Annual Report 2007-2008
Annual Report 2007-2008
Introduction
Action for Street Kids continues to have a significant impact on the lives of children across the world. This year we have raised £123,481 and distributed a record amount of £134,741. This is a huge achievement for a small charity that operates on a voluntary basis and is something the Trustees are proud of. However it is the beneficial effect our work has on children, who without the projects ASK supports, would have little hope of a better life, that is so significant.
While these accounts therefore quantify the value of money, the effect this money has is priceless.
Through the funds we distribute children are given the basics of life such as food, clothing, medical care, somewhere safe to sleep, and education. And beyond their basic survival needs they also get qualitative care in the form of love, hope and opportunity.
We save lives, we give children back their childhood, help them see their potential and give them the opportunities to achieve it. None of this would be possible without donations and without the donors who give it. Its why we have put such effort into gaining both.
Action for Street Kids is run on a voluntary basis by its trustees. The charity does not operate an office and so bears no admin costs associated with this. We have a part time administrator who works from home on a per hour basis and deals with all correspondence and administrative duties. All other duties are carried out voluntary by the Trustees. This arrangement has been costed to save the charity approximately £25,000. Money that is directly distributed to projects to care for children which otherwise would be spent here in the UK on administration.
Structure, Governance and Management
The charity has a Board of six Trustees who meet quarterly. Management and control of projects, including overseas visits, fundraising and finance are carried out by the Trustees. A bookkeeper works on a voluntary basis producing monthly accounts, and a part time administrator deals with all correspondence. A Trustee is designated with management control of the bookkeeper and administrator on a day to day basis.
Trustee Induction/training and recruitment
Action for Street Kids has a stable set of trustees recruited to bring specific management skills to the charity. These include; overseas development, lecturing, administrative, child protection, and financial. As part of induction and training all trustees carry out monitoring visits, to see the projects supported and meet project staff. Trustees are updated on a quarterly basis on relevant issues in relation to governance of a charity.
Reserves
Action for Street Kids is run on a voluntary basis by its Trustees. The charity has no office costs being administered from the home of our administrator, who is paid on a cost per hour basis. There are no future spending commitments entered into that require ASK to keep reserves to meet them. Consequently the Trustees keep reserves to a minimum designating as much money as possible to projects.
Objectives and Activities
The charity was established to help change the lives of children and young people who are homeless, and abandoned living on the streets of cities worldwide; and to care for and help rehabilitate child soldiers and those caught up in war.
Action for Street Kids is focused on two main tasks: Firstly to establish close contact with a number of projects here in the UK and overseas whom we will support with time, technical help, advice and money. And secondly, through our own knowledge and expertise to ensure that funding is available to help each project meet their core costs.
Long term core support is of the greatest help to the kind of projects ASK supports. Ensuring that projects have the necessary resources to keep going is one of the most important things we can do for them. It means children are fed, have a bed to sleep in, have clean clothes, are given medical care, education and perhaps most important of all hope for the future. It means that projects can get on with caring for the children in their care, rather than worrying how and where resources will come from. It also means projects do not have to face the constant frustration and sadness of reducing services, laying off staff, and the most despairing of all, closing and seeing children end up back on the streets. A situation that happens all too frequently.
From the outset we have sought to address this need. We will support projects for as long as there are children on the streets who need help. We hope also that the level of support we are able to give will increase over time.
Achievements and Performance
Action for Street Kids has continued to provide vitally needed funds to small local projects around the world. The charity is welfare based providing technical help and support and funding. This year we have given donations to ensure that children have food, a bed to sleep in, medical care, education and for older children vocational training. Funding is also provided for outreach work on the streets to make contact with children and offer the first link and chance to make a new life away from the street. This work is both dangerous and vital. Outreach workers risk attack and threats as they take on drug and street gangs, pimps and deal with children who are high on glue or other drugs. In being willing to go out onto the streets and take these risks however, children’s lives are saved and children are given hope.
Over 100 children per day are helped through the projects ASK supports. Our funding makes a difference between hope and despair for many children. For some it is literally the difference between life or death. While the number of children on the streets continues to grow, now reaching over 100 million, we cannot realistically make any difference to what is a direct consequence of the current political and economic system. What we can do and achieve each day is give individual children the love they need, the basics of life and a childhood through which they can go and thrive.
We continue to develop long term relationships rather than short term, as is the case with the majority of funders in the UK. Short term funding for one year or sometimes up to three frequently provides more problems for small projects than not. If listened to projects will consistently say that the single most beneficial overseas funders can give is long term support that is stable on which they can plan and rely. The Trustees of Action for Street Kids set out from the charity’s inception to do this and take the view that children can best be cared for if they are supported by local people running local projects that can plan and work within financial security over a long period of time. This is a key part of our aim and mission.
This list of projects Action for Street Kids supports is listed on page 12 of the accounts.
Financial Review
Funding comes from a variety of sources, direct mail, payroll giving, regular donors, telephone sales, trusts and unsolicited income. The majority of the charity’s income is unrestricted a policy decided upon when the charity was established to allow the Trustees flexibility in terms of support it could give to projects. Much of this funding is now regular through standing orders, direct debits and through payroll giving.
Plans for the Future
The Trustees of Action for Street Kids believe the model developed of the charity being run on a voluntary basis, working in close partnership with other charities and local organizations around the world, is one that is sustainable.
We will look to support new projects as funding allows and to provide continuing funding to those we already support.
S Johnson, C Matthews, D Beck, A Beck, C Beck, R McLelland
Trustees
Action for Street Kids
11 October 2008
