Emily Peru Hope Trust Annual Reports: 2016/7

Annual Report 2016/7.

The Trust was created in memory of the initial Trustees’ daughter Emily.  The intention was to facilitate and maximise the potential for her legacy primarily to benefit orphaned and abandoned children such as she had met and helped in Peru, and to follow up on her other Christian interests and activities as and when possible.  After discussions with the operatives of other charities, and taking on board advice from legal and financial experts, the Trust was founded as a limited liability company on 5th May 2016.

Immediate aims were:

  • to operate the charity within a Christian ethos
  • to establish and maintain standards which would gain official recognition as a charity from the Northern Ireland Charities Commission [NICC]
  • to achieve de facto charitable status with Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs [HMRC}
  • to obtain a charity bank account at minimal effective cost
  • to begin to regulate payments to establish a sustainable flow of funds to beneficiaries.

An accountant was engaged to audit the accounts of the Trust and help direct financial matters with particular regard to HMRC matters.  To obtain charitable status with HMRC, a charity bank account was required; to have a charity bank account, HMRC had to recognise the organisation as a charity.  By December 2016, HMRC effectively accepted the charitable status of the Trust and concurrently a bank account was established for the Trust.

After an exploratory visit to Peru in 2015 Emily’s parents had commenced privately funding two Children’s Homes in Arequipa, Peru, including the one at which Emily had worked during her vacations from her professional job in London.  The particular emphasis was helping children who had fallen behind with their education during the turbulence that had led to their arrival in a Home.  The intention was to enable each to catch up with their peer group in school by receiving remedial teaching.  This was to be provided by a qualified teacher employed by each Home and funded by the rental from the London flat Inherited from Emily.  This funding was intended to be a core activity of the Trust.  Now as Trustees, those parents visited Peru (at their own expense) in 2016 to check on progress on that matter.  One Home was fully employing a remedial teacher.  The other was using the funds more generally in their overall education budget.  It shall be a matter for further discussion to ensure the remedial needs of the children struggling most are addressed.

An account with Stewardship was created enabling funds to be sent abroad to one of the Homes (also registered with Stewardship) to pay for teachers at both.  A number of ancillary payments were also made to pay for specific items (Bibles, pyjamas).  Domestically, token payments in appreciation were made to a number of charities that had advised the Trustees.  Emily’s involvement with Tamar at All Souls, London was recognised with an initial donation.

The Trust does not actively seek donations, but will gladly use any volunteered.  Two major additions to funds were congregation collections taken specifically for the Trust at Carrickfergus Baptist Church and Merton College Chapel, Oxford.  These had the added value of boosting the confidence and determination of the Trustees and were hugely appreciated.

J. Coates; L. Coates; Trustees, Emily Peru Hope Trust

1st June 2017.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.