Registered Charity Number: 1183873
Humanitarian Operations CIO
Trustee’s Annual Report for the year ended 31 March 2021
Table of Contents
Objectives and Activities ......................................................................................................................... 1 Purpose ............................................................................................................................................... 1 Activities .............................................................................................................................................. 1 Performance and Outreach .................................................................................................................... 2 Case studies ........................................................................................................................................ 2 Financial Review ...................................................................................................................................... 3 Reserves Policy .................................................................................................................................... 4 Plans for the Future ................................................................................................................................ 5 Structure Governance and Management ............................................................................................... 6 Principal Office .................................................................................................................................... 6 Trustees ............................................................................................................................................... 6 Appointment of Trustees .................................................................................................................... 6 Committees ......................................................................................................................................... 7 Anti-Corruption Policy......................................................................................................................... 7 Reference and administrative details ................................................................................................. 7
Objectives and Activities
Purpose
Humanitarian Operations provides relief aid to people affected by natural and man-made disasters across the globe. Often, such events propagate a period of uncertainty and chaos for these people and can reduce or even sever access to crucial resources.
Our aim is to negate the catastrophic effects that occur during these disasters and conflicts. Humanitarian Operations does this by distributing essential supplies such as food, water, clothing, sanitary and personal hygiene products. These are necessities that become scarce in the face of a disaster or conflict, and they are the tools that allow survivors to regain normality and allow them to recover and rebuild.
The ultimate purpose of Humanitarian Operations is to focus and fulfil the needs of the individual amidst international crises and to assist them in their rehabilitation and reconciliation where possible.
When planning our work, our missions and setting our objectives, we have continuously considered the Charity Commission’s general guidance on public benefit. We ensure that our activities are in line with our charitable objective so that we can best relieve the effects of weather based, chemical, biological and nuclear disasters in the affected regions that our operations are able to reach.
As the Coronavirus Pandemic became ever more entrenched in our daily lives with schools being closed or restricting student access, the development of our free education app has become more important than ever. We have completed the app engine which will allow us to develop lessons at a very rapid pace. Currently we have built and tested our reading and numeracy lessons with amazing results. Nursery children that had never seen the alphabet before learned the entire alphabet in a day and a half. We are now developing the language translation engine which will allow our lessons to be available for free in at least 167 languages.
Activities
Humanitarian Operations’ primary activities in providing humanitarian relief from environmental, chemical and or conflict disasters are categorised as follows:
Providing Humanitarian Aid
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•Special committees tasked with assessing risks of disaster situations.
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•Facilitation of evacuation and repatriation.
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•The COVID-19 Food distribution project for the homeless: Delivery of food and water to the most deprived population of the UK who have been severely impacted by the COVID19 crisis.
Providing Educational Support
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•Continued in the creation of digital education tools for institutions, children and their parents who would not otherwise have access to positive and progressive education.
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•Establishing a digital education app free of charge that will teach children foundational courses in sciences.
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Performance and Outreach
Case studies
Overseas
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Working with our Bahamian colleagues, teams were dispatched to Australia to assist with efforts to deal with the effects of the bush fires. Taking the experience gained running evacuation operations in the Caribbean prior hurricane impacts we were able to assist Australian families in successfully evacuating.
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As a result of our close involvement in bush fire-fighting, we are now in the process of developing a firefighter rescue unit capable of rescuing firefighters that become trapped and surrounded by the fire they are fighting.
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In Australia, the bush fire impact severely impacted the wildlife with many animals injured or left without viable habitats for survival. This was the first time that the Humanitarian Operations team became involved in large scale animal rescue.
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The Coronavirus Pandemic is not going away and it is our opinion that we must develop and maintain the necessary ability to assist victims that become trapped and unable to return home should nations again enter lockdown status or close their borders. Our assistance became vital to the many Australians that became trapped as a result of their border closure.
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During the course of the year Humanitarian Operations opened our Australian Unit, and New Zealand Unit. We also started work on a Balkans Unit. These teams work in the same way as our Chinese and Indian Units do assisting nationals with repatriation and evacuation as a result of the Coronavirus Pandemic.
COVID-19 Food Distribution
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We have been grateful to receive thousands of pounds worth of pledged donations from Waitrose to distribute food to the homeless around London.
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We focused on handing out food at London's train stations as these are considered hotspots for the homeless. We created a system of fair distribution, taking details from individuals to ensure that the food was shared equally and therefore our reach spread further. We recognise that society frequently dismisses and disenfranchises the homeless as pariahs.
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We also recognise that we may not have reached every homeless person in the city, and that the donation of food creates only a short-term impact to the lives of the homeless. Nevertheless,we hope that these small acts of kindness contributed somewhat to the long-term well-being of these individuals.
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Financial Review
For the financial year ended the charity had excess income over expenditure of £777 (2020: £150).
The income is received from many sources. The graph below shows the split of income for the 2 years for which the charity has operated (figures in £).
The premises from which the charity operates is generously donated by Halkin Management Ltd and the charity is operated by volunteers who receive no income or reimbursement of expenses.
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The actual expenses incurred are for the relief operations and for the creation of the digital educational app, with the split the 2 years for which the charity has operated being below (figures in £)
Reserves Policy
We currently have a policy to reserve 3 months' worth of ongoing expenses in advance to ensure the smooth running of the charity. Currently, we value our monthly ongoing expense at £150, hence the reserve total by the end of this financial period was £450. The reserves at the end of the Financial Period were £927, more than double the policy requirement.
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Plans for the Future
The plans for the future fall into 3 broad categories.
Digital Education Projects
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•Next year will see the global launch of our free learning App in over 167 languages.
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•Incorporating survival skills in the App
Continued Workshop Development
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•Introduction: What not to do
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•Survival Techniques
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•Rescue and Working with Helicopters
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•Working with Dogs & Swimming
Overseas
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•Our Bahamian colleagues have been undertaking survival training for school children throughout the Caribbean
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•Opening Balkans Unit
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Structure Governance and Management
Humanitarian Operations is a non-governmental, non-political, non-religious organisation. The governing document is the Humanitarian Operations CIO Constitution adopted on 27 March 2019 and amended on 27 April 2020. Humanitarian Operations became recognised by the Charity Commission when it was registered as a Charitable Incorporated Organisation on 13 June 2019. Our Charity Commission registration number is 1183873.
Principal Office
1 Paris Garden, London, UK, SE1 8ND
Trustees
The trustees hold monthly board meetings to ensure the CIO is run appropriately. The trustees are responsible for making day-to-day management decisions. The charity trustees may delegate any of their powers or functions to a committee or committees, each of which has terms and conditions determined by the Trustees.
Current Trustees
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Darren Adler, appointed 9 June 2019
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Peter Comandulli, appointed 9 June 2019
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Mark Palmer, re-appointed 8 June 2021
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Karl Kelledy, appointed 15 June 2021
Appointment of Trustees
The trustees consider recruitment of new trustees as the need arises. Applications from suitable candidates would be sought by identifying their skills, knowledge and experience needed for the effective administration of the CIO. Newly appointed trustees will be provided with information on the activities, financing and management structure of Humanitarian Operations and will be referred to the Charity Commission guidance on public benefit and code of conduct trustees should follow. The following conditions must be met for the appointment of a new trustee:
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a. Every trustee must be appointed for a term of three years by a resolution passed at a properly convened meeting of the charity trustees.
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b. The maximum number of charity trustees is 12. The charity trustees may not appoint any charity trustee if as a result the number of charity trustees would exceed the maximum.
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Committees
During the year, work was continued on the governance structure of the charity. The present structure is shown below, this changing during the year.
Board of Trustees
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Finance & Risk People Fundraising
Committee Committee Committee
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Given the relative size of the charity the previous committees where either renamed or merged as follows:
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Financial Controls & Risk Committee was renamed Finance & Risk Committee
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Health & Safety Committee and Training & Development Committee have been merged into the People Committee
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Grants Committee was renamed Fundraising Committee
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Governance Committee’s work was effectively that of the Board of Trustees and so the committee was cancelled.
Anti-Corruption Policy
Humanitarian Operations is committed to training staff correctly and to enforcing an anti- bribery culture within the charity. We operate in countries that are considered to be at high risk of corruption, so our staff and volunteers are trained in how to effectively use our practices free from any corruption.
Reference and administrative details
In the event the charity exceeds the audit threshold of gross income becomes more than £1 million (or more than £250,000 and with gross assets of more than £3.26 million) the trustees will arrange for their charity's accounts to be audited.
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The following organisations have been kind enough to assist Humanitarian Operations where possible with legal, financial, and banking services.
Legal Services
CMS Cameron McKenna Nabarro Olswang LLP Cannon Place 78 Cannon Street London EC4N 6AF
DLA Piper UK LLP 160 Aldersgate Street London EC1A 4HT
Allen & Overy LLP One Bishops Square London E1 6AD
Mayer Brown 201 Bishopsgate London EC2M 3AF
Financial Advisors
PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP 1 Embankment Place London WC2N 6RH
Goldman Sachs 25 Shoe Lane Holborn London EC4A 4AU
Bankers
Barclays 1 Churchill Place Canary Wharf London E14 5HP
Halkin Management Ltd kindly provide office space for Humanitarian Operations free of charge.
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