve, the charity is delighted with its short term key performance indicators.
Youth
We have continued to see consistently well above average grades for students across ACE accelerated projects. Both grades inside their local project and at their mainstream facilities have continued to impress our local leaders and the ACE Projects, team.
We have also carried out many confidential student surveys in 2020. We are looking forward to cross-examining these surveys against the same surveys done by children from wealthier neighbourhoods, other projects and other schools to further indicate the success of our model and ACE Projects initiatives.
Local Leaders
As specified above, our local leader survey indicated great success in the model and we’re looking forward to delving further into what else we can do to enhance local leaders' projects and personal well being leading to greater success and impact inside their communities.
General
ACE has over 5,000 beneficiaries located in favelas. This number is estimated due to the local families we support through our acceleration of local leaders. It is also due to our local leaders being strongly advised to teach their students to take home their passion for helping others.
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Children from our spaces report they are also teaching their siblings, friends and parents what they have learnt inside ACE projects. Whilst ACE has 300 very consistent students coming through our projects, we saw well over 1,000 children come through ACE projects last year. We are also able to assist parents/legal caregivers by providing them with time away from their children to work, meals they don't have to buy themselves and education/inspiration that would otherwise be paid for.
Events
As specified above we held many local and international online events for 1000’s of people to be involved with, coupled with our in-person events including the Rocinha favela breakdance battle, London Fundraising Dinner and Emil’s documentary, we estimate over 4,000 people have been directly associated with an ACE event in 2020.
Example Beneficiaries
So what is it like to be a student at an ACE project?
Gabriel & Richard
Gabriel and Richard are two of our breakdancing students who have stepped up to the plate, or more accurately, into the BB circle! Both of them have fallen in love with breakdancing, and their energetic enthusiasm is infectious (the best use of this word in 2020!) They are focused on their craft and believe that they can be like the leaders who run the sessions. Our collaborating local leaders know that they have the power to impact the students they teach and watching these two develop and grow as BBoys is a testament to the positive role models who inspire them. They have adopted the culture of Breakdancing, and in doing so, have developed an identity for themselves that they will hold on to for a lifetime. We can’t wait for them to be running their own sessions, showing kids that Breakdancing can offer a path towards real chance. Congratulations to BBoys, Gabriel and Richard!
Luis-Guilherme
Luis, who is 13 years old, attends Tennis in Vidigal. Luis has a natural ability to play tennis and has taken it in his stride. His leaders, Rogerio and Cuca, noticed he was progressing faster than most of the other children. Since then, Luis has taken a more active role in teaching other children, copying his leaders’ techniques, and helping other children to progress. He is another example of someone who has taken to a new culture, found leaders he wants to be, teaching a class he wants to be a part of. We’re looking forward to seeing Luis’ and subsequently other children’s progress in 2021.
Roberta
Roberta is a prime example of someone who came to a project hosted by ACE, found a culture she belonged to and an identity she can be proud of. What makes Roberta stand out is her courage. The class she attends in Rocinha, run by Kikinho and Leonardo, is a breakdance class. Amongst all the children in this class, Roberta is the only girl in her breakdance class. But the best way to tell Roberta’s story is through her own words: “I was born in the largest
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favela in Latin America, Rocinha, but I am not ashamed of who I am or where I am from. I love to dance. I want to be the inspiration of children around the world, I want them to look at me and say, ‘I can be the same, I can be different, I can be a breakdancer and I change the world like her’.”
Financial Review
The charity with the help of its board, providing sound financial management support and our key funders was able to raise £151,042 and hold reserves of £85,247 for the year 2020.
Principle Funding Sources
Aside from the charity’s events and online fundraising, the charity has managed to secure and continue its core financial partnerships. The core partners are; J Leon & Company, Tulchan Communications & The Archie Lloyd Charitable Foundation. New financial partnerships include Oundle School and the Albert Van den Bergh Charitable Trust amongst other smaller foundations and partnerships.
Reserves Policy
The Board of Directors has examined the charity’s requirements for reserves and in light of the main risks to the organisation. It has established a policy whereby the unrestricted funds not committed or invested in tangible fixed assets held by the charity should be between 6 - 8 months of expenditure. The budgeted expenditure of 2021 is £136,000 and therefore the target is £68,000 to £91,000 in general funds. The reserves are needed to meet the working capital requirements of the charity and the trustees are confident that at this level they would be able to continue the current activities of the charity in the event of a significant drop in funding.
Plans for Future Periods
The plan is to continue our core activities as above whilst maintaining, solidifying and growing a core network of local leaders and locals projects to continue creating impact inside their communities in Rio de Janeiro.
It is the charity’s aim to scale our work into communities needing our model in cities located in the North of Brazil. It is in the best interest of the charity to do this as cities located in the North of Brazil are not often visited by tourists and thus suffer more than cities that are at the top of the media on a frequent basis. ACE wants to work in these cities due to very little help from charities to accelerate local, on the ground social leaders and projects. A city at the top of our list is Natal, a city which is located on the most North Easterly point of Brazil making it the closest city to Europe. Its location makes it a drug trafficking hot spot and therefore a violent city. ACE plans to accelerate a leader in one of Natals many favelas.
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Structure, Governance and Management
Governing Document
The organisation is a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) which was incorporated on March 27th 2019. The organisation was established and is governed in accordance with its Constitution.
Recruitment and Appointment of The Board of Trustees
Under the requirements of the Constitution, the members of the Board are elected to serve for a period of 4 years after which they must be re-elected at the next Annual General Meeting. All members of the Management Committee give their time voluntarily and receive no benefits from the charity.
Due to the nature of our work much of the charity’s work inevitably focuses upon young people. The Board of Trustees seeks to ensure that the needs of this group are appropriately reflected through the diversity of the trustee body.
To enhance the potential pool of trustees, the charity has advertised board positions online. The charity seeks for trustees who are connected to our cause and can help push forward the objects stated in the CIO. The more traditional business skills are well represented on the Board of Trustees. In an effort to maintain this broad skill mix, members of the Board are requested to provide a list of their skills at the AGM for management to decipher and group for committees.
Trustee Induction and Training
Most trustees are already familiar with the charity having been encouraged to first attend a two-hour meeting with Management to see the charity’s full presentation, as given to funders on a yearly basis, and also read all charity documents including but not limited to the CIO Constitution, Business Plan and Theory of Change.
All new trustees are required to read and comment on Charity Commission’s guidance; ’The essential trustee: what you need to know, what you need to do’. A question and answer pack has also been created and distributed around the board of trustees, both new and old.
All charity trustees are required to attend a monthly committee meeting, tri-monthly board meetings and an AGM.
Volunteers
ACE is hugely grateful for its wide array of volunteers both home and abroad for their dedicated work to help push the charities objects forward.
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Risk Management
Management has conducted a review of the major risks to which the charity is exposed. A risk register has been established and is updated throughout the year. Where appropriate, systems or procedures have been established to mitigate the risks the charity faces. Significant external risks to funding have led to the development of a strategic business plan which allows for the diversification of funding and activities.
Internal control risks are minimised by the implementation of procedures for the authorisation of all transactions and projects.
Procedures are in place to ensure compliance with the health and safety of staff, volunteers, clients and visitors to the centre. These procedures are periodically reviewed to ensure that they continue to meet the needs of the charity.
Signature
Name: Sam Collins Position: Chair Date: 25th September 2021
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