**Napier Friends Annual Report for the year ending 31 March 2025**
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## **Napier Friends Report of the Trustees for the year 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025**
The trustees present their annual report and financial statements for the year ended 31 March 2025 and confirm they comply with the Charities Act 1993, as amended by the Charities Act 2006, the trust deed and the Charities SORP 2005.
## **Reference and Administrative Information**
Charity Name - Napier Friends Charitable Incorporated Organisation Registration Number - 1197988
Registered Office: The Workshop, 32-40 High St, Folkestone, Kent CT20 1UJ
**Board of Trustees (and dates acted if not for whole period)**
Mohamed Izzeldin Charlotte East Justus Kajinja Noowe Jennifer Bolger Ahmad Reshad Hamer
**Bankers** Natwest Bank
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Napier Friends is a local community group set up to support people seeking asylum who are accommodated at Napier Barracks and other institutional asylum accommodation in Folkestone, Kent. Our mission is to help people seeking asylum to settle into the local community and their new lives in the UK. We build links between people seeking asylum living at institutional asylum accommodation and other local people, and nurture a supportive and empowering community for people to understand and integrate into British society.
We supported over an average of 180 people seeking asylum each week and almost 1400 different people through the year in 2024-25. We ran sessions at Napier Barracks and in the local community 7 days a week, offering a welcoming and empowering space for people while they live at Napier or in other asylum accommodation, to provide meaningful activities, and to help people learn about and build skills for life in the UK. Our activities are developed alongside our Resident Forum, and we run daily English classes plus other sessions learning about healthcare, employability, and other aspects of life in the UK. We facilitate opportunities for up to 150 people seeking asylum to volunteer and join activities around Folkestone and Hythe alongside other local people every week throughout the year. We run a number of sports sessions every week, at Napier and in the local area, and support camp residents to form a football team and compete in a local 6-a-side league. We organised 4 Community Meals open to all to eat on a pay as you feel basis through the year, and facilitated 5 other cooking events for example cooking for the Churches Together Prayer Breakfast. We run 2 cooking sessions each week for Napier Residents, one giving people the opportunity to learn to cook and the other where groups cook a meal from their home country to share with others.
We have developed and maintain a therapeutic/ kitchen garden onsite at Napier with the help of local gardeners. We also support our local volunteers to run art, chess and other hobby groups at the camp and at local hotels for people seeking asylum. We support Napier residents to share their skills with others, and resident volunteers facilitate a range of classes including computer programming, tailoring, and beginner guitar. We have a computer suite, barber equipment and sewing machines that are well used by residents, and support resident volunteers to offer free phone repairs, barbering and tailoring services to others. We proactively foster a welcoming space, and so have a range of hot drinks and refreshments at each session. We have a caseworker, and provide additional support and signposting for residents according to their individual needs, and offer move on support to all residents to help them get settled and find a new support network in their new area when they move to dispersed accommodation. We run a discreet LGBTQ social and support group, and also organise some activities that are ringfenced for younger residents, as we have identified that this is another group that finds the camp environment particularly hard.
We have grown significantly again this year, and we now have 7 paid workers, who are all part time and work a total of up to 100 hours per week. We have almost 60 local volunteers who volunteer with us regularly, a number of Napier residents who volunteer with us, and
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many more who we support to volunteer with other organisations in the local community. Our trustee board is made up of local people and people with lived experience of the asylum system, and we currently have 5 people on the board. We are looking ahead to the expected closure of Napier later in 2025 and discussing our options for the future of the organisation with all our stakeholders.
## **Charitable purposes**
To provide relief to asylum seekers who are in need and have been accommodated at Napier Barracks or other institutional asylum accommodation; through the provision of a support network to provide education, volunteering opportunities and such other support and services as the trustees deem appropriate in order to advance them in life and assist them with their adaption within the community.
## **Objectives**
Napier Friends works towards a society where people seeking asylum are welcomed and supported to build positive lives.
Our mission is to help people seeking asylum to settle into the local community and their new lives in the UK. We build links between people seeking asylum living at institutional asylum accommodation and other local people, and nurture a supportive and empowering community for people to understand and integrate into British society.
We empower the people we support, and value the diversity of experience that every individual brings to our service. We believe that social connectedness helps people tackle the other issues they are living with, and seek to give people opportunities to build trust, resilience, confidence, improved health and wellbeing and a sense of belonging. **Our aims are:**
- To build connections between people living at Napier and other institutional asylum accommodation and the local community
- To help people seeking asylum to adapt and integrate; through learning English, learning about life in Britain, and other support that will help people to advance themselves as they settle in the UK
- To provide a support network to people living at Napier and who have moved on from Napier
- To offer meaningful activities that improve the health and wellbeing of people living at Napier and other institutional asylum accommodation
- To be anti-oppressive and anti-racist in our practice, providing services fairly to everyone.
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## **Activities and achievements**
This year we have grown again as an organisation, and had over 100 paid staff hours per week for much of the year. We continue to run sessions at Napier Barracks 5 days a week, and these now run 11am-4pm each day and are all facilitated by a paid Coordinator. This has enabled us to offer a much wider range of sessions and activities. As well as English classes, we run various life in the UK sessions, hobby and skills workshops, alongside CV writing workshops, HE and FE sessions- following which multiple people have had university offers, including some now studying for their phd.
We have a number of art and creative activities each week, thanks to funding we received to employ a coordinator to focus on this, and to be involved in events such as Chiavari, Folkestone Doc Fest and to hold art exhibitions of our own. We were able to add to our staff team and employ a worker for 10 hours a week to focus on providing and coordinating sport activities, enabling us to offer activities most days on and off site. The Napier football team continues to play in a local 5-a-side team, supported by us and by Care 4 Calais.
Our cooking project became a core part of the week for residents, and we were able to generate a significant amount of income to support the charity from our cookbook and Community Meals.
We have set up a laptop and ipad library /loan system assisting multiple residents daily to borrow technology to assist with applications; courses and lone learning. We were also able to distribute 30 refurbished mobile phones thanks to our partnership with The National Databank.
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Our Community Engagement Project remains a highlight for many of the people who use our services. We were pleased to be able to continue offering opportunities for up to 150 people each week with local charities and churches.
We organised a second Right to Remain workshop with the Right to Remain team, which was well attended by residents (30-40) and engaged individuals from the local community. This had a secondary focus of seeing how we can engage more with the local community and build further sense of community. We have developed moving on guidance and a moving on whatsapp community to help people help themselves and each other.
Our support for LGBTQ+ folk living at Napier led to a number of activities over the summer in addition to our weekly off-site meetups. Residents attended London Pride as volunteers, we funded (with help from the event) 14 guys to go to Queer Migrant Pride, and 15+ residents joined Folkestone Pride, and also attended a joyful banner and t-shirt making day before the event. stone Pride- a well-attended and fun day with 15+ residents joining the parade and festivities
We received feedback from 150 people over the last year - over 10% of the people who used our services. Our feedback is overwhelmingly positive - every responder felt that they benefited from our service, and 94% of people were happy or very happy with what we provide. We are aware that a number of factors (people who respond are self selected, and the lack of other opportunities activities means that people are grateful for our service whatever we provide) mean that this is not a true reflection of our service, and also seek feedback by asking people how we could do things differently. We do this formally and through informal conversations and use this information to plan and adapt our services.We also collected feedback and developed services alongside our Residents forum. Our forum meetings are well attended, typically by 10-15% of the camp population, and planned the focus for our sessions onsite and our strategic priorities.
Our year in numbers - between 1 April 2024 and 31 March 2025:
- 1385 people supported by our services
- 625 English lessons and Conversation Groups delivered
- 412 other sessions delivered onsite at Napier- including chess clubs, art sessions, information and signposting, gardening, lifeskills, reading groups and events to celebrate special occasions
- 564 people supported to volunteer in the local community
- Over 2500 haircuts provided
- Over 1000 items of clothing altered or repaired
- We helped over 100 people sign up with a legal aid lawyer
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## **Our impact on individuals**
A is a gay man who had been living in the UK for many years, having fled his country due to severe consequences of being gay in his home country. His time in the Barracks hit him hard as he had been used to UK life and customs, and struggled with the very restrictive surroundings. He had always had mental health difficulties, and these flared up badly here. As a gay man he found abuse in both directions at camp - homophobia, as well as harassment from other gay men when they found out he was also gay.
We provided him with a lot of emotional support, a place to safely discuss his worries and introduced him to and facilitated access to events and activities he would be interested in off-site. He did not have a lawyer, or good IT skills, so we supported him with submitting his copious amount of evidence to the Home Office. We continued supporting him in his new home when he moved on from Napier as he struggled to find any local support. He has since got his right to remain and we have supported him to access temporary accommodation through Refugees at Home and he is applying for work as a carer.
J is a young man who came to our sessions every day to use the computers, but did not join our classes or want to talk with us or other residents. We engaged him gently, building trust and he opened up about feeling isolated and finding life at the camp very difficult. We organised for him to join regular volunteering sessions with a small group of others and his confidence grew and he began to form friendships with those other residents. J rarely left the camp and was also worried about where he would live once he transferred. We encouraged him to join our cooking sessions, collecting him from the camp each session and then slowly supporting him to shop with others for ingredients and then make his own way to the sessions. Others noted to us how his confidence grew. Once he transferred we kept in close contact at first, referred him to a local refugee support organisation and encouraged him to find other opportunities in his new area. He fed back about the impact that our support made, as he cooks for himself and is very active in his local community while waiting for his asylum decision.
M enthusiastically attended many of our activities from when he arrived at the camp, and signed up to attend drama workshops that we facilitate people to attend with Projekt Enkounter even though he had not participated in creative arts before. He loved every moment, and from the first session it was clear that M had a natural talent for performing arts. M also attended an information day about higher education in the UK at the University of Kent, and then approached us asking for help to apply to study for a BA in Performing Arts. We asked him to come to our weekly sessions for people applying for higher education, and our staff, volunteers and other residents supported M to write and submit an application and also apply for a Sanctuary Scholarship. M was offered a place to start on the course a couple of months later, in September 2024 and is enjoying every minute of the course.
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## **Public benefit statement**
The Trustees of Napier Friends have paid due regard to the Charity Commission guidance on public benefit in deciding what activities the charity should undertake. Trustees review the activities Napier Friends engages in regularly to ensure our work continues to be in the public benefit.
## **Structure, Governance and Management**
Napier Friends is governed by a constitution and a board of trustees. The trustees meet on a 3- monthly basis or more frequently when the board deems this necessary. Trustees have the power to co-opt new board members and this is the mechanism through which new trustees join the board.
## **Financial review**
## **Reserves policy**
The trustees have reviewed the reserves of the charity. We still have a low level of reserves, but feel this is acceptable as we are a relatively new organisation with low overhead costs. We still aim to grow our reserves to hold enough funds to meet four months’ essential operating costs, but have not allocated any funds to our reserves this year as our unrestricted funds are low. We continue to hold £1936 in our reserves fund.
## **Principal funding sources**
The charity’s main source of income is from grants. Our work this year was funded through 10 grants from 10 organisations, a further 3 grants that were received in the previous financial year, some large unrestricted donations from the closure of another charity and from individuals, and income generation from our Community Meals, Recipe Book and other activities. All our grants are detailed in the section below. We funded our Onsite Coordinator mainly through unrestricted donations this financial year, as we had applied to the Kent Community Foundation Annual Route for these costs but were awarded a grant just after the financial year had ended. We also spent our unrestricted funds responding to emerging needs, covering staff and core costs or on the activity that was fundraised for, including bringing people back to Folkestone to celebrate Pride, and for Christmas gifts and activities.
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## **Charitable grant-funded activities**
Activities receiving grant funding in previous year
Coyler Fergusson Charitable Trust - £15,000 (£8938 remaining 1 April 24) - This grant funded support for people aged under 25 living at Napier.
DeHann Charitable Trust - £5000 (£1613 remaining 1 April 24)- For our cooking project.
Allen Lane Foundation - £5000 (£3710 remaining 1 April 24)- To enable us to provide more support to vulnerable and excluded people living at Napier.
Local Members Grant £300 - funding towards installing a polytunnel in our onsite garden - purchased in April 24.
Social Enterprise Kent - £9953 - Health project to commence April 24
Kent Community Foundation -£3991 - Employability Project to commence April 24
## **Grants received in 24/25**
Spacehive £11198 - Funding for our Community Engagement Project, supporting people to volunteer and join activities in the local community and funding towards our project worker
Cole Charitable Trust £1500 - towards expenses and equipment for the Community Engagement Project, to enable people to volunteer in the local community.
KCC Active Kent and Medway £496 - for sports activities
Philip and Connie Philips Trust - £7000 - Towards the cost of running the coking project, funding room hire, food costs and our Cooking Project Worker
Migrant Help- £8159 - Funding our Arts Coordinator to run sessions at Napier and in the community 2 days a week, arts supplies and resources.
New Narratives £800 - Funding for us to set up pop up IT and language cafes in the local area to enable people seeking asylum and other local people to meet and gain common understanding.
Hilden Charitable Trust - £6000 - Year 1 of a 2 year grant towards our core and activity costs.
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DeHann Charitable Trust - £3000 - Funding towards our Community Engagement Project, supporting people to volunteer and join activities in the local community and funding towards our project worker
Henry Smith Foundation - £5000 - Funding for our Cooking Project
Social Enterprise Kent - £4981. Winter Well Fund, enabling us to offer additional activities and session times during winter.
## **Investment policy and objectives**
The charity has no long-term investments, and no plans to pursue this. Our cash reserves are held in a deposit account.
## **Plans for the future**
We envisage that Napier will close within the next year, and in preparation we have been talking with our staff, volunteers, service users and other stakeholders about what should happen to the charity after this time. At the moment the overwhelming consensus is that we should continue to offer some support to people who have moved on from Napier, and potentially offer the type of services we currently provide to people seeking asylum living in hotels in East Kent and to refugees and people seeking asylum living in the community. Our flexibility is one of our organisational strengths, and so we envisage that we will also enact other plans to respond to changing needs and opportunities. We will reduce the size of our staff team over spring and summer 2025 as contracts come to an end, and start fundraising for our new services once these are decided.
## **Statement of Trustees’ responsibilities**
The charity trustees are responsible for preparing an annual report and financial statements in accordance with applicable law and United Kingdom Accounting Standards (United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice).
The law applicable to charities in England and Wales requires the charity trustees to prepare financial statements for each year which give a true and fair view of the state of affairs of the charity and of the incoming resources and application of resources of the charity for that period. In preparing the financial statements, the trustees are required to:
- select suitable accounting policies and then apply them consistently;
- observe the methods and principles in the Charities SORP;
- make judgements and estimates that are reasonable and prudent;
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- state whether applicable accounting standards have been followed, subject to any material departures
- disclosed and explained in the financial statements;
- prepare the financial statements on the going concern basis unless it is inappropriate to presume that the charity will continue in business.
The trustees are responsible for keeping proper accounting records that disclose with reasonable accuracy at any time the financial position of the charity and to enable them to ensure that the financial statements comply with the Charities Act 1993, the Charity (Accounts and Reports) Regulations 2008 and the provisions of the trust deed. They are also responsible for safeguarding the assets of the charity and hence taking reasonable steps for the prevention and detection of fraud and other irregularities.
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## **Napier Friends Receipts and Payments Accounts For the year 01/04/2024 to 31/03/2025**
**----- Start of picture text -----**
Note 2025 2024
Income From Unrestricted Designated Restricted Unrestricted Designated Restricted Total
funds Funds funds Total funds funds Funds funds funds
Donations, grants 3 27,648 - 48,134 75,782 4019 - 57,888 61,907
and legacies
Fundraising events 4556 - - 4556 3702 - - 3702
Trading activities - - - - - - - -
Total Income 32,204 - 48,134 80,338 7721 - 57,888 65,609
Expenditure on
Cost of raising - - - - - - - -
funds
Charitable activities 4
a 29,885 70,392 100,276 5509 - 44,763 50,272
Governance costs 4 142 - - 142 889 889
b
Total expenditure 30,027 - 70,392 100,418 5509 - 45,652 51,161
Net Income/ 2177 - (22,258) (20,080) 2212 - 12,236 14,448
Expenditure for
the year
Transfer between - - - - (1106) 1106 - -
funds
Net movement in - - - - (1106) 1106 - -
funds for the year
Reconciliation of
funds
Total funds brought 1939 1936 28,505 32,380 833 830 16,269 17,931
forward
Total funds carried 4116 1936 6247 12,302 1939 1937 28,505 32,380
forward
**----- End of picture text -----**
Movements on all reserves and all recognised gains and losses are shown above. All the organisations operations are classed as continuing.
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## **Statement of Financial Position As of 31 March 2024**
|||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|||**Note**|**2025**|**2024**||
||**Fixed Assets**|||||
||Tangible Assets|_2_|**-**|**-**||
||Investments||**-**|**-**||
|||||||
||**Current Assets**|||||
||Debtors||**-**|**-**||
||Cash at bank and in hand||12,302|31,548||
|||||||
||**Current Liabilities**|||||
||Creditors: amounts falling
due within 1 year||**-**|**-**||
|||||||
||**Net current Assets**||**12,302**|**31,548**||
||**Total Assets less Current**
**Liabilities**|||||
||Creditors: Amounts falling
due - - in more than one year||**-**|**-**||
||**Net Assets of the charity**||**12,302**|**31,548**||
|||||||
||**Represented by:**|||||
||Restricted income funds||6247|27,674||
||Unrestricted income funds||4116|1939||
||Designated Reserves||1936|1937||
||**Total Charity funds**||**12,302**|**31,550**||
|||||||
|||||||
|||||||
|||||||
|||||||
|||||||
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## **Notes to the Accounts**
For The Year Ended 31 March 2025
## **1. Accounting Policies**
a) The accounts have been prepared using the Historical Cost Convention and in accordance with Financial Reporting Standard FRS102, as well as in accordance with the Charities SORP. b) The charity has taken advantage of the exemption in Financial Reporting Standard FRS102 (Section 1a) from producing a Cash Flow Statement.
c) The society is not required to have its accounts audited as the society is subject to the statutory exemptions and regulations currently in place. On this basis the charity has chosen not to have a formal audit. d) Debtors and Creditors with no stated interest and receivable or payable within one year are recorded at transaction price. Any losses arising from impairment are recognised in the statement of financial activities in other administrative expenses.
## **2. Fixed Assets**
Napier Friends owns no fixed assets
## **3. Income from Charitable Activities**
||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|||**2025**||||**2024**|||
||||Total funds||||||
||**Unrestricted**|**Restricted**|||**Unrestricted**|**Restricted**|||
||**funds**|**funds**|||**funds**|**funds**|Total funds||
|Grant funding|-|48,135|48,135||-|57,888|57,888||
||||32,204||||||
|Donations|32,204|-|||7721|-|7721||
|Legacies|-|-|-||-|-|-||
|**_Total_**|**32,204**|**48,135**|**80,339**||**7721**|**57,888**|**65,609**||
||||||||||
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## **4a Charitable Activities**
**----- Start of picture text -----**
2025 2024
Unrestricted Restricted Unrestricted Restricted
funds funds Total funds funds funds Total funds
£ £ £ £ £ £
Salaries and
Contractors 18,477 56,295 74,772 1500 28,073 29,573
Volunteer costs 538 538 1291 1291
Core costs – Virtual
Office, Insurance, web
hosting 1000 2930 3930 2689 2689
Community
Engagement Project 1000 2416 3416 1197 4449 5646
Onsite Session
Expenses 6577 3181 9758 1442 4057 5499
Cooking Project 1000 5032 6032 4204 4204
Christmas Appeal 1831 - 1830 1370 1370
Total 29,885 70,392 100,276 5509 44,763 50,272
**----- End of picture text -----**
## **4b Governance Costs**
|||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|||**2025**|||**2024**|||
|||||||||
|||||||||
||**Unrestricted funds**|**Restricted funds**|Total funds|**Unrestricted funds**|**Restricted funds**|Total funds||
||£|£|£|£|£|£||
|Trustee Training|-|-|**-**|-|126|126||
|Trustee expenses|59|-|59|-|663|663||
|Independent Examination of Accounts|83|-|83|-|100|100||
|**Total**|**142**|**-**|**142**|**-**|**889**|**889**||
|||||||||
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## **5 Restricted Funds**
**----- Start of picture text -----**
Balance 1 Income Expenditure Transfers Balance 31
April 2024 March 25
£ £ £ £ £
De Hann Charitable 1613 0 1613 0 0
Trust
Coyler Fergusson 8938 0 8938 0 0
Charitable Trust
Allen Lane Foundation 3710 0 3750 0 0
Folkestone and Hythe 300 0 300 0 0
District Council
Social Enterprise Kent 9953 0 9953 0 0
Kent Community 3991 0 3991 0 0
Foundation
Spacehive 11,199 11,199 0 0
Cole Charitable Trust 1500 1500 0 0
KCC Active Kent and 496 496 0 0
Medway
Philip and Connie 7000 7000 0 0
Philips Foundation
Migrant Helpline 8159 8159 0 0
Hilden Charitable Fund 6000 3370 0 3461
Social Enterprise Kent 4981 4981 0 0
Henry Smith Charity 5000 1214 0 2786
Total 6247
**----- End of picture text -----**
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## **6 Analysis of Staff Costs**
Staff costs during the year were made up as follows:
|||||2025|||2024||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|||||£|||£||
|||Gross Wages and contractor costs||73,139|||28,611||
|||Employer's NI Costs||0|||810||
|||Pension Contributions||1633|||152||
|||Total||74,772|||29,573||
||||||||||
No employee has employee benefits in excess of £60,000 (2024: 0) The average number of staff employed during this period was 5 (2024: 1) The average number of contractors was 2 (2024:2) The average number of worker hours was 18 per week (2024:11.5)
**7 Creditors There were no creditors at the end of the accounting period**
## **8 Transactions with related parties**
There were no transactions with related parties.
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## **Independent examiner's report on the accounts**
## **Section A Independent Examiner’s Report**
**----- Start of picture text -----**
Report to the trustees/
members of Napier Friends
On accounts for the year 31 March 2025 Charity no 1197988
ended (if any)
Set out on pages 14-19
**----- End of picture text -----**
||I report to the trustees on my examination of the accounts of the above charity|
|---|---|
||(“the Trust”) for the year ended 31/03/2025.|
|**Responsibilities and basis**|
As the charity trustees of the Trust, you are responsible for the preparation of the|
|**of report**|
accounts in accordance with the requirements of the Charities Act 2011 (“the Act”).|
||I report in respect of my examination of the Trust’s accounts carried out under|
||section 145 of the 2011 Act and in carrying out my examination, I have followed the|
||applicable Directions given by the Charity Commission under section 145(5)(b) of|
||the Act.|
||I have completed my examination. I confirm that no material matters have come to|
|**Independent examiner's**
**statement**|my attention in connection with the examination which gives me cause to believe
that in, any material respect:|
||
accounting records were not kept in accordance with section 130 of the Act|
||or|
||
the accounts do not accord with the accounting records|
||I have no concerns and have come across no other matters in connection with the|
||examination to which attention should be drawn in order to enable a proper|
||understanding of the accounts to be reached.|
|**Signed:**|_A Mubashir_
**Date:**|22/06/2026|
|---|---|---|
||||
|**Name:**|Akram Mubashir||
||||
|**Relevant professional**|BA(Hons) Accounting and Finance||
|**qualification(s) or body (if**|||
|**any):**|||
||||
|**Address:**|8 Hine House, Cairns Close, St Albans, AL1 0EY||
||||
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