2022-07-31-annual-report

Cambodia Youth for Change (CYC) Hope through Learning

- Annual report: August 2021 July 2022

DETAILS

Registered address: Cambodia Youth For Change 34 Knockadoo Road Cookstown BT80 9XQ

Trustees for reporting period August 2021 - July 2022:

Sota Sem McCann - Director - Chairperson Stephanie McCoubrey - Director - Treasurer Judith Hutchinson - Director - Company Secretary Jessica Hutchinson - Director James Gilmore - Director

Appointment of Charity Trustees is by a minimum of two Directors, however all Directors and wider committee members are consulted to raise any reservations or disputes.

As Trustees, we confirm that we have complied with the duty to have regard to the guidance issued under section 4(b) of the Charities Act when exercising any powers or duties to which the guidance is relevant. We have regard to Charity Commission NI public benefit requirement statutory guidance.

Stephanie McCoubrey As Director and Trustee of Cambodia Youth For Change 03 April 2023

Cambodia Youth For Change Background & Purpose

Cambodia Youth for Change learning centre, a registered school per the Cambodian Ministry of Education, was opened officially in July 2012. The centre is located in Svaykrovann Village Kampong Speu Province, Cambodia.

Cambodia Youth For Change has been established to promote learning and leadership in Cambodia.

The direct benefits which flow from this purpose include:

• Access to educational resources including library facilities,

• Computers and educational classes for students in Kampong Speu, Cambodia,

• Opportunities for leadership scholarships for both high school and university level students in Kampong Speu, Cambodia,

• Access to child friendly spaces for children to play and have fun in a safe environment.

Cambodia Youth For Change raises funds, primarily in Northern Ireland, through a Giving Circle, fundraising events and volunteer fundraising to be able to provide these direct benefits to the children of Kampong Speu province.

These benefits are demonstrated through the provision of a school in Kampong Speu, Cambodia, providing educational resources and a safe environment, through the provision of leadership scholarships to high school and university level students from underprivileged backgrounds to support them to remain in education, the provision of educational classes and leadership training opportunities.

The purposes of Cambodia Youth For Change are beneficial to children, young people and the wider Kampong Speu community. The purposes are not harmful to anyone. The beneficiaries are children and young people from Kampong Speu, Cambodia. There is no private benefit flowing from these purposes.

The Covid 19 pandemic continued to impact the school with complete closure up to 31st October 2022 and once reopened adherence to Ministry of Education guidelines resulted in only small class sizes being permitted. And whilst public schools also reopened during the financial year, their schedule was heavily disrupted and sporadic in nature, with classes being organised at short notice and many online classes continuing.

The impact of the pandemic has continued to have a negative affect on the number of children attending the school from pre-pandemic levels of c140 children per day to an average of 40-45 per day. With the unpredictable public school timetable, CYC has tried to be as flexible as possible and provide classes later in the evening or at weekends.

For the last few years our high school scholarship programme has consisted of one or two scholars. In light of the positive impact the programme has, in April 2022 the CYC committee agreed to invest more heavily in the high school scholarship programme and selected an additional 9 students to join the programme, bringing the total to 10. We developed out the scholarship framework to set out the skills and opportunities the scholars need to get exposure to or be allowed to demonstrate, and it was agreed that additional support would be provided to give them access to English conversation classes and IT training.

During FYE22, the committee agreed it was time for a refresh of the CYC logo and a skilled graphic designer based in Northern Ireland kindly designed a new logo at no charge; taking the theme of growth - from seed to flowering - mirroring the children’s growth journey at CYC. The flower chosen is a native and national flower of Cambodia, called the Romduol. With a fresh new logo we were able to create a new banner identifying the school, contact points & welcoming all.

Cth(SOD JU'IWFQI FTrYf ni:41'lJfjiLm l- tllhoth,i 3'oiiihTir Lhary21 New CYC banner outside the school gate. JLHfa? LIQL%P5¥£" •e•iinc

Our Local Team

Director

Huoy Sun (commonly known as Muoch pronounced ‘Moyt’) has been a Teacher at CYC for several years, having been a student of the school and one of our University scholars. On graduating in English, Muoch had been teaching on a part-time basis at CYC. In December 2020, Muoch was successful through a selection process for the role of Director of CYC. Muoch’s enthusiasm and desire to assist children to learn is admirable, she is very committed to CYC, and during lockdown was always trying to make herself available to the kids online regardless of the time of day. She continues to make herself available at the weekends for calls with the CYC chairperson & treasurer, and to facilitate English conversation classes.

Project Assistant

Also a part-time teacher at CYC previously, Huoy became a full time member of the team and takes classes with the younger students attending the school.

1. The School - Activities & Support

Due to the covid 19 pandemic and in keeping with the Ministry of Education (MOE) instructions, the school continued to be closed for the first 3 months of the financial year. The subsequent months saw adherence to strict guidelines on class number limitations, social distancing, mask wearing & hand sanitisation. The MOE also set a lot of specific reporting requirements at this time, which Muoch was responsible for completing, along with attending meetings with the MOE and cooperating with when they did spot checks on the school.

MOE visit to the school.

Cambridge English Syllabus

As already mentioned, improving our English class offering, and the qualifications available to one which is internationally recognised, is another area of focus for CYC and during FY 2021 we were successful in becoming a Preparation Centre for Cambridge English exams.

The syllabus now being taught at CYC is aligned with the Cambridge English proficiency requirements, and once the public school timetable has settled we aim to put our scholarship students through their first exam at basic English level. They have committed, as part of the scholarship programme to endeavour to progress through the Cambridge English levels.

Scholarships

As mentioned above, in April 2022 it was agreed that it was time to reinvest in the high school scholarship programme at CYC, and this to be one of our key areas of focus. In April 2022, we brought on another 9 students into the scholarship programme.

Our previous high school scholar, Chanet, was successful in obtaining her exams and was in great demand on graduating, receiving a number of job offers. She has since taken up a teaching post in a private school.

We have many great success stories from those who have been part of our scholarship programme and so we want to continue to do our best to invest in these children and support them to achieve their dreams.

Other Activities @ CYC

Youth Bank

A donor and previous volunteer at CYC school committed to donate £500 if CYC Trustees would be able to match the donation which would facilitate a scheme similar to Youth Bank, which is a grant scheme provided to young people to enable them to carry out an initiative/project which satisfies a need and benefits the wider community.

The children will form a group or groups and put together a proposal and plan as to how much money they require, what the money will be spent on, the desired outcome and how they aim to achieve this. This provides an opportunity for the development of so many different skill sets and an overall journey that the children will go on together.

The CYC Trustees donated extra monies to have an overall Youth Bank pot of £1,050. This idea and the monies for same were sent to Cambodia in February 2020, so whilst we have discussed this with the older children attending the school, due to restrictions as a result of the Coronavirus pandemic making it very difficult for the children to meet and discuss ideas, plan etc., we delayed a firm launch of this initiative.

This scheme has been discussed more recently with the new scholars and some ideas are being deliberated. The Youth Bank project is part of the scholarship programme as there are so many opportunities to develop leadership, management and team work skills, through this project.

International Exchange

In previous years, our Director and previous Project Officer had the opportunity to travel to the UK for a period of 6 months. This provides an invaluable opportunity to greatly improve English fluency as well as offering cultural and development experiences. With the pandemic, travel has not been possible but we have discussed exploring this opportunity for Huoy, our Project Assistant, to take part in this in the future to improve her English, and also promote the work of CYC whilst in Northern Ireland.

2. Finance

Cambodia Youth For Change is funded from individual donations, primarily from donors resident in Northern Ireland. We have a Giving circle where people donate a regular amount on a monthly basis and we also host some fundraising events during each financial year to help fund the costs of the school mainly the staffing costs and scholarship programme, along with ad hoc improvements - in the past such an example would be the construction of a toilet block so that the children did not have to disrupt a class by walking through one of the classrooms to the toilet in the main building. Another thing we would like to do would be to fund computer equipment to facilitate a robust training programme on MS packages.

Fundraising

During this year, as a result of the Covid pandemic we have continued to be unable and/or hesitant to host any in-person fundraising events. Some of the committee have carried out fundraising via Justgiving, carrying out some personal challenges to generate the support.

We also request that volunteers visiting CYC carry out some fundraising activities to demonstrate their commitment to the charity’s aims and this also promotes CYC via their fundraising efforts. We did have one volunteer visit the school in April 2022 and they very kindly carried out some fundraising before their visit.

Student Contributions

In May 2018, the Directors of CYC made the difficult decision of introducing a monthly student contribution to be made by those regularly attending the school and availing of resources. In recent years, Cambodia has seen the rise of the child care sector, enabling both parents to go to work. Child care is a substantial cost to those working parents. To help with the ongoing sustainability of CYC, the introduction of a small monthly contribution from those who could afford was agreed to be implemented.

The fee depends on the grade, but is a fraction of what the child care providers charge, always with the proviso that if a problem for any of the students they are to speak to the teachers. Whilst we wanted to fund the running of the school from donations in totality, given the numbers using the centre every day pre-pandemic and the resources costs as a result, a small donation is necessary to help with the centre sustainability.

In the previous financial year due to lockdown and the school being closed in the main, we made the decision to not follow up on any student contributions, yet a few children continued to pay. In this financial year, we saw the return to the students attending the centre and making their small contribution, hence the student contributions was significantly higher than the previous financial year.

Financial Records of Cambodia Youth For Change for the period 1st August 2021 to 31st July 2022

Income & Expenditure Account for the year ended 31st July 2022

£ Income Donations from Giving Circle & Fundraising 9,458 Bank interest 9 Gift aid claims 589 Student contributions (Note 1) 1,850 Total income Expenditure Utilities (Note 2) (83) Resources & expenses (Note 2) (464) Scholarships & salaries (Note 3) (5,260) Total expenditure Surplus of Income over expenditure Accumulated Fund Statement as at 31st July 2022 £ Current Assets Prepayments (Note 4) 4,183 Cash @ Bank (Note 5) 21,578 Total current assets Equities & Liabilities Accumulated fund @ 31st July 2021 19,662 Surplus from Income & Expenditure account 6,099 Total Equities & Liabilities Expenditure based on rate of exchange of $1.213 to £	£ 11,906 (5,807) £6,099 £ £25,761 (£25,761)	£ 11,906 (5,807)

CAMBODIA YOUTH FOR CHANGE Registered Number NI613651 Micro-entity Balance Sheet as at 31 July 2022

	Notes	2022	2021
		£	£
Fixed Assets		-	-
Current assets
Cash at bank and in hand		21,578	16,475
			16,475
Prepayments and accrued income		4,183	3,187
Net current assets (liabilities)			19,662
Total assets less current liabilities		25,761	19,662
Total net assets (liabilities)			19,662
Reserves
Income and expenditure account		25,761	19,662
Members' funds		25,761	19,662

• For the year ending 31 July 2022 the company was entitled to exemption under section 477 of the Companies Act 2006 relating to small companies.

• The members have not required the company to obtain an audit in accordance with section 476 of the Companies Act 2006.

• The directors acknowledge their responsibilities for complying with the requirements of the Companies Act 2006 with respect to accounting records and the preparation of accounts.

• The accounts have been prepared in accordance with the micro-entity provisions and delivered in accordance with the provisions applicable to companies subject to the small companies regime.

Signed: Date: Sota McCann Chairperson for FYE 22

4. International Volunteer Programme

Due to the Covid 19 pandemic and resultant travel restrictions, we were unfortunately unable to host any volunteers at CYC school for the last couple of years. In April 2022, we finally saw our first volunteer to visit the school since the pandemic. The children really value the opportunity to have a native English speaker deliver classes and love the general interaction, cultural differences and fun which a new teacher brings. Our volunteer’s visit attracted more students to attend the school and we made sure to get out round the villages to reach those that cannot travel to the school. Our volunteer generated support and interest in CYC in Northern Ireland and also carried

out some much appreciated fundraising before their trip.

This is an aspect which makes CYC quite unique and we want to strengthen this offering. The Covid 19 pandemic has demonstrated to the Trustees just how much can be facilitated via virtual calls and videos. We are currently exploring the additional support that can be provided virtually by the Trustees to the CYC teaching team and also how the children can also gain access to native speakers, however we are considering how this can safely be delivered and sustained.

Thank-you

All of the Directors of CYC would like to take this opportunity to thank our Director, Project Assistant and High School Scholars for their continued energy, enthusiasm and commitment to achieving CYC’s objectives.

Furthermore, we would like to thank all of our volunteers, fundraisers and supporters for their commitment of time and donation of funds to CYC. We continue to invest heavily in our scholarship programme and are more determined than ever to get back to our pre-pandemic levels of attendance and beyond, to try and reach more and more children and to help them achieve their dreams and aspirations.

3rd April 2023