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​Children on the Edge works in coalition with local communities in some of the toughest places in the world, transforming the lives of marginalised children by creating protective environments where they can safely live, play, learn and grow. 

It will come as no surprise that this year’s major focus has been responding to the coronavirus pandemic and it’s devastating effects in every area where we work.

CHILDREN ON THE EDGE ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS 2020-2021

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In a year that has brought the whole world to a standstill, the impact of the virus continues to be starkly disproportionate. The children we work with have been the hardest hit. Every child we support has been cut off from education and vital services whilst facing a rise of abuse and exploitation.

But, they have kept going, and continued to transform their situations through a gritty, determined, can-do kind of hope. We hope you will be inspired as we have by what the children and communities that we work with have achieved over the last 12 months. 

We want to thank each and every one of our supporters for your generosity and your solidarity with us and with these communities this year.

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​OUR IMPACT​

CREATING PROTECTIVE ENVIRONMENTS​

​Children on the Edge works closely with the people and places that have the most impact on the child: the family, classroom, community and society. At every level, we engage with and actively involve the whole community to jointly create a protective environment where each child can thrive. ​Thanks to the unwavering support of our donors this year, we have been able to continue to do just this. ​

EMERGENCY RELIEF​

Our partners have responded to an unparalleled situation this year with the utmost agility and ingenuity. They worked around coronavirus restrictions to deliver over 12,500 food parcels to severely affected households and saw how initiatives like micro-loans, savings groups and Child Protection Teams enabled thousands of households to withstand the worst circumstances.

EDUCATION THROUGH LOCKDOWN​

Pandemic or not, the children we work with face continual barriers to learning, so for us, this was just the next set of obstacles. More than 16,000 children were reconnected to quality education and support despite schools being closed for most, if not all of the past year. This took the form of radio lessons, phone lessons, lessons under trees, in tents, in teachers homes and in student’s homes. Backpacks were stuffed with colourful learning materials and carried to children in the most remote mountain areas. School bus drivers turned into delivery drivers, dropping hundreds of lesson packs to the doorways of refugee tents. ​

CHILDREN LEADING THE WAY​

When children are free to realise their rights, they are free to thrive. This year the children we support have led the way in their communities, identifying the most vulnerable households for support, educating peers on the increased threat of trafficking, conducting surveys on domestic violence, running community handwashing workshops and making videos about preventing the spread of the virus. These examples are just the tip of the iceberg.

THANK YOU

Children on the Edge is in a strong position to serve the needs of the most marginalised and vulnerable children around the world despite the ongoing challenges created by the COVID pandemic.

This is only possible because of the ongoing generosity of supporters, from one-off donors, to those who give every month, businesses of all sizes, trusts and institutional funders as well as those who give their time in the office or at events. 

We deeply appreciate every single one of you. Thank you. 

THE NUMBERS

Our fundraising team works to raise funds in a number of different ways; engaging individual donors, soliciting gifts from foundations and trusts, a growing regular giving scheme, strategic corporate partnerships as well as community fundraising and challenge events. ​

For every £1 donated to Children on the Edge, 89p is spent on our projects supporting marginalised children, and 11p is spent on fundraising the next £1. ​

INCOME

Our donors responded with huge generosity to the increased need created by the COVID pandemic. We grew our income by just over 5% on the previous year to £2,353,525 which enabled us to maintain programmes and respond directly to the needs of the crisis.

​We do not engage the services of ‘professional fundraising’ businesses; all our fundraising activity is delivered by our own fundraising team. We do work with commercial participators; when doing so conducting due diligence and reviewing agreements annually.  

EXPENDITURE

Overall programme spending has increased by over just over 30% to £1,895,951. During the COVID pandemic we maintained 100% spending on overseas staff salaries. 

​Some small savings were made on programme running costs but were negated by increased spending on our COVID response to either create new learning opportunities or to respond to the immediate needs of the crisis. Spending in Lebanon increased due to a grant from the People’s Postcode Lottery.

FUNDRAISING HIGHLIGHTS

Our objective for 2020 / 2021 was to raise £1,988,727 across a diverse base of funding. Despite a challenging year of pivoting our fundraising around COVID-19 restrictions we exceeded our expected income and maintained a broad base of funding as planned. 

As the UK went into lockdown in March 2020, at the start of our financial year, we focused our time and resources into building strong relationships with our supporters; and increasing the ways we could connect with them online. 

This approach enabled us to pivot so many face to face fundraising events into virtual events which helped us to raise an incredible £864,552 with our partnership with The Body Shop at Home. We are so grateful to our growing “Ambassador” programme within the partnership that helped to champion so much virtual fundraising in 2020.

Without physical events, our supporters were creative in raising funds virtually, and most significantly we were delighted to have so many children supporting the charity in 2020 with virtual runs and walks. 

We are grateful to so many grant makers and individuals who generously responded to the COVID-19 crisis and donated to help us respond to the emergent and ever changing needs of the communities we support. 

We were delighted to be awarded a second grant from the Postcode Global Trust; a significant investment of £250,000. We are so thankful to players of the People’s Postcode Lottery which funds the Postcode Global Trust. Funds will support safe spaces and quality education for Syrian children and boost our Early Years education programme with Congolese refugee children in Kyaka II.

We ran our second matched giving campaign with The Big Give in December 2020, investing in education for Dalit children in India. With thanks to matching funders; The Charles Jacob Charitable Trust, Pacific Star Charitable Trust and The Coles-Medlock Foundation, we were able to connect with new donors, inspire more than 150 donations and raise an incredible £44,432 during the campaign.

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