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2025-01-31-accounts

REPORT OF THE TRUSTEES AND FINANCIAL STATEMENTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31ST JANUARY 2025

REGISTERED COMPANY NUMBER: 07912968 (England and Wales)

REGISTERED CHARITY NUMBER: 1184068

Contents

Contents
Page
Legal and Administrative Information 3
Report of the Trustees 4 to 11
Independent Examiner's Report 12
Statement of Financial Activities 13
Statement of Financial Position 14
Notes to the Accounts 15 to 19
Detailed Statement of Financial Activities 20

HAWA TRUST LIMITED LEGAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE INFORMATION

INFORMATION
Chairman Board of
Trustees:		 Miss Hawa Daboh Sesay
Other Trustee Members: Mbalu Mansaray
Alhaji T K Sesay
Mariatu Davies
Chief Executive Officer: Hawa D Sesay
Registered Company
Number		 07912968 (England and Wales)
Registered Charity
Number		 1184068
Registered Office: 14 Egbert House, Homerton Road, Hackney, London, E9 5QF
Independent Examiner Tamba Koroma, FCCA, Teim Accountants, The Print House, 18 Ashwin
Street, London, E8 3DL
Bankers: Barclays Bank, London, E13 9PL

HAWA TRUST LIMITED REPORT OF THE TRUSTEES FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 JANUARY 2025

The trustees, who are also directors of the charity for the purposes of the Companies Act 2006, present their report with the financial statements of the charity for the year ended 31 January 2025. The Trustees have adopted the provisions of Accounting and Reporting by Charities: Statement of Recommended Practice applicable to charities preparing their accounts in accordance with the Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland (FRS102), Effective 1 January 2015.

Established 1st September 2009, Hawa Trust Ltd is a company limited by guarantee and is governed by a Memorandum and Articles of Association. Hawa Trust is committed to eradicating FGM in the UK, especially among African, Asian and Arab communities.

Girls and young women from African communities are normally taken to Africa to undergo FGM. This is a dangerous practice which has devastating physical, psychological and emotional effects on the victims. We also address issues relating to HIV and AIDS, and domestic violence.

STRUCTURE, GOVERNANCE AND MANAGEMENT

Governing document

The Charity is controlled by its governing document, articles of association, and constitutes a limited company, limited by guarantee, as defined by the Companies Act 2006.

Recruitment and appointment of new trustees

The legal responsibility for the election of new trustees to Hawa Trust lies with the Annual General Meeting (AGM). The Board recognises that it has only limited control over the election of trustees at the AGM. It is accepted that Hawa Trust members should be able to elect people to the Board who they believe will best represent their interests. However, the existing Board members also have a responsibility to ensure that the needs of the organisation in terms of governance are met by those people elected. The Board seeks to do this by adopting a system of recommending Trustee appointments to the membership using the steps detailed below.

The membership will then decide to elect a recommended candidate or to appoint another person to the board. Trustees can delegate some aspects of recruitment of Trustees to Management, but they ensure that they retain overall responsibility and control of the recruitment, selection and induction processes. In recruiting new trustees, the existing trustees and management act in the best interests of Hawa Trust and in accordance with the Charity Commission directives as laid out in CC30.

The Trustees are required to be meeting regularly in order to provide oversight and support to the charity as well as work with the staff team to achieve our project outcomes for the improvement of the welfare of our beneficiaries. Over the past year we have met at times online in order to accommodate some trustees who had travelled and at other times at the new office

of the charity. These meetings have involved accepting reports from the staff team, responding to queries from funders, making future plans for the charity, exploring partnerships for more effective working, and examining the charity’s financial situation so as to provide advice on improving our financial performance.

As the demand for our services is growing due to the cost-of-living crisis and the needs of our deprived women beneficiaries, we have discussed the possibility of increasing our staff strength by hiring part-time staff and more volunteers. However, because of financial constraints, some of these plans could not be implemented.

Risk management

The trustees have a duty to identify and review the risks to which the charity is exposed and to ensure appropriate controls are in place to provide reasonable assurance against fraud and error. The trustees confirm that they regularly review the significant risks facing the Charity and have systems and procedures in place to mitigate against those risks. The risk policy has adopted a risk mapping methodology that is applied to each identified risk, assessing the likelihood of it occurring and the severity of the impact of occurrence on the Charity. The Chief Executive Officer is responsible for the day-to-day monitoring of risk and reporting to the Trustees.

Induction and training of new trustees

All trustees are expected to attend:

As part of the induction process, all trustees receive copies of the following:

HAWA TRUST LIMITED REPORT OF THE TRUSTEES FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 JANUARY 2025

OBJECTIVES AND ACTIVITIES

Our charity’s objectives include:

This past year we have worked diligently to support our beneficiaries thanks to the help of several funders, and provided resources for them to cope with their various VAWG and poverty challenges.

Public Benefit

To promote social inclusion for the public benefit by preventing people from becoming socially excluded and assisting them to integrate into society. For the purpose of this clause, "socially excluded" means being excluded from society, or parts of society, as a result of one or more of the following factors: youth or old age, ill health (physical or mental), race, and disability, ethnic origin, religion, relationship and family breakdown.

Hawa Trust sensitises the local community through campaigns, trains volunteers, parents and carers, organises conferences, seminars and workshops, collaborates with community members, churches, mosques and cultural centres, and advocates for victims and lobby leaders and MPs.

We also provide support to FGM and DV victims through referrals, support and a helpline. We organise drama, free yoga sessions, cultural evenings, women’s meetings, girls support meetings, social media events, debates and information evenings especially for young people.

ACHIEVEMENTS AND PERFORMANCE

Main Activities

Over the past year we engaged in the following main activities:

One to One Support for Victims of FGM and Domestic Violence (DV).

This is one of our main activities and is much in demand over the years. We have seen that because of the cost of living crisis and other challenges families and couples face there has been an increase in levels of Domestic Violence (DV) and FGM. We received over 65 calls and referrals at our offices for help from local agencies, individuals, charities and concerned

HAWA TRUST LIMITED REPORT OF THE TRUSTEES

FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 JANUARY 2025

families. With support from our funders, we had both remote and in-person one-to-one sessions with victims and those at risk. As per our constitution, we provide VAWG victims and those most at risk with skills, reporting options and safe spaces where they can regain confidence, learn new skills, discover resilience and are referred for specialist support. As a result, 51 were referred for housing, education, benefits, immigration and DE infibulation to relevant medical establishments.

Monthly women’s meetings: “You Are Not Alone”

While the above One to One Support for FGM and DV victims is good, it is not enough; they need sessions to meet in groups and engage with victims and peers going through similar experiences. We therefore organise monthly special meetings for vulnerable women victims and those at risk of FGM and DV at our office. It is designed to provide a safe space for them to express their experiences, seek advice and make connections with people facing similar challenges. In addition, the sessions have been enriched by activities, cooking sessions, benefit advice and practical talks by various public health, medical and social work professionals on a wide range of topics including the law and DV, menopause, reporting abuse, benefits, diabetes, healthy eating, seeking help, rights and personal development. Around 70 FGM and DV survivors benefited from our monthly women’s support sessions.

Physical and mental exercises: Free yoga classes for vulnerable BAME women

This is one of our most popular and well-known activities. These weekly yoga exercise classes for victims and those at risk of FGM and DV have been going on for years in Hackney. Victims of DV and FGM really need mental and emotional resilience and stamina so that they can recover from abuse. We also provide refreshment and transportation for vulnerable women to enable them to attend the exercise classes. We interviewed participants and the feedback has been very positive. They have stated the physical, mental and emotional benefits they have experienced. A total of 80 women gained physical and mental resilience through our free yoga and exercise classes. Feedback from questionnaires and interviews showed that 88% had increased confidence, better sleep, less stress and less FGM and DV flashbacks. Many did not need to go to hospital for minor ailments.

Health Awareness raising

The charity received funding to raise awareness on the prevention and transmission of various illnesses including mpox, as well as on the need for all to take vaccines for seasonal ailments like flu and covid-19. Our public awareness raising including working in the streets, roundabouts, estates, markets and mosques. We engaged especially with Black and Caribbean youths to dispel myths about the diseases which are being spread on social media. We produced information in local languages of migrants who had low literacy levels and worked alongside the clinics. We reached out also to undocumented migrants who were afraid to visit clinics because of their immigration status. These outreaches went in addition to our normal services on DV and FGM. Working with the local mosques and with the imams and local leaders proved to be very rewarding.

HAWA TRUST LIMITED REPORT OF THE TRUSTEES FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 JANUARY 2025

A key health vulnerability among black and Caribbean communities is high blood pressure, mainly due to poor diet and lifestyle factors. We have worked with Public Health England to monitor blood pressure levels and introduce activities to help reduce such high levels.

One of the important tools we use is our WhatsApp group for vulnerable women. This platform brings together women from a wide variety of backgrounds and we inform them of the latest news on the virus, FGM and DV. We use the platform to announce activities and also to eliminate many myths that people have about various health and social issues.

Food and practical support

We have realised that there is a need to provide holistic support for our beneficiaries. In addition to our services, we need to provide food and similar practical support for them. We have been receiving funding to provide nutritional support for vulnerable women to improve their nutrition and health levels, as well as reduce the impact of domestic violence and neglect. As a result, we have bulk purchased food and other household items, which our vulnerable beneficiaries have stated that they are in desperate need of: these have included dry rice, vegetable oil, tin tomatoes, sardines, and other tinned products. With the help of volunteers, we distribute these items to vulnerable immigrant BAME women both at our office, Vi Forester Community Centre, and at the homes of the elderly and disabled women. These provisions are advertised through leaflets in the community and on our social media platforms, including our WhatsApp group, where many vulnerable BAME women are members. Feedback has shown that the overwhelming majority welcome the food support but the need is great and increasing.

Training and supporting our Community Champions

Our great work in the community cannot be accomplished without our community champions. We provide regular training and refresher sessions for them on FGM, DV and mpox and Covid infections. They are the ones who go into the communities with leaflets to raise awareness with people. We especially targeted the large number of myths and misinformation going on about health and infections spread among our Black communities through platforms like TikTok and Facebook.

To support our champions and communities, we used information from Hackney Public Health and government sources to counter such misinformation, and we provided material in accessible languages for migrants who had low literacy levels.

In order to raise awareness about harmful practices and VAWG, we have gone into churches, mosques, markets and cultural centres and answered questions raised, especially by Black youths who are very sceptical. We also send our volunteers and community champions to visit the disabled and elderly; they have helped them in medication collection as well as reminding them to take their medication. They have helped those who qualify to access benefits like housing and fuel allowance, and made referrals to the council and other local agencies.

Hawa Trust Limited Report of the Trustees For the Year Ended 31 January 2025

AWARDS

Our work has been recognised through various awards over the past year. These include:

FINANCIAL REVIEW

Financial position

The charity's financial position has seen a positive turnaround this year. The charity ended the year with net assets of £360.41, a significant improvement from the restated opening deficit of £2,382.00. This represents a net increase in funds of £2,742.41 for the year.

Reserves policy

The trustees aim to hold reserves equivalent to three months of operating expenditure. At the year end, the charity held free reserves of £360.41. While this is below the target level, the trustees are actively working on fundraising strategies to build reserves to a more sustainable level in the coming year.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD:

...........................................................

Miss Hawa Daboh Sesay - Trustee

Date: ...29/11/25........................

INDEPENDENT EXAMINER’S REPORT TO THE TRUSTEES OF HAWA TRUST LIMITED

I report to the charity trustees on my examination of the accounts of the Company for the year ended 31 January 2025.

Responsibilities and basis of report

As the charity’s trustees of the Company (and also its directors for the purposes of company law) you are responsible for the preparation of the accounts in accordance with the requirements of the Companies Act 2006 (‘the 2006 Act’).

Having satisfied myself that the accounts of the Company are not required to be audited under Part 16 of the 2006 Act and are eligible for independent examination, I report in respect of my examination of your charity’s accounts as carried out under section 145 of the Charities Act 2011 (‘the 2011 Act’). In carrying out my examination I have followed the Directions given by the Charity Commission under section 145(5) (b) of the 2011 Act.

Independent examiner’s statement

I have completed my examination. I confirm that no matters have come to my attention in connection with the examination giving me cause to believe:

I have no concerns and have come across no other matters in connection with the examination to which attention should be drawn in this report in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached.

...........................................................

Tamba Koroma, FCCA

Teim Accountants The Print House 18 Ashwin Street London, E8 3DL Date: ...28 November 2025.....

HAWA TRUST LIMITED STATEMENT OF FINANCIAL ACTIVITIES FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 JANUARY 2025
Unrestricted
funds		 Restricted
funds		 Total
funds 2025		 Total
funds 2024
£ £ £ £
INCOME AND ENDOWMENTS
FROM
Donations and legacies 0 0 0 0
Charitable activities 46,558 0 46,558 88,360
Total 46,558 0 46,558 88,360
EXPENDITURE ON
Charitable activities 46,070 0 46,070 94,281
Total 46,070 0 46,070 94,281
NET INCOME/(EXPENDITURE) 488 0 488 (5,921)
Transfers between funds (P.Y.A.) 2,254 0 2,254 0
Net movement in funds 2,742 0 2,742 (5,921)
RECONCILIATION OF FUNDS
Total funds brought forward (2,382) 0 (2,382) 2,382
TOTAL FUNDS CARRIED
FORWARD		 360 0 360 (2,382)

HAWA TRUST LIMITED STATEMENT OF FINANCIAL POSITION AS AT 31 JANUARY 2025
Unrestricted
funds		 Restricted
funds		 Total funds
2025		 Total funds
2024
£ £ £ £
FIXED ASSETS
Tangible assets 109 0 109 109
Total fixed assets 109 0 109 109
CURRENT ASSETS
Cash at bank and in hand 1,661 0 1,661 613
Total current assets 1,661 0 1,661 613
CREDITORS
Amounts falling due within one
year		 (1,410) 0 (1,410) (1,660)
NET CURRENT ASSETS 251 0 251 (1,047)
TOTAL ASSETS LESS
CURRENT LIABILITIES		 360 0 360 (938)
NET ASSETS 360 0 360 (938)
FUNDS
Unrestricted funds 360 0 360 (2,382)
TOTAL FUNDS 360 0 360 (2,382)

HAWA TRUST LIMITED NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 JANUARY 2025

1. ACCOUNTING POLICIES

a) Basis of preparing the financial statements

The financial statements of the charitable company, which is a public benefit entity under FRS 102, have been prepared in accordance with the Charities SORP (FRS 102) ‘Accounting and Reporting by Charities: Statement of Recommended Practice applicable to charities preparing their accounts in accordance with the Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland (FRS 102) (effective 1 January 2015)’, Financial Reporting Standard 102 ‘The Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland’ and the Companies Act 2006.

The financial statements have been prepared under the historical cost convention.

b) Income

All income is recognised in the Statement of Financial Activities once the charity has entitlement to the funds, it is probable that the income will be received and the amount can be measured reliably.

c) Expenditure

Liabilities are recognised as expenditure as soon as there is a legal or constructive obligation committing the charity to that expenditure, it is probable that a transfer of economic benefits will be required in settlement and the amount of the obligation can be measured reliably. Expenditure is accounted for on an accruals basis and has been classified under headings that aggregate all cost related to the category. Where costs cannot be directly attributed to particular headings they have been allocated to activities on a basis consistent with the use of resources.

d) Tangible fixed assets

Depreciation is provided at the following annual rates in order to write off each asset over its estimated useful life.

Computer equipment - 25% on cost

e) Taxation

The charity is exempt from corporation tax on its charitable activities.

HAWA TRUST LIMITED NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 JANUARY 2025

f) Fund accounting

Unrestricted funds can be used in accordance with the charitable objectives at the discretion of the trustees.

Restricted funds can only be used for particular restricted purposes within the objects of the charity. Restrictions arise when specified by the donor or when funds are raised for particular restricted purposes.

2. GRANT INCOME

2. GRANT INCOME
2025 2024
£ £
Grants 46,558 88,360
Total 46,558 88,360

3. CHARITABLE ACTIVITIES COSTS
2025 2024
£ £
Donation 100 -
Event costs 20,668 65,110
Purchases 780 -
Volunteer costs 16,442 25,249
Total 37,990 90,359

HAWA TRUST LIMITED NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 JANUARY 2025

4. GOVERNANCE COSTS

4. GOVERNANCE COSTS
2025 2024
£ £
Accountancy fees 1,500 1,650
Advertising and PR 1,130 -
Bank charges 313 280
Interest - bank 2 -
Rent 2,870 -
Stationery and printing 160 1,380
Telephone and internet 1,785 462
Travel and subsistence 320 150
Total 8,080 3,922

5. PRIOR YEAR ADJUSTMENT

A prior year adjustment of £2,254.27 has been made to restate the opening reserves. The previously reported closing reserve for 2024 was a surplus of £2,382; however, the correct position based on the balance sheet was a deficit of £2,382. This adjustment corrects for the historical discrepancy and aligns the opening funds with the true financial position of the charity.

HAWA TRUST LIMITED DETAILED STATEMENT OF FINANCIAL ACTIVITIES FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 JANUARY 2025
2025 2024
£ £
INCOME AND ENDOWMENTS
Charitable activities
Grants 46,558 88,360
Total incoming resources 46,558 88,360
EXPENDITURE
Charitable activities
Donation 100 -
Event costs 20,668 65,110
Purchases 780 -
Volunteer costs 16,442 25,249
Total charitable activities 37,990 90,359
Governance costs
Accountancy fees 1,500 1,650
Advertising and PR 1,130 -
2025 2024
Bank charges 313 280
Interest - bank 2 -
Rent 2,870 -
Stationery and printing 160 1,380
Telephone and internet 1,785 462
Travel and subsistence 320 150
Total governance costs 8,080 3,922
Total resources expended 46,070 94,281
Net income/(expenditure) 488 (5,921)