The Nankesido Education and Welfare Trust is a registered charity (number 1148470).

Objects

The objects of the charity (‘the objects’) are:

1. For the public benefit to promote the education of children and young people in Nankesido (Lower Saltpond) and in neighbouring areas within Central Region, Ghana, through pre-school, primary, secondary and tertiary education, where not fully provided for by the local education authority, and in such ways as the charity trustees think fit, including the following:

• providing, and assisting in the provision of, facilities, educational materials and equipment for the schools in these places, including the construction, maintenance and equipping of buildings and grounds used for education; and providing books, sports goods and kit, and other educational resources, either through direct purchase or by paying for transporting such items donated to the Trust;
• by making grants to individuals to pay for school clothing and educational materials;
• awarding scholarships, maintenance allowances or grants tenable at any university, college or institution of higher or further education;

2. For the public benefit to provide other financial and material support for the welfare of the community of Nankesido and neighbouring areas to relieve poverty and the effects of poverty, and including making grants for the provision of therapeutic health-care where not provided by statutory bodies.

Governance

There are eight trustees and they have a wide-range of relevant skills. So, we have a project-manager for school-building projects in London, two former teachers including a former head teacher, a former business researcher, a Management Consultant working in Leadership Development, Communications and Engagement, a former director of a public relations consultancy, a former government finance officer whose duties included corporate governance monitoring, and the treasurer is a professional accountant and auditor with wide experience of accounting and auditing in the third world.

The Charity Commission requires that all trustees be vetted to ensure that they are not legally barred from serving as Charity Trustees. We have in place robust procedures for ensuring the safety and protection of young people and vulnerable adults who come into contact with the trust’s representatives in Ghana. We have appropriate permissions to show pictures on this website of children and other people we have helped.

With its trustees not being resident in Ghana, we have a well-established, hand-picked team in Ghana, led by Fr Fynn, to oversee the school-building programme and to ensure financial discipline across all our activities. The success of these controls is attested by the fact that the kindergarten/infants’ school, our first major project, was built for about £8,000, which, even allowing for the large difference in prices between there and the UK, is still a very low figure for such a project. A similar control system is in place for the selection of children to be financed through school/college/university.

As can be seen from our accounts on the Charity Commission website, our overheads are zero. We incur no administrative expenses of any kind apart from the cost of shipping goods to Ghana and bank charges: all the money given to us or raised by us is spent on those for whom it is intended in Ghana.

Over the years we have raised circa £120,000 and provided large quantities of ICT and education kit together with domestic items to help vulnerable residents of the village. We have been able to fund our activities through donations from parishioners and members of the public, fund-raising activities of various kinds, bequests, and through grants from charitable organisations (in particular from the British Humane Association). We have also received donations – from schools, the Brazilian embassy and various other sources – of computers, sports kit, books, household items, sewing machines, medical equipment and other items for equipping schools and welfare facilities or for distribution to the poor.