News from the trustees

The trustees wish the friends & supporters of our charity a happy and fulfilling 2023. We convey our sincere appreciation to those who regularly donate towards BASED-UK’s partner programmes. Attracting a sufficient stream of funding to cover all partner programme needs has proved difficult recently. The number of individual donors remains small and while we always try to expand our base of support, there is also a need to reach out to our loyal existing supporters to ask for some extra help.
We, of course, appreciate that these are challenging times with the cost of living crisis causing a significant pinch to personal finances. Whilst we are actively pursuing other available channels to secure funding, after careful consideration we feel that it is prudent to ask for some additional assistance if budgetary circumstances make it possible.
If perhaps, you’ve not increased your regular donation amount over the past few years, would you consider increasing it? An increase of 10% would add an extra 50p for each £5 donation, making a substantial difference to donors’ total gifts over the year. Whatever is affordable will be much appreciated and if no increase is possible then please be assured of our ongoing gratitude for your kind contributions. And please do forward this Newsletter to family, friends and colleagues whom you think may take an interest in our work.
Trustees have been reflecting with Funding Network Coordinators,  Alan Campbell and Chloe Jamali, on routes to more sustainable fundraising following the end of their initial six month contracts. Trustees are very grateful to Chloe for her strenuous fundraising efforts as a core member of the team. We wish her all the very best in her future endeavours following her decision to focus on her final year university studies. We look forward to working more closely with Alan over the coming months in following up various promising lines of fundraising activity. One such line of action is discussed below under 'Bayan Programme fundraiser'.
We are pleased to share that we have transferred approximately £4000 to our partner programme in Eswatini as a contribution towards their Community Schools annual budget requirement. We further hope to transmit some £5000 to the Community Banking programme in Honduras for the same purpose over the coming weeks.
Finally trustees are preparing their annual accounts and report to the Charity Commission for the period 31 March 2021 to 1 April 2022. By the end of January 2023, this information will be uploaded to this website which is also consulted by (institutional) donors seeking historical information about BASED-UK activities and finances. Please do take a look to understand more about our history and governance.

Bayan programme fundraiser 
Having considered a request from the Bayan programme to fund a vehicle to access remote project areas, trustees have decided to undertake a fundraiser to contribute 50% of the vehicle costs for the more general use of Bayan Association. As a charity we are tasked with supporting the Community Banks programme specifically but we recognise the contextual significance of Bayan's SAT education programme in training potential youth bank members with requisite knowledge and skills for business and trading. Below is a brief rationale for the fundraiser and we shall be sharing more details of the online fundraiser in due course.
The Community Banks programme operates in 5 of the 12 departments of Honduras where the Tutorial Learning System (SAT) for rural education and development is implemented, located in the Northeast regions (Atlántida, Gracias a Dios and Colón); Western Centre (Comayagua); and Eastern Centre (Olancho).



Three-quarters of Honduras is composed of rugged hills and mountains, ranging from about 900 to nearly 9,350 feet. And a significant continuing obstacle to the Community Banking programme's effective operation is lack of suitable vehicles, and also that most of their vehicles are very old and prone to breaking down. Field staff often have to use public transport, which wastes a lot of time and is difficult for accessing some Community Bank areas. Motorbikes are appropriate for some areas, but are unsuitable and dangerous for other more remote areas such as the dense tropical forests of La Mosquitia in Gracias a Dios region.

Our last Newsletter shared the estimate of over 16000 direct and indirect beneficiaries of the Community Banks programme. And below is an extract from a BASED-UK pamphlet describing the benefits of the programme to women's development in particular.




The trustees wish you all a happy and healthy start to 2023