2025-03-31-accounts

Trustees' Annual Report for "Friends of Ngezi” (FoN)

Submitted to charities Commission 11 November 2025

For the fnancial year ended 31 March 2025 from founding of FoN 22/11/2023

1. Reference and Administrative Details

• Charity name: Friends of Ngezi

• Other name(s) the charity uses: FoN

• Charity registration number: 1205840

• Principal ofice address: Middle Ellick Farm, Blagdon, BS40 7TY

• Names of the charity trustees who managed the charity during the period:

• Prof Timothy Caro (Chair)

• Prof Monique Borgerhoff Mulder

• Ms Miza Khamis

• Dr Ilaria Pretelli

• Mr Robert George Wild

• Ms Helen Peeks (to be replaced by Ms Helen Paul January 2026)

• Names of any trustees for the charity holding title to property: N/A

• Names and addresses of advisers (optional):

• Independent Examiner: None

• Bank address: CAF Bank, 25 Kings Hill Avenue, Kings Hill, West Malling, Kent, ME19 4JQ.

• Other: Charity Expert limited UK Registered Company Number: 8292313

2. Structure, Governance and Management

• Type of governing document: Charitable Incorporated Organization whose only voting members are its charity trustees

• How the charity is constituted: CIO under HMRC

• Trustee selection methods: Trustees are appointed by a vote of the existing board of trustees and serve a three-year term. New trustees are recruited based on the skills and experience required to effectively manage the charity.

• Additional governance issues (optional): The trustees have considered the major risks to the charity and have implemented procedures to manage them, including insurance and financial controls, as well as a constitution addendum to deal with anti-terrorist financing and diversion risk.

3. Objectives and Activities

• Summary of the objects of the charity as set out in its governing document:

For the public benefit to promote the conservation protection and improvement of the physical and natural environment of the Ngezi Forest on the island of Pemba (Zanzibar, Tanzania) and all of its associated biodiversity.

• Summary of the main activities undertaken for the public beneft in relation to these objects:

• working with the communities who depend on the forests of Pemba

• conducting various activities aimed at repairing and conserving the Ngezi Forest such as running beach clean ups, managing tree nurseries and overseeing nature trails

• O supporting the establishment and activities of a cultural and biodiversity heritage centre on the island to educate and showcase the various conversation and protection projects being undertaken.

• The trustees confirm they have had due regard to the Charity Commission's guidance on public beneft when carrying out the charity's activities.

• Policy on grantmaking (optional): N/A

• Contribution made by volunteers (optional): The charity is run entirely by a dedicated team of 6 volunteers who contribute to oversight, fundraising, and administration.

4. Achievements and Performance

• Review of the charity's main achievements for the year:

Limited funding in this first year of FoN’s operation (up to March 2025) contributed to the NVHO budget to support activities primarily funded by the Max Plank institute of Evolutionary Anthropology

• Endemic tree enrichment planting programme for educational and restoration purposes (700 seedlings at NVHO site), to be extended with new Oikos project

• Introduction of 145 energy efficient cookers

• Celebration of International day of Biological Diversity, combined with community management meetings

• Over 250 secondary school students involved in NetLogo training programme for environmental awareness and forest management strategies

• Beach clean programme – total waste collected 279kg

• Incorporation of all Micheweni District schools into Eco School programme (to be continued with Oikos)

• Salt water intrusion management programme, planting >850 mangrove seedlings

• Educational video events for 293 local children from Makangale.

• 4 NVHO staff members attended forest protection seminars in Unguja at Jozani Forest

• Participation NVHO staff in Society for Conservation Biology – Tanzania chapter

• Activities to support the Forest department – signboards, nature trails, building maintenance and assisting with security issues.

5. Financial Review

• Brief statement of the charity's policy on reserves: There are no explicit policies on reserves. As we grow we will institute these.

• Details of any funds materially in defcit: There are no funds in material deficit.

• Principal sources of funds (including any fundraising): Owe plan to mount a more extensive fund raising operation, focusing initially on friends, colleagues and research collaborators, and subsequently expanding into the tourism sector. For FY 2024-2025 we only sought one donation, simply to start the charity activities, and establish a bank account with CAF, and from that we made 2 payments to NVHO towards implementing NVHO activities that were cut from the MPI support of the years 2024 and 2025.

date	transacton	into CAF-217 (₤)	out of CAF-217 (₤)	balance
23-Nov-23	FoN set upas CIO
19-Jun-24	CAF account set up	0
24-Jun-24	Dr TM Caro donated 3000 from Santander	3,000		3,000
4-Nov-24	We sent out 7,130,000 Tz Sh via Citbank as intermediary		1,450	1,450
	bank fees & charges			66.65
31-Mar-25	balance			1,483.35

 Explanation of how expenditure has supported the key objectives of the charity: The vast majority of our spending this year went directly to the Ngezi Vumawimbi Heritage Organization towards the implementation of FoN’s objectives. The only other expense was international bank transfers through WISE.

6. Details of any funds held as a custodian trustee

• N/A

Trustees' Declaration

The trustees declare that they have approved the trustees' report above for the year ended 31 March 2025

Signed on behalf of the board of trustees:

Chair

Date: 26 November 2025