2025-03-31-accounts

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CHARITY REFERENCE NUMBER: NIC103618

THE UNDERSTANDING CONFLICT TRUST TRUSTEES ANNUAL REPORT 2024 - 2025

& UNAUDITED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS 31 MARCH 2025

Independently Reviewed by Joseph Walsh FCA Belfast

THE UNDERSTANDING CONFLICT TRUST

Trustees Annual Report 2024 – 2025 3 - 5 Independent Examiners Report to The Trustees 6

Statement of Financial Activities

Notes to the Financial Statement

Trustees: Linda Johnston LLB Hilary Morrow FCA Francis Brady MBE Jim McMillan Dr Dong Jin Kim The Understanding Conflict Trust is registered with the Charity Commission for Northern Ireland. Registered No: NIC 103618. Inland Revenue Charity Number XO 1033 91 VF

THE UNDERSTANDING CONFLICT TRUST

THE UNDERSTANDING CONFLICT TRUST 2024 - 2025

TRUSTEES’ ANNUAL REPORT – YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2025

The Trustees present their annual report and the unaudited financial statements for the charity for the year ended 31 March 2025

Reference and Administrative Details

Registered Charity Name The Understanding Conflict Trust

Charity Number NIC 103618 Principal Office 3 Orchard Road, Downpatrick, Co. Down, BT30 8TA

The Trustees during the period of 2024 - 2025

Ms L Johnson LLB - Chair Mrs H Morrow FCA Hon Treasurer Mr F Brady MBE Dr Dong Jin Kim Mr Jim McMillan

During this period: The Hon. Secretary Dr Derick Wilson died (November 2024)

Independent Examiner: Mr J Walsh FCA 176 Upper Newtownards Road Belfast BT4 3E

Structure, Governance and Management

Governing Document

The Understanding Conflict Trust (established 1991) is a registered charity with the Charity Commission for Northern Ireland.

Appointment of Trustees

The Chair and the Trustees recruit and select new Trustees as needed. New Trustees are recruited on the relevance of their professional skills, and their potential to make a helpful contribution to the governance of the charity. As part of the recruitment process, they are made aware of the Trustee’s legal obligations under charitable law, the content of the Memorandum and Articles of Association, the committee and decision-making processes, the business plan and recent financial performance of the charity. Once the potential new Trustee has agreed to be considered for the appointment to the role, the Trustees meet to review, and to vote on, the candidate’s suitability for appointment. If there is unanimous agreement, their names are then proposed for appointment to the voting members of the Charity at the next Annual General Meeting.

THE UNDERSTANDING CONFLICT TRUST

TRUSTEES’ ANNUAL REPORT 2024 – 2025

APPROVED AT A MEETING OF THE TRUSTEES 22 October 2025

OBJECTIVES AND ACTIVITIES

The purposes of the charity are stated in our 1991 Trust Deed as:

“The advancement of Education, in particular, to promote the understanding of conflict in the community.”

The focus of the Trust’s work is associated with the development of reconciliation.

In shaping our objectives for the year and planning our activities, the Trustees have considered the Charity Commission’s guidance on public benefit.

The direct benefits, which flow from the purpose, include:

The development of:

a greater understanding of, and a new openness to, people from diverse, and sometimes previously conflicting identities.
increased personal skill and confidence in citizens dealing positively with conflict.
an increased capacity of community organisations to address community conflict constructively.
an increase in the number of reconciliation projects and organisations being formed.
reduced levels of fear in the community.

These benefits were evidenced through:

Feedback from individuals and existing groups.

We have had positive feedback from all groups we have worked with.

We have been asked to assist local (United Kingdom) and international (Korea, Japan, Lithuania, USA and Republic of Ireland) educators interested in our ‘Nurturing Hope’ materials and their use with Formal and Informal Educators.

We are establishing educational links with the Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation, South Africa.

From late 2023 we have made the resource available free of charge as Open-Source materials. This will be associated with the provision of a Community of Practice Learning Hub. This development is being funded by a Philanthropic Learning Partner for 2024 - 2025.

DERICK WILSON – Founder of Understanding Conflict Trust

It is hard to imagine the Understanding Conflict Trust (UCT) without the passionate commitment and unstoppable energy of our beloved friend and founder Derick Wilson. In many ways Derick is the reason for Understanding Conflict Trust. His commitment to finding a vehicle to support people building relationships based on real humanity, on crossing the gulfs which society put in front of us and on making real the faith he found in Corrymeela was the reason UCT came into existence. Derick had already stepped out on a limb both while Director of the Corrymeela Centre and as a Research Fellow in the Centre for the Study of Conflict. But in the 1990s he dedicated his life to taking that thinking back into the community. To make that happen, he needed people who shared

Trustees: Linda Johnston LLB Hilary Morrow FCA Francis Brady MBE Jim McMillan Dr Dong Jin Kim

The Understanding Conflict Trust is registered with the Charity Commission for Northern Ireland. Registered No: NIC 103618. Inland Revenue Charity Number XO 1033 91 VF

THE UNDERSTANDING CONFLICT TRUST

his vision and believed in what he was doing. Over thirty years ago, five fellow-members of Corrymeela came together and created that vehicle in UCT.

Over the years Derick was at the heart of so many projects – Understanding Conflict and Finding Ways out of it, Future Ways, Western Routes, Relationships of Equity, Diversity and Interdependence in Newry and Coleraine – and so many opportunities for face-to-face work and for writing. Nurturing Hope was the latest of his babies. Without Derick and his insistence that we develop a hub for creating resources, none of this would have happened. He was our inspiration and our encourager. Always generous, always passionate and never egotistical.

We will miss him enormously. And he left us in the middle of a new lease of life, through the Nurturing Hope and Seeds of Hope Programmes. And he is always with us. Thank you, Derick, for all you did. we will try to live up to your passion and vision.

Through the Nurturing Hope programme, 2024-2025 turned out also to be a very busy year for UCT. Through the generous support of the Rotary Club of San Antonio and Humanity United, we have been expanding our programmes.

The centrepiece of our year is the Nurturing Hope Learning Journey which brought 75 people to the Corrymeela Centre in Ballycastle to learn together for a week, this time without Derick Wilson for the first time. Made up of people from as far apart as Korea, Northern Ireland, the United States, Lithuania, Lebanon and Afghanistan, we learned about the value of each person, used the models we learned over the years on relationships, rivalry and scapegoating, and shared our own situations with one another. Our conviction that peace is a quality in our relationships was renewed, and we found both encouragement and practical ideas for the next steps.

The Learning Journey also included young people who came directly from our ‘Seeds of Hope’ youth programme. This programme is now becoming part of the Corrymeela programme and we hope to see it grow and flourish in coming years. Aside from the Learning Journey in the summer, we also hosted a weekend at Corrymeela for all those interested in understanding the models underlying our work by reflecting on their own lives, conflicts and relationships.

We are discovering that there is a huge appetite for real meeting in the midst of conflict in many places. Derick’s work in San Antonio is bearing much fruit. Aside from the group of young people and Colleges coming to the Learning Journey, a number of third-level Colleges – from Community Colleges to Universities – have adopted Nurturing Hope as a framework for on-campus relationship building. This year, Jean Horstman spent a week in San Antonio coaching and advising the network and we look forward to further engagements. Duncan Morrow meanwhile worked with staff at Policy Link, a major NGO in the US, to consider the relevance of these models for future development of their work across the United States.

Meanwhile in South Korea, our Trustee and colleague Kim Dong-Jin, has pioneered the concept of ‘trans-local learning’, where people share their own experiences, stories and challenges, draw lessons from others and open up windows of possibility for others. This year, the Okedongmu Children’s Project in Korea has pioneered the global ‘Drawing Hope’ exhibition, which uses children’s drawings as a mechanism to re-establish the human face in the midst of Conflict. The project now has a global reach and there are plans to bring the Exhibition to the United Nations in New York in 2025. We think Derick would also be pleased that this work is reaching a wider audience. In June 2024, Jin and Duncan Morrow published an article on “Ontological security and protracted conflict in frontier societies: towards a trans-local turn in peacebuilding” in Peacebuilding as a contribution to academic debate.

We are grateful to Jean, Duncan and Jin for their hard work. We are also very grateful to Paul Lee who served as a volunteer for a year at Corrymeela and who acted as an intern for UCT programmes, most importantly for the Learning Journey. Paul has now started a PhD programme in Peacebuilding and Conflict Resolution in Notre Dame University in Indiana, We look forward to learning about his next steps.

THE UNDERSTANDING CONFLICT TRUST

Statement of Financial Activities

Year Ended 31 March 2025

		2025		2024
	Note	Unrestricted	Total	Total
		Funds	Funds	Funds
		£	£	£
Income and endowments		-	-	-
Donations and legacies		48,651	48,651	18,957
Charitable activities		-	-	-
Total Income		48,651	48,651	18,957
Expenditure
Expenditure on charitable activities		(8,548)	(8,548)	(15,620)
Total Expenditure		(8,548)	(8,548)	(15,620)

Net income and net movement in		3,337	40,103	3,337
funds
Reconciliation of funds
Total funds brought forward		6,497	6,497	3,160
Total funds carried forward		46,600	46,600	6,497

The statement of financial activities included all gains and loses recognised in the year.

All income and expenditure derive from continuing activities.

All income and expenditure in the current and prior year related to unrestricted funds.

THE UNDERSTANDING CONFLICT TRUST

Notes to the Financial Statements

Year ended 31 March 2025

		2025	2024
	Note	£	£
Current assets
Cash at bank and in hand		46,660	6,497
Creditors: amounts falling due within one year		0	0
Net current assets		46,660	6,497
Total assets less liabilities		46,660	6,497
Net assets		46,660	6,497
Funds of the Charity
Unrestricted funds		46,660	6,497
Total Charity Funds		46,660	6,497

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CHARITY REFERENCE NUMBER: NIC103618

Table of Contents

THE UNDERSTANDING CONFLICT TRUST 2024 - 2025

Reference and Administrative Details

During this period: The Hon. Secretary Dr Derick Wilson died (November 2024)

Structure, Governance and Management

Governing Document

Appointment of Trustees

TRUSTEES’ ANNUAL REPORT 2024 – 2025

APPROVED AT A MEETING OF THE TRUSTEES 22 October 2025

OBJECTIVES AND ACTIVITIES

“The advancement of Education, in particular, to promote the understanding of conflict in the community.”

The focus of the Trust’s work is associated with the development of reconciliation.

The direct benefits, which flow from the purpose, include:

These benefits were evidenced through:

Feedback from individuals and existing groups.

DERICK WILSON – Founder of Understanding Conflict Trust

Statement of Financial Activities

Notes to the Financial Statements