SHADES of HOPE ANNUAL REPORT
for the year to 31st December 2023
Registered with the Northern Ireland Charities Commission No. NIC 103169
Took place on 12 June 2023
SHADES OF HOPE ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
Trustees present:
Zara Ssenyonga (Chair) (ZS), Samuel Ssenyonga (SS), Paul Topping (PT), Kimberley Topping (KT), Shirley Lougheed (SL) and Colin Lougheed (SL)
Apologies: None
Highlights as follows:
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Meetings would resume in Q1 each year to cover previous year and plans for current year.
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Silverbirch Evangelical Church and a couple of small local businesses continue to
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support the charity with regular and donations.
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70 children are now sponsored i.e. all school fees, school equipment, uniform and PE
kit, school lunches covered and Medicals when required.
- An extra 10 children being put through school which is a big step for us as a small
charity.
- Our boys in Tabiro Primary school from the street reach program were involved in Football and athletics at the District Level and one of the boys, Farouk, resettled with his father and offered a football scholarship in Kampala.
6.We are currently excited as we are preparing to fundraise for a Team of 6 from Northern Ireland to travel to Uganda in June 2024 to see ongoing projects, meet some of the children being sponsored, and to interact with some of our children in local villages. This will promote a greater awareness of our projects and their feedback upon their return will encourage further support and encourage others to travel in the future
Report on Activities Fundraising events.
Shades of Hope is a small local charity, and we rely on fundraising events to help finance the work we do. We managed to run our annual Quiz Night in January and aim to resume our annual fundraiser activities in the new year for both the Team going to Uganda and General projects.
Silverbirch Evangelical Church (SEC) Support.
SEC has continued to support Shades of Hope through 2023 on a monthly basis. The church has continued to generously and regularly give. This regular giving has enabled us to undertake a number of activities and continue with some of the projects that are impacting the people in Uganda.
Silverbirch has increased its giving which has enabled us to channel those funds to meeting the needs of our boys at the halfway house in Kampala and also has enabled us to keep the 11 boys in boarding school in Tabiro where they are well cared for during school time.
Uganda Team
One of the UK Trustees, Samuel Ssenyonga, continues to be in regular contact and visits with the team in Uganda i.e. the Project Co-ordinator and volunteers, and as usual, no policy decision is taken without recourse to the Trustees. Samuel visits Uganda at least once each year.
He bears all expenses for those visit personally.
The team in Uganda is small and their work is diverse. We have designated volunteers responsible for receipts and finance, a qualified Social Worker to address social, emotional and spiritual needs of the sponsored children and associated families, and one responsible for distributing school supplies and materials to the children. There are other volunteers who help part-time with the charity, but all volunteers are vetted, trained and have signed up to our policies that includes the child protection policy as laid down by the CCPAS.
To ensure the wellbeing of the children that are supported through our sponsorship programmes and due to the unreliability of internet access, communication network and roads infrastructure in Uganda, our team/volunteers must travel to where the children are located. This is necessary to assess their progress, any needs as well as travelling to oversee charity activities. The charity reimburses volunteers for expenses in carrying out their role. Receipts and expenses are shared with the UK volunteers and Trustees via a secure online portal (Dropbox) and Email.
The reimbursement and expenses incurred by the Uganda team carrying out their roles in relation to the charity is acceptable to the Trustees as they recognise the importance of acquiring firsthand reports of progress for reporting back to the UK volunteers and Trustees. This is, of course carefully monitored by the co-ordinator and trustees on the UK side.
Updates on existing Projects
1. Child sponsorship
A total of now 70 children sponsored.
46 in day school – for primary school children this includes stationery materials, school fees, school uniform and a school lunches and dinners.
- Street/Slum Outreach project , we continued to run our street each project regularly and run football events in the slums to engage the young boys that are leaving on the street of Kampala, and we aim to have a few more boys moved into the Halfway House to support them back into society.
55 children now fully sponsored (all school fees, school equipment, uniform and PE kit, school lunches covered)
10 partially sponsored (school fees only)
16 in boarding schools – for the children in primary school boarding includes 3 meals a day, school fees and stationery and all toiletries required.
6 in college/University/Vocational school – for these all-tuition expenses, materials including books at college and accommodation covered.
12 boys and from the street program are in process of rehabilitation at the Halfway House with their families.
All children in day-school are provided with scholastic materials, books, school uniform and sportswear and a lunch meal every day.
During the year all sponsors were provided with updated photographs, hand-written letters, and a Christmas card. Shades of Hope supplement this with a brief progress report on each child.
With things back to normal after COVID we have resumed our Street Reach and interaction with the street boys, and it is good to be back to interact with these boys and reaching them with the Gospel and some day today counselling about day today challenges.
11 of the boys that joined us during the pandemic are now all in school boarding in one of our partner schools, with a caretaker who is there to meet their needs on a day today basis and this is fully funded by Shades of Hope, and it makes us proud
that they are progressing well in school and other after school programs they are involved in.
- Our life skills program is progressing well and Has been introduced in one of our partner schools where some of our boys go to school in the boarding section, in this we are able to give the boys a chance to do what they like, For example Some of the boys have an interest in farming
and we were able to get them to intern with one of the volunteers in our programme growing food and crops that they have since harvested. We hope to continue with this skill development programme in addition to interacting with the boys through football and other games.
Our major objectives for this programme are:
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a. To rehabilitate street children
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b. To provide a safe environment
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c. To teach and develop life skills.
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d. To show them in a practical way that God cares amidst the chaos of life around them,
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e. And finding a safe Home to resettle them in.
We have been able to continue renting a property/Halfway House in Just outside Kampala as the rent has gone higher than we would like but either way for some of the boys to stay in as they are waiting on the process of being resettled. We continue to work with the council in Kampala in relation to our work with these boys by caring for them and resettling them. The boys go to primary school or a secondary school and some to technical schools now, as they await resettlement back with their families and are provided with school supplies and food. This is all overseen by our Social Worker and reports are provided to the necessary offices in Uganda.
4. Gift for Life/Entrepreneurship
We believe in helping families becoming self- sufficient and this is a valuable and efficient use of resources and helps encourage sustainability.
5. Youth camps and work shops
In previous years we have been running young people’s camps and workshops so we can continue to inspire the young people both socially and spiritually. In August 2023 it was no different as we supported a camp in a village of Tabiro with over 350+ young people attending.
Samuel Ssenyonga
Trustee