Central Africa Refugee Link

CHAIRPERSON'S INTRODUCTION TO THE ANNUAL REPORT

I am pleased to introduce our annual report for the year 2004-2005. Following my appointment as chairperson for Care Link in November 2004, this charity quickly became a recognised and a registered charity later in May 2005. The Charity has seen a year of considerable development, and it seems clear that there is more to come. The establishment of new governance tools and arrangements to separate the roles of the trustees in the management committee has added a new dynamism to the Board. This paved the way for a wide ranging strategic review, looking to the future and to meeting the vision of the charity in more customer-facing and innovative ways.

This year the charity faced the challenge of a complete turnaround of fundraising. Nevertheless, I am pleased to report that the service provided to service users did not diminish. In great measure, this was due to the efforts of every trustee and our volunteers. I thank everyone and all of the team, past and present, for their enthusiasm and commitment.

I hope that you find our report interesting and informative.

Gaspard Nzamurambaho, Chairperson

SECRETARY'S MESSAGE

As you read this annual report you will see a small amount of the huge development that has taken place within Care Link. Our governing body and Management team has led the organisation through a turbulent period. The quality of our service has been of major importance and throughout every aspect of the organisation provision, monitoring and assessment of our service has been of prime importance.

I look back in awe over the last twelve months at what we have achieved for our refugee community from Central Africa.

Continuing external pressures in the organisation have had to be faced with determination, intelligence and sound business strategies for success. This has been exemplified in the effort of the trustees and volunteers. They have worked unstintingly to achieve our targets and adjust to changing circumstances. The restructuring of the organisation will enable us to maintain and deliver our strategic objectives giving special emphasis to public education and awareness.

After the year's development, many areas of the organisation have been transformed. Further sustained investment will complete our improvement program to bring Care Link into the league of premier inner city refugee organisation. You will read about the many exciting developments in our provision for our local community. We have held many events of outstanding quality - pop-in meetings, trainings, conferences, seminars, workshops, overseas visits, exhibition and open days, which have all ended us to engage with local refugee communities.

Walingamina Shomari, Secretary

INTRODUCTION

This is the report of the work of Central Africa Refugee Link, West Midlands - "CARE LINK" from November 2004 to December 2005 and does not include the Audited Accounts 2005.

In all its activities, the group Care Link is working to support the refugee community from Central Africa living in West Midlands (Rwanda, Burundi, D R Congo, Congo Brazzaville, Central African Republic) and offer a number of services to them.

It offers a support network for refugee and their children and an information service regarding their welfare.

During the year 2005 both the volunteers and trustees together hand-in-hand worked hard to put into practice all that its mission statement, printed above, requires. Some of its activities carried out during the year 2005 are depicted and described in the following pages.

The costs of funding the organisation during the year have been met from subscription of members, the sale of African music and donation from local churches.

We shall continue to appeal to many sources of funding, as well as asking our membership to get more involved in fund raising activities. In order to raise the extra money we need we have set up a Fund-raising Network.

ACTIVITIES OF THE YEAR 2005

Project Title: Mental Health Awareness & Support for central African refugees

Overall progress made to date on objective one:

Mental Awareness Campaigns have been successful in this project. These campaigns aimed at maximising service users’ opportunity to reflect on their personal concerns. This was a valuable opportunity for victims of mental health to reflect on their circumstances within a broader understanding of the field in order for them to find out what necessary should be done to help cope with the situation in which they are torn apart. Many Africans currently living in the West Midlands, experience disturbances in mood, thought or behaviour.

Based on practical concerns of African refugees & asylum seekers at this particular moment, it was accepted in plenary that this project should focus on supporting refugee victims of mental health problem through public education, and advocacy for, human rights in the lights of immigration laws and these should go shoulder to shoulder with mental health therapy. The following are programs which have been launched since October to address service users’ concerns: Aromatherapy, victims’ groups, allotment gardening, keep fit (gentle), self help groups, games, badminton, knitting/sewing, one-to-one discussions, relaxation, creative art, mental health awareness drama, swimming, crafts, managing stress assertiveness social activities, outings to reduce mental health problems. The project effort was to initiate programmes like art therapy, hospital/health centre visits, counselling, and post-traumatic stress disorder management. Practical skills like basic cooking, leisure, computer, legal advice, art and craft were ultimately targeted accordingly to enable victims of mental illness to recover from assaults on their mental health and to develop the skills necessary to achieve greater self-reliance and be integrated in the community as before.

In its final stage, the project brought to light how the service users have been served and some of the victims have given their testimonies as how effective and efficient this project was for their relieve. A number of relaxation tapes and information leaflets dealing with stress, depression, anxiety, agoraphobia, Alzheimer’s disease, bipolar disorder (manic depression), schizophrenia/ psychosis management have been prepared, both in English/French and some African languages like Swahili to facilitate quick access Volunteer carers were assigned to meet with service users regularly to ensure their needs were met. We also offered some benefits and welfare rights advice, information and support.

30/11/2004: Visit to Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (BM & AG)

16/12/2004: meeting Amnesty International/ Bounville

21/01/2005: Relaxation exercise, Selly Oak

28/01/2005: Outing in country side to meet farmers

24/02/2005: visit to BM & AG

30/05/2005: Foot ball

Project Title: Saturday Homework Club

Membership contribution money has provided for the Secretary to develop a Saturday Homework Club (SHC), a practically family learning environment club of both primary and secondary schools activities in Smethwick, a deprived area. Evaluation has shown that parents' confidence and skills have improved, that they are helping children with their homework and spending more time sharing books with them.

THE SATURDAY HOMEWORK CLUB PROJECT

This project has provided high quality learning resources for parents to borrow and use at home with their children. The aim was to increase parents' involvement in their children's learning, and to support improvement in the children's attainment at school, in an area where there is little spare money for families to spend on educational resources.

The Saturday Homework Club was open twice a month on Saturdays. Computer software, games, puzzles, construction kits, science activities, English, Maths and books have been provided for it by Care Link West Mid. The organisation has employed three local parents volunteers (one of whom described this as their first "real job") to run the club. The resources were suitable for a wide age group, from babies to adults, with the most popular items being family board games. Science activities came a close second, and there was sometimes a waiting list for them: fathers tended to be particularly keen to borrow this kind of 'hands on' kit.

Results of the project

Project Title: Public Awareness Campaign

No significant development made due to lack of funding to carry out activities related to this objective. But one training session to raise refugee awareness has taken place on 31 May 2005 thanks to kind support from members’ contributions in raising fund.

Project Title: Relief of Financial Hardship through Job Search & Self Employment

No significant development made due to lack of funding to carry out activities related to this objective.

Project Title: Parenting

No significant development made due to lack of funding to carry out activities related to this objective apart from few meeting organised to plan fundraising events.

Project Title: General Support

No significant development made due to lack of funding to carry out activities related to this objective apart from few meeting organised to plan fundraising events organised in December 2005 thanks to the contribution from Home office.

Encountered Difficulties:

• The strategic planning was at every time under review hindered by the challenges in securing funding.
• Contacts were not easy with our visitors as the whole year we were still looking for a suitable office.

CONSOLIDATED INCOME AND EXPENDITURE ACCOUNT

FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DEC 2005 (unaudited)

 

COMMENTS

1. The accumulated balance on income and expenditure of £1,150 will be considered as income at January 2006 and will be used for running few program activities for the first semester of the year.
2. Specific project as required by funding bodies, their expenditures have been separately reported according to the Funding policy.

HUMAN RESOURCES AND MANPOWER (Dec.31st 2005):

• Gaspard Nzamurambaho, Chairperson
• Ms Ange Mwihabuntu, Vice chairperson
• Ms Walingamina Shomari, Secretary
• Bernard Ntivunwa, Treasurer
• Dallya Uwase, first Advisor
• Olga Bogdanova, Second Advisor

• Mr Raoul Jaribu, Senior volunteer
• Mr Ernest Ndahishimiye, Junior volunteer

CONCLUSION

The following programmes stand out for future attention. The partnership support for funding already made show the programmes have a better chance for funding in the next three years.

Further strategic objectives will have more attention than last year in fund raising.

Our gratitude goes to all our present partners, our appeal to them and other perspective funding bodies is to be prepared for further support either with networking or information sharing on areas useful for refugees inclusion and the strengthening of the partnership that already exists and which hopefully will continue between us in the years ahead.