## **KIDS OF MALAWI UK – ANNUAL REPORT 2023** 


_Paediatric ward at Kamuzu Central Hospital, Lilongwe. Photo Credit: Ismael Osman_ 

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In 2023, we saw continued progress in Malawi. For Kids of Malawi, we continued to support nursing at Kamuzu Central Hospital and completed a nursing capabilities assessment at the same hospital. This crystallises a need for continuity in our support for nursing, and a need for strategic assessment of where best to apply our resources. 

## **A) Overview** 

Each of our annual report’s starts with a reminder of our objectives as these inform our core activities. We were set up 4 years ago as feedback from practitioners in Malawi highlighted a discrepancy between the work of NGOs/ donors and the needs in public hospitals. Our aim was to focus on helping children through staffing, training, supply provision and research at Malawian Health Care Centres. The specific activities that the charity seeks to undertake are: 

- Raising awareness of health care issues faced by children in Malawi: The charity will put on events to highlight the issues of children in Malawi. We will also ask healthcare workers to share experiences through talks, blogs and articles to show how simple measures can radically improve health care delivery in Malawi. This will be done in the UK primarily 

- Issue grants to healthcare organisations in Malawi to provide health care services, training and supplies: This will be one of the main activities of the charity. Each year the charity will set priorities for grant programmes. We will seek to raise funding for the grant programmes through traditional fundraising routes (e.g. events, sponsorship and funding for specific activities such as nurses) 

- Development of training materials for healthcare staff: Where we feel we can improve training of healthcare staff through commissioning the development of training materials. 

- Issue grants for research on improving healthcare in Malawi 

In 2023, we continued to deliver our first grant programme to healthcare organisations, funded by our donors in the UK. In addition, we focused on assessing nursing capacity in Malawi through a THET funded bursary. Both of these inform the next stage of our work. 

## **B) Charitable activities** 

## **Kids of Malawi UK - Grant programme** 

In 2020, the trustees evaluated the options for our first grant programme and concluded the highest priority need was supporting nursing provision in Malawi. The focus of the first grant programme was a Healthcare Service Grant, as set out in the Kids of Malawi UK Operating Manual. 

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Kids Of Malawi UK started to support the paediatric surgery quality improvement nurse (PSQUIN) role from March 2020, via the Moyo Children's Initiative (MCI). MCI are a Malawi registered NGO with an MOU with Kamuzu Central Hospital (KCH), with a track record of employing staff who work in KCH and providing human resources support. 

Our first nursing grant recipient, Mr Kenedy Kachingwa left to do a Batchelor’s degree. Subsequently Kids of Malawi UK have extended the grant to cover Mr. Martin Chingedwe, who partners in country have appointed to continue the role. 

## **THET Global Placement Bursaries for Health Partnerships** 

In August 2022 Kids of Malawi UK secured a bursary for Health Partnerships, funded by Health Education England and managed by THET. The primary goal was to assess the need and optimal approach to improve the care and capacity for high-acuity paediatric surgical patients. Over the course of this project key relationships between volunteers and local health workers were built, and information gathered about the current care of high-acuity paediatric surgical patients. 

Two volunteers undertook a two-week placement at Kamuzu Central Hospital (KCH). They observed the current management of high-acuity surgical patients and engaged with the multi-professional paediatric surgery team and key stake-holders. They were able to observe the current criteria for categorising high-acuity patients, clinical documentation used both by nursing and medical staff, record keeping and communication pathways between nursing and medical staff to raise concerns. There were also able to collect data on numbers of high-acuity patients seen per month and assess the current staffing levels, existing resources and availability of equipment that would impact on capacity and care of these patients. 

Three teaching sessions for nursing staff and multiple ad hoc bedside teaching sessions were facilitated. Feedback suggested that this was useful to refresh and develop clinical knowledge and skills. 

“Following this visit, the continuous professional development activities among other exercises conducted during the scoping project have yielded somewhat change in the day-to-day delivery of surgical healthcare to children.” 

Martin, Surgical Quality Improvement Nurse 

A multi-professional workshop was facilitated for the paediatric surgical team to discuss views on the current management of high-acuity patients and gather opinions on how to 

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improve this care and increase capacity. This has engaged and empowered the local team to reflect on current practices and address concerns. Additionally this is the first step to develop future projects to build specific surgical high-dependency capacity. 

In addition to the in-person visit, virtual mentoring has been established with key members of the surgical nursing team. Further weekly teaching, led locally but supported virtually, with the medical staff also been established and will be ongoing. 

Over the course of the project, the team were able to work with 32 nursing staff, 10 nursing students and 13 other health professionals. 

## **C) Overall financial position** 

Whist this annual report covers 2023, our financial reporting year runs from Apr 2022 – Mar 2023. Our annual return to the Charity Commission relates to this period and is available online [add hyperlink once annual return submitted]. 

For our financial year 2022/23, our closing balance was approximately £17,250. Of these funds, approximately ~£7,000 is committed towards a further year of the nursing grant and payments arising from the THET global bursary. The remainder is uncommitted funding. 

We have had limited fundraising as we assess where to focus our resources. 

## _**Income**_ 

For FY 2022/23, our income was broadly split: 

- Grant funding: around £9,000 

- Individual donations: around £2,600 

While our income was lower than the £25,000 threshold for accounts to be checked by an independent examiner, we nonetheless felt it would be good practice to do so. Details of their findings can be found in our annual return on the Charity Commission website. 

## _**Expenditure**_ 

The main area of expenditure for the financial year 2022/23 were final payments on the THET Mother & Child programme from prior financial year. We also paid £4,000 for the nursing. No admin expenses were incurred in 2022/23 

## **D) Year Ahead** 

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The THET grant and ongoing collaborations with staff at Kamuzu Central Hospital are helping us crystallise our future strategy. We will report shortly on this. As ever, we would like to thank all our private donors and THET staff for their continued collaboration and support. 

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||**KIDS OF MALAWI**|||**1183319**|**CC16a**|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|||**Receipts and payments accounts**||||
||**For the period from**|01/04/2021<br>Period start date<br>|**To**|31/03/2022<br>Period end date||
|||||||
|**Section A Receipts and payments**||||||
|**A1 Receipts**|**Unrestricted**<br>**funds**<br>**to the nearest**<br>**£**|**Restricted funds**<br>**to the nearest £**|**Endowment**<br>**funds**<br>**to the nearest £**|**Total funds**<br>**to the nearest £**|**Last year**<br>**to the nearest £**|
|Donations|**2,624**|**-**|**-**|**2,624**|**3,740**|
|Grant income|**-**|**9,035**|**-**|**9,035**|**27,218**|
||**-**|**-**|**-**|**-**|**-**|
|**_Sub total_**_(Gross income for AR)_|**2,624**|**9,035**|**-**|**11,660**|**30,959**|
|**A2 Asset and investment sales, (see**<br>**table).**||||||
|N/A||**-**|**-**|**-**||
||**-**|**-**|**-**|**-**|**-**|
|**_Sub total_**|**-**|**-**|**-**|**-**|**-**|
|**_Total receipts_ **<br>**A3 Payments**||||||
||**2,624**|**9,035**|**-**|**11,660**|**30,959**|
|||||||
|Grant spending|**4,000**|**21,697**|**-**|**25,697**|**9,695**|
|Admin||**-**|**-**|**-**|**137**|
||**-**|**-**|**-**|**-**|**-**|
|**_Sub total_ **|**4,000**|**21,697**|**-**|**25,697**|**9,832**|
|||||||
|**A4 Asset and investment purchases,**<br>**(see table)**||||||
|**N/A **||**-**|**-**|**-**||
||**-**|**-**|**-**|**-**||
|**_Sub total_ **|**-**|**-**|**-**|**-**|**-**|
|**_Total payments_ **<br>**_Net of receipts/(payments)_**<br>**A5 Transfers between funds**<br>**A6 Cash funds last year end**<br>**_Cash funds this year end_**||||||
||**4,000**|**21,697**|**-**|**25,697**|**9,832**|
|||||||
||**-                  1,376**|**-                12,662**|**-**|**-                14,037**|**21,127**|
||**-**|**-**|**-**|**-**|**-**|
||**13,789**|**17,523**|**-**|**31,312**|**10,185**|
||**12,413**|**4,861**|**-**|**17,274**|**31,312**|



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

|**Categories**<br>Signed by one or two trustees on<br>behalf of all the trustees<br>**B2 Other monetary assets**<br>**B4 Assets retained for the charity’s**<br>**own use**<br>**B1 Cash funds**<br>**B5 Liabilities**<br>**B3 Investment assets**|**Details**|**Unrestricted**<br>**funds**<br>**to nearest £**|**Restricted funds**<br>**to nearest £**|**Endowment**<br>**funds**<br>**to nearest £**|
|---|---|---|---|---|
||Cash in bank|**12,413**|**4,861**|**-**|
|||**-**|**-**|**-**|
|||**-**|**-**|**-**|
||**_Total cash funds_**<br>(agree balances with receipts and<br>payments account(s))<br>**Details**|**12,413**|**4,861**|**-**|
|||OK|OK|OK|
|||**Unrestricted**<br>**funds**<br>**to nearest £**|**Restricted funds**<br>**to nearest £**|**Endowment**<br>**funds**<br>**to nearest £**|
||N/A|**-**|**-**|**-**|
|||**-**|**-**|**-**|
||**Details**|**Fund to which**<br>**asset belongs**|**Cost (optional)**|**Current value**<br>**(optional)**|
||N/A||**-**|**-**|
||||**-**|**-**|
||**Details**|**Fund to which**<br>**asset belongs**|**Cost (optional)**|**Current value**<br>**(optional)**|
||N/A||**-**|**-**|
||||**-**|**-**|
||||**-**|**-**|
||**Details**|**Fund to which**<br>**liability relates**|**Amount due**<br>**(optional)**|**When due**<br>**(optional)**|
||THET  global bursary|Restricted|**3,322**|**01/09/2023**|
||||**-**||
||Signature|Print|Name||
|||||Date of approval|
|||S SHANMU|GALINGAM|25/02/2024|
|||S MO|RGAN|25/02/2024|



CCXX R1 accounts (SS) 

26/02/2024 

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