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for the year ending 30th September 2008
Trustees' annual report
Financial summary
Independent examiners report
Statement of financial activities
Balance sheet
Notes to the accounts
Charity name:
Child In Need India (CINI)
Also known as CINI
Registered charity number: 1092674
Registered office: CINI, 11 Mowll Street
London SW9 6BG
Names of CINI’s current Trustees
Lady Slynn of Hadley (Chairman)
Mrs Margaret Stephen (Vice Chairman)
Mr Scott Moffat (Hon Treasurer)
Mr Witold Pawlak (Hon Secretary)
Mrs Paramita Biswas
Mr Mark Clough QC
Mr Dai Jones MBE
Lady Forsyth of Drumlean
Ms Elizabeth Paris
Mrs Toni Shaw
Ms Anne Wheeler
Lady Williams of Mostyn
Senior staff member
Mrs Anna Taylor (Director)
CINI Patrons
Mr Nasser Azam
Lord Bilimoria CBE DL
Ms Cherie Booth QC
Mr Maneck Dalal OBE
Lord Dholakia OBE
Baroness Flather
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
Mr Raj Loomba CBE
Professor David Morley
Lord Hastings of Scarisbrik CBE
Lord Puttnam CBE
Lord Slynn of Hadley
Sir Mark Tully OBE
Sir Peter Wakefield KBE CMG
Lady Young
Trustees who stepped down 1st October 2007 – 30th September 2008: Dr Amit Biswas
Bankers: CAF Bank, 25 Kings Hill Avenue, Kings Hill, West Malling, Kent, ME19 4JQ
HSBC, 31 Euston Road, Euston, London NW1 2ST
Independent Examiner: Ms Patricia Monks A.C.A., Monks Vaughan Limited,
38 Watchetts Road, Camberley, Surrey GU15 2PB
Child In Need India (CINI) helps poor mothers and children in India. We have a strong track record of bringing about sustainable improvements in four key areas: health, nutrition, education and child protection.
CINI provides nurturing and support during key stages in the life-cycle – especially childhood, adolescence and pregnancy. All our programmes are implemented by Indian staff and volunteers, making full use of skills available locally, and keeping costs low.
We believe in sharing the successful approaches we have developed with the government and other service providers. CINI is widely recognised as a leading authority on mother and child welfare in India, and has provided training on related issues to government workers and staff from UNICEF, CARE and CRY, as well as many smaller local NGOs. |
The Indian Government recognised CINI’s outstanding work by giving the Charity the National Award for Child Welfare in both 1986 and 2005. It is the only NGO known to have won this award more than once. Recipients are chosen on the basis of the quality of their programmes, their significance in leading the way on improving child welfare, and the numbers of children whose lives have been touched.
In November 2007, Dr Samir Chaudhuri, the founder and Director of CINI India, was awarded the World of Children Health Award at UNICEF House in New York for his dedication to work to improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of poor children.
See an independent review of CINI’s work by COPAL Partners, as part of their research to find the most effective NGOs working in India. |
CINI has a close working relationship with CINI in India, but has a fully independent set of Trustees. We are rigorous in requiring narrative and financial progress reports, the format of which has been devised in collaboration with CINI India staff, so that they are useful for programme management and not excessively burdensome.
We carefully monitor these reports and work with CINI on any of areas of concern to help support learning from experience. CINI is dedicated to maximising the effectiveness of CINI’s projects, and to ensuring the long-term financial sustainability of CINI’s work. |
CINI’s vision is of an India in which mothers and children receive the nurturing they need to reach their full potential, regardless of their religion, caste, class or ethnicity.|
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1. Health and nutrition
 Rehabilitating severely malnourished children and their mothers
Preventing maternal mortality and child malnutrition by supporting mothers in the last six months of pregnancy and the child’s first two years, the most critical period for child development
2. Education and protection
Helping out-of-school children get back into full time education
Providing shelters and educational services for the protection of street-children
and the children of sex-workers
Preventing children from becoming child labourers by ensuring that children receive the support needed to enrol in school, and subsequently to stay in education
We review our aims and objectives each year. The review that follows looks at what we achieved over the past 12 months and the benefits brought about for poor mothers and children in India. In line with Commission guidance on public benefit, we have confirmed that our plans for the coming year will directly contribute to the realisation of our objectives.
THE SITUATION
No child should die of hunger. In India, however, one does every 30 seconds.
A lack of vital vitamins, minerals and the immunising power of breast milk leave children vulnerable to infection and without the necessary protection to win the battle against common childhood diseases.
Parental knowledge of food preparation techniques that preserve food nutrients, hygiene measures that prevent infection and effective home-remedies for diarrhoea, are known to have a remarkable effect on cutting the numbers of children affected by malnutrition.
It is vital to work closely with mothers during their pregnancies, in the children’s first two years of life, and also with young people who are considering marriage and starting a family of their own. These are the most critical periods for laying down the foundations for a healthy life.
When CINI undertakes maternal and child health and nutrition work in a poor village or slum area, it typically manages to halve rates of child malnutrition in children under three within a period of five years.
Work to fight malnutrition remains grossly under-funded, despite the fact that without access
to good nutrition, children are prone to chronic ill health and mental and physical disabilities. Under-nourished, sickly children are unlikely to attend school regularly and likely to struggle to concentrate if they do attend. As adults, sickness can make it hard to hold down a steady job, and the cost of medicines and lost earnings are a frequent cause of families falling into the pit of extreme poverty. Good health and nutrition are the first rungs of the ladder that can help people escape from this trap.
ACHIEVEMENTS
Working with the families worst affected by malnutrition
Five hundred and eighty one severely malnourished children, and their carers, were admitted
to CINI’s emergency ward and nutrition rehabilitation centre in the year ending March 2008. While the children were gently nursed back to health, mothers were given hands-on training so they could play an active role in their children’s rehabilitation. This included learning: how to produce nutritious meals and baby foods on a tight budget; how hygiene measures and immunisations can help prevent family members from falling sick; and how to make oral rehydration treatments for children with diarrhoea.
Making childbirth safer
Motherhood is a hazardous business in India, where women are 80 times more likely to die of a maternity related cause than women in the UK. CINI helped make childbirth safer for the 365 women who gave birth in Nahazari, West Bengal, over the course of a three-year project, which ended in October 2008. With CINI’s help, 54% of babies in Nahazari were delivered in hospital, as compared to the rural West Bengal average of 34%. Of deliveries at home, 83% were attended by a trained person, more than double the average for rural West Bengal, which is only 37%.
Adopt A Mother programme
The Adopt A Mother programme continues to provide valuable long-term funding for CINI’s
mother and child health and nutrition work.
Plans are being laid for work to prevent malnutrition in tea growing areas in NorthBengal, where problems have beenheightened by the closure of Darjeeling tea gardens in the face of growing global competition.
In 2008-2009, the ‘Adopt A Mother’ programme will be renamed ‘Sponsor a Mother’. It will also be reviewed to increase the flexibility of funds raised, in order to provide ongoing support to families through our integrated health, nutrition, education, and protection programme, meeting a wider range of needs of the mothers and children helped. |
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THE SITUATION
No education means no opportunity to learn the skills needed to free yourself from the poverty trap. Yet more than a third of children enrolled at school in India drop out before the age of eleven. Many more never enrol at all.
Many mothers in poor families are illiterate and struggle to provide the support needed if their children are to keep up with their peers. Children and parents then become de-motivated and give up. Even when children want to stay on at school, the cost of uniforms, books and registration fees can be a barrier. Overcrowded classrooms, combined with hostility from teachers and poor school facilities, can also contribute to children dropping out.
It is essential to motivate children, parents and the wider community about the value of education for all. Illiterate parents need extra help to fill out the forms to enrol their children in local schools. Children who have not enrolled, or have dropped out, need intensive support over an academic year to help them catch-up with their peers and get into mainstream schools. After-school coaching in poor areas enables children to do their homework in a safe and supportive environment. Work is also needed to alert decision makers to inadequate school services and to mobilise communities to demand improvements.
If a child is well-nourished and healthy, a good education is the next crucial step towards a brighter future. Girls’ education in particular has been shown to feed into the wellbeing of the next generation.
ACHIEVEMENTS
Helping disadvantaged children get in to local schools
In the year ending May 2008, CINI recruited 109 children aged nine to 14 who had never registered or had dropped out of school into its education camps in Kolkata. The camps are in areas with a high proportion of immigrants from other states, where children have been working in hazardous industries, including sorting rubbish and working on leather preparation, exposed to noxious fumes in the city’s tanneries. The objective was to equip them with the skills and knowledge needed to enter classes appropriate to their age group in local schools by the beginning of the following academic year. Seventy-three per cent of the children have achieved this goal, with most of the remainder returning to the camps for additional support in the following year, or leaving the project through migration.
Preventing children from being drawn into the sex industry
In the year ending June 2008, this project protected 596 children living in red light areas in Siliguri and Kolkata from exploitation and abuse, and has helped to prevent them from being drawn into sex work. CINI’s education centres provide after-school coaching. Children are in a safe environment, while their mothers are working, and receive educational support, together with recreational activities, counselling, basic healthcare, and life skills. More than 98% of the children studying at the centre passed their end of year exams and progressed to the following academic year. Only one child dropped out of school and the centre. The remaining 99.8% remained in school.
Promoting school enrolment and preventing dropping-out
CINI supporters have funded work in Tiljala and Khanaberia, on the outskirts of Kokata, to raise awareness of parents, local community leaders, teachers and employers, making them
aware of the importance of educating all children. We have also encouraged them to make the changes needed in order to enable deprived urban children to attend school. Extra support has been given to illiterate parents to help them register their children in local schools.
Future plans
CINI hopes to step up its work to promote early years’ education in 2008-2009. To cut drop out rates, CINI is working to ensure that coaching and homework support is available to help mainstreamed children stay in school.
One of the reasons children drop out, especially girls, is the lack of toilets in schools. This causes problems on a range of levels as even girls who stay on in school often suffer health problems as they refrain from relieving themselves and therefore suffer urinary and bowel disorders. Sadly girls who do go in the school grounds, or nearby, often suffer sexual harassment. CINI hopes to work over the coming year to improve these facilities.
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 One of the central lessons from CINI’s work over the last 35 years has been that we get the best results when we take a holistic approach to our work to help poor mothers and children in India, addressing a number of key issues simultaneously in a given area.
We cannot be experts on everything, so we talk to the community to identify the main problems that they are facing in the fields of nutrition, health, education and protection, and work with them to find solutions to these.
Work will be done to improvement awareness of entitlements in poor communities, thereby increasing demand for quality services. Support will be given to enable communities to express their needs to local decision makers. Special attention is being given to including women, children and other socially excluded groups who usually struggle to be heard. At the end of one recent session, which gave women a chance to explain their views, Hasana, one of the participants said: “This is the first time somebody is listening to us regarding our problems.”
However, there is no point in encouraging demand for quality services, unless we also work with local government and other NGOs to help them improve the services they are providing. We train their staff, and welcome them to visit and learn from our programmes on the ground. This enables us to stretch donated funds further, so that more people will be helped. It also means that the improvements brought about are more sustainable.
Women’s self-help groups will lead the way in mobilising the community. Many of these groups are formed around micro-credit groups. There is a growing body of evidence that microcredit in isolation does not bring about health or education benefits. By providing these groups with training in good nutrition, preventative healthcare and the importance of education for all, CINI’s work is helping to counteract this.
ACHIEVEMENTS
Child and Woman Friendly Communities: pilot programme
After a start delayed by elections, which resulted in a change of government personnel, this
programme is now beginning to implement programmes requested by the local community.
In the urban area, this has included establishing two centres to help children with the transition to secondary school. These will assist families with the enrolment process and provide academic support. Work has also begun on raising awareness of the value of children getting a secondary education.
In the rural areas, progress has included the training of 43 women from local self-help groups to raise awareness amongst their peers of the importance of accessing antenatal care, ensuring there is a trained person to assist with births, and key elements of early childhood care. In addition, CINI has been involved in work to improve sanitation services, working with government to enable villagers to build toilet facilities, and making the community aware of the benefits of using such facilities.
Reaching out to over a million people
The Department for International Development (DfID) and Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA) have shown their support for CINI’s Child and Woman Friendly Communities programme by providing the bulk of the funding needed for a project that will provide health, nutrition, education and protection support to women and children in an area with a population in excess of one million people. Work on this project began in June 2008.
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In addition to CINI’s work in the fields of health, nutrition, education and protection, CINI responds to major humanitarian disasters within India. It has responded to all national emergencies in the last 10 years, plus to smaller scale crises that nevertheless have profound effects on the communities hit in north-east India.
ACHIEVEMENTS
Monsoon rains caused the Kosi River to breach its banks on 18th August 2008, resulting in serious floods in six eastern districts of Bihar. CINI worked in the district of Sapaul, in a relief camp providing shelter to people displaced from nearby villages including Bhawanipur, Balbhadrapur and Hridaynagar. The people from these villages were primarily agricultural labourers to whom the flood represented not only a loss of their home, but also a loss of their main source of livelihood.
Relief work was undertaken in cooperation with the government and an NGO already active in the local area. Activities included providing food and cooking utensils, clothing and shelter materials, and mosquito nets and repellent coils to prevent the spread of malaria. We also helped set up a missing persons help desk which has helped reunite families separated in the rush to escape the flood waters. To date, CINI has been able to help more than 5,000 victims of the floods.
CINI has developed a community level partnership to ensure that relief reaches the most affected children and their families in a transparent participatory manner. It is extremely important to empower local community members, many of whom want to help, to play an active role in the relief effort.
Acknowledging the support of CINI, Saraswati Devi said: “We lost many things: relatives, livestock and the hope of life. Today, we find the support given to us by CINI is God’s Gift and we see reason to revive our hopes for the future.”
CINI has made substantial progress towards becoming more established and better known over the three years ending September 2008. It has exceeded its aim to raise half a million pounds for CINI’s projects over this period.
In line with the charity’s plans it has:
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Increased the focus on raising long-term, sustainable income that is as flexible as possible. This has been achieved by increasing the emphasis in fundraising materials on the value of providing support by standing |
order or of trusts providing multi-year grants.
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Developed better systems for keeping existing supporters informed and involved. This has been achieved by writing up summaries of all progress reports, publishing these on the website, and ensuring copies are sent |
out to all supporters of a given project.
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Developed better mechanisms for measuring and reporting on CINI’s achievements interms of the actual outcomes we are bringing about on the ground in India. This has been achieved by working with CINI on a |
for future progress reporting. This will be useful for project management and for accountability, both to donors, and to the communities benefiting from CINI’s projects, while not being excessively burdensome for project staff.
In line with the charity’s three-year business plan, CINI now aims to raise at least a million pounds in the three years ending 30 September 2011.
Specific plans for 2008-2009 include:
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Increasing focus on fundraising methods that get the best return on investment, prioritising fundraising from statutory sources, charitable trusts, and major gifts from companies and individuals. |
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Working with CINI India on improvements to the format of the ‘Adopt A Mother’ and other regular giving programmes, so that they meet the current needs on the ground for longerterm and more flexible funding. |
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Working with all members of CINI International, an international network of organisations raising funds in aid of CINI, to agree principles on how best to communicate the need, programmes and outcomes of our work, |
in a manner that is fully consistent with the organisation’s broader aims and objectives.
Governing document
Declaration of Trust executed on 25 March 2002 amended 26 July 2006 and 25 July 2007
Objects of the charity as laid out in trust deed
- a.) Advancing the provision of health and general care, relief of poverty, protection, and housing for children and women, including those who are abandoned, destitute, impoverished, malnourished or who are otherwise in need within India.
- b.) Promoting the education of such children and their community and by any other charitable purpose which the trustees in their discretion think fit through Child in Need in India.
Our work continues to reflect the charitable objects laid out in the trust deed.
Organisational structure and how decisions are made
CINI operates under the guidance of a board of Trustees. Matters of strategy, policy, and budgetary planning and monitoring reports are presented for deliberation by the board on a regular basis. Board agreement validates the organisation’s development of policy and practice.
The existing board forms a solid base for the charity with excellent contacts and strong skills between them in charity governance, legal issues, financial matters, education, health, marketing and Indian culture.
Potential new Trustees can be nominated by the Chairman, Trustees or Director. A copy of the CV of a potential Trustee is circulated to the existing Trustee Board and candidates are questioned face-to-face about the skills, experience and contacts that they would bring to the charity, and how this may help to fill skill gaps on the existing board. A candidate has to be approved unanimously by the Trustee board before they are formally appointed.
New Trustees are provided with a pack of information, including recent accounts, a copy of the Memorandum and Articles of Association and minutes of previous year’s meetings. A copy of the Charity Commission’s guide, ‘The Essential Trustee’ is alsogiven to new recruits.
Whilst the Trustees are experienced individuals, they are encouraged to undertake training through attendance at seminars and courses related to charity governance. They are also encouraged to visit the charity’s work in India.
All members of the board give their time voluntarily and receive no benefits from the charity.
Expenses reclaimed from the charity are set out in note six to the accounts.
Financial strategy
Charity law requires the Trustees to prepare financial statements for each financial year, which
give a true and fair view of the state of affairs of CINI and of the income and expenditure of the
Charity over the year. In preparing those financial statements the Trustees are required to:
- Select suitable accounting policies and then apply them consistently
- Make judgments and estimates that are reasonable and prudent
- State whether applicable accounting standards have been followed subject to any material departures disclosed and explained in the financial statements, and
- Prepare the financial statements on an on-going concern basis unless it is inappropriate
to presume the charity will continue its operations.
The Trustees are responsible for keeping proper accounting records, which disclose with reasonable accuracy at any time the financial position of CINI, and enable them to ensure that the financial statements comply with relevant legislation. They are also responsible for safeguarding the assets of CINI and hence for taking reasonable steps for the prevention and detection of fraud and other irregularities.
Reserves policy
The Trustees’ reserve policy is to maintain sufficient unrestricted funds to support future fundraising efforts, manage cash flow and top up project funds when necessary. Reserve levels are reviewed periodically to take into account changing priorities and the wider economic environment. In light of current plans for the charity, it has been agreed that reserves should be maintained at £45,000 - £70,000. On 30 September 2008, CINI held
£53,051 in unrestricted funds.
Ethical investment policy
CINI effectively acts as a steward for the restricted funds it receives, as these are ultimately tobe distributed to the projects supported in India. As a steward, CINI is risk adverse, with fundsinvested in interest-bearing deposit accounts with the Charities Aid Foundation Bank. The Charities Aid Foundation Bank does not knowingly invest in tobacco or the arms trade.
Risk management
The Trustees are responsible for ensuring that all major risks facing CINI are appropriately managed. Regular reviews are undertaken of significant risks in the light of changing priorities and circumstances and appropriate mitigating action taken. Documentation on this is available on request.
CINI has two full-time staff, the Director, Anna Taylor, and Programmes Coordinator,
Karen Allonby.
Anna has almost completed an MA in the Social Anthropology of Development. She has a post-graduate qualification in fundraising. She has visited India annually for the last four years and has built relationships with staff on the ground. Recent work on her MA dissertation involved wide reading on the workings of international NGOs and best practice in programming and fundraising. It has also enabled her to establish contacts with senior staff at other international NGOs to facilitate the sharing of ideas and approaches. Karen has an MSc in Development Studies, which has given her a good understanding of the issues on the ground. She has recently embarked on an MSc in Charity Accounting and Financial Management, assisting the charity in following best practice in these areas.
Use of volunteers
Given the limited number of staff, volunteers are an absolutely vital resource for CINI. The charity uses a number of long-term specialist and shorter term generalist volunteers including Bruce Murray who works on the Charity’s website, Tamara Colloff-Bennett who edits published documents and Jennifer Drage and Stuart Moss who carry out design work, and Timea Balogh who helps with HR matters. Generalist volunteers over the year have included Yasmin Ahammad, Louise Stansfield, Sophie Hackford, Lucy Wheeler, Kay Herm, Sonja Newman,
Mona Patel, Isabelle Pelly and Bani Makkar.
Signature and declaration
I declare in my capacity as Chairman, that:
- Select suitable accounting policies and then apply them consistently
- Make judgments and estimates that are reasonable and prudent
- State whether applicable accounting standards have been followed subject to any material departures disclosed and explained in the financial statements, and
- Prepare the financial statements on an on-going concern basis unless it is inappropriate
to presume the charity will continue its operations.
Lady Slynn of Hadley
Chairman of CINI UK
click here for part two of this Trustees Annual Report and accounts
click here for full printable version of this Trustees' Annual Report and accounts (pdf)
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