ANNUAL REPORT 2021
CHAIRPERSON’S REPORT FOR EMPILWENI AGM 2021
I stepped down as Chair in February 2021 so I am delivering this short report as the Acting Chairperson. The report covers the period from 1st April 2020 to 31st March 2021
I am pleased to report that Empilweni continues to be financially stable despite funding from several of our core funders being reduced due to the Covid 19 pandemic. While we are able to cover all our current operational expenses we are still not receiving enough funds to create a contingency fund in case our core funders are no longer in a position to fund us at all. In such an event we may have to close down at short notice. So besides needing new funding, we appeal to our existing donors and supporters to continue to assist us in any way that they can. Leaving a legacy to Empilweni in your will is a new option we are offering, so we would like to spread this information around. A document that can be used for this is now on our website. Also on our website is Empilweni’s Protection of Personal Information (POPI) policy.
We have continued to meet our service targets during lockdown thanks to the concerted efforts of the Director and staff. Given the mental health toll of the Covid 19 on both staff and clients, this has been no mean feat, and we salute all for their dedication and hard work. In May we celebrated Lulama Mfuniselwa’s 25 years of service to Empilweni. Lulama is our Service Manager. Congratulations and thank you, Lulama, for your outstanding performance. We welcomed a new social worker in April, Ande Dywili
Thanks to our Board members for their diligent attendance to all governance matters including their regular participation in Board meetings which have continued by zoom during lockdown. We welcomed Elvin Williams to the Board in March. Elvin is a lecturer in Occupational Therapy at the University of Cape Town. Sadly, we say goodbye to Ted Dowling today who has served on the Board for two years. In line with our Constitution Roshan Galvan and Esme Kleinveldt need to stand down today after serving for two years, but thankfully have made themselves available for re-election.
Finally, I would like to thank the Department of Social Development and all our donors for continuing to fund us during the lockdown recession, and our members, partners and clients for their ongoing support. All donors are listed in our Annual Report. Without your crucial support Empilweni would not be able to continue operating.
Brian Robertson, Acting Chairperson
EMPILWENI TREASURER’S REPORT OCTOBER 2021 (AGM)
Empilweni is a registered non-profit organisation and has been in operation for 27 years. It’s objective is to provide community based, child mental health support and counselling to children, adolescents, teenage mothers and all their respective families when required in both Khayelitsha and Mfuleni.
FINANCIAL STRATEGY
As an entity with limited funding, the board endeavours to ensure sustainability of the essential services that Empilweni provide. We continue to have regular zoom meetings and during COVID have corresponded regularly with ongoing cash-flows to closely monitor and control our financial situation.
ANNUAL FINANCIAL STATEMENTS
The Annual Financial Statements for the year ended 31st March 2021 have been audited by BDV Platinum, Empilweni’s independent auditors, who found that they represent a fair view of the financial position of the organisation for the past financial year. Our Donor’s will be sent a copy and copies can be made available to interested parties.
In summary, the audited Statement of Comprehensive income indicates:-
Total income for the period was R 6,374,805 (2020- 4,951,319 )
Total expenditure for the period was R 6,691,081 (2020- 4,433,058 )
Result being a surplus / (deficit) of R (306,430) (2020- 530,926 )
Of the total expenditure R 4,823,345 (2020 R2,764,930) related to the NACOSA (USAID) contract relating to an average 70 staff. All of this expenditure is reimbursed by NACOSA and we also achieved a benefit of R508,042 (2020- R210,782) for the financial year.
The past financial year and it’s cash-flow demands were eased by funding received from Lotto R100,000 Nussbaum Foundation 20,000 and 82,000 from various other supporters. Primary monthly funding from the Department of Social Development, (DSD). Remained at R856,350 covering 46% of our normal expenditure (excluding the NACOSA project) in the Financial Year ended 31st March 2021.
CURRENT FINANCIAL YEAR 2021/2022
DSD continue their monthly funding of 71,365, Lotto thankfully funded us R558, 000 in July 2021 and also the MacFarlane Family Foundation gave us R250,000, the monthly NACOSA contribution to end September was R391,496 . Thus this should cover Empilweni’s normal expenditure into the next financial year. NACOSA will continue to receive our assistance with Management of their project, but with slightly less staff and funding from October 2021. R55,928 reduced to R47,205, but this may increase and we also are optimistic that finally our VAT application will come through in October and thus save 15% on a number of our monthly purchases.
We will continuing other funding applications both within South Africa and beyond to cover any future funding shortfalls.
Finally, in lieu of a good working relationship with our Auditors BDV Platinum, I recommend a reappointment for the 2020/21 year ahead.
David H Draude FAIA, FCM
DIRECTOR’S REPORT FOR AGM 2021
COVID 19 Pandemic
Our government indicated that the Lockdown would start on the 26 March and we decided to close Empilweni on the 23rd of March to give staff an opportunity to go to the Eastern Cape or buy supplies before the buying frenzy started on the 25th March. Empilweni opened on the 4 May.2020. Our experience was that we had no walk in clients and no referrals from partners. We tried to contact partner organisations but most were still closed. Schools are a very important referral partner for us so this was a challenge for us. A high rate of COVID 19 infected citizens in Khayelitsha resulted in most organisations being closed and clients were cautious to venture outside.
Our service implementation was done from home from 11 May.2020. Staff members would counsel and support our current caseload via the telephone and if it was necessary make appointments with specific clients to meet them at our office for counselling sessions. We could not host groups in this time due to government regulations. Our Child and Youth Care Workers distributed food parcels to the HIV Positive children’s families that they serviced. The Child and Youth Care Workers were almost robbed of the food parcels by a group of people and we decided that the families must come and collect the food parcels at the nearest police station.
We managed to raise R70 000 for food parcels over the period. Staff were motivated and aware that we had to play a role in the pandemic in a safe manner but we were concerned that the Empilweni Office should not be a source of infection for the community and adversely influence the community’s opinion of us.
In June we started a roster where staff would come to the office when it was their turn. Staff contacted clients from home on the days that they were not at the office. Alicia and Lulama was tasked to screen clients and Alicia made sure that counselling spaces were cleaned after individual client visits. We maintained a strict COVID 19 screening of clients and visitors. In the period from August until 9 November 2020 no Empilweni main project staff member or Child and Youth Care Worker contracted COVID 19.
Fundraising
Social Development indicated that they will continue to give the normal transfer amount during the pandemic period. We managed to get R5500 from the Jet Lee Will Trust in .May. I applied to Lotteries for COVID relief funding and they gave us R100 000 in June.
NACOSA indicated that they have applied to USAID to increase the services of the programme and to extend it to Metro East (Mfuleni). Empilweni currently has 40 Child and Youth Care Workers and they want to increase it to 79 Child and Youth Care Workers in Khayelitsha and Mfuleni. We would then be responsible for the human resource management of 79 Child and Youth Care Workers.
Fundraising has been very difficult in this economic climate for many organisations. Less funding was available to support organisations and organisations were experiencing a decrease in funding. Many funders were very prescriptive in what they were willing to fund and make this very clear in their call for proposals. The Solidarity Fund’s focus was Gender Based Violence and slowing the spread of COVID 19.
Due to the higher unemployment rate the need for food aid increased. Organisations that provide cooked meals had increased and the funding for food aid had also increased. Government had also increased their efforts by distributing food parcels themselves. We provided food parcels in the beginning of the COVID lockdown and the amount of organisations that were doing it has now substantially increased.
Social Development indicated that the Auditor General would visit a few organisations who were funded by the Department of Social Development. The representative of the office of the Auditor General visited Empilweni in September and went through our files and took pictures of the Empilweni site.
USAID did an online SIMS Monitoring and Evaluation process with the Empilweni Isibindi Impilo Khayelitsha and the outcome was very good.
Staff had their mid-year appraisal on the 2 October. We had reached our mid-year target for counselling but did not manage our group work target due to the COVID 19 restrictions in terms of gathering of groups. We managed to devise a plan to reach all our targets by the end of March 2021 through extra effort in individual counselling and online group facilitation.
William Williams
Director
SERVICE MANAGER’S REPORT FOR AGM 2021
This was a year full of good things and stressful challenges among us as team Empilweni but through good support and good networking, we survived. Lulama Mfuniselwa celebrated the 25th year of his excellent service with Empilweni since the organization was established in 1996. We were joined by Ande Dywili in March as a Social worker and she is enjoying the service we provide to our communities of operation (khayelitsha and Emfuleni). We developed a very strong partnership with NACOSA in managing and assisting with clinical services they have called Isibindi-Impilo, William, Lulama and Alicia are hands on and assist managing and developing the programme..
We are working under very strenuous conditions as covid-19 is changing its self in many ways and affecting our operations at different levels. Family and relatives, clients and people we know are infected and affected, and some even died. We had good internal and external support from the Board, team working spirit, Clinical Psychologist support, and also the Social work supervisor and our funders were a great influence to help us wake up every morning and perform our duties well.
The status of our service is well recognized not only by our beneficiaries but also by new organisations and researchers that want to start providing services in our community. Forums need our involvement as they recognize our service and years of experience. Even Universities want to place their students at Empilweni. We have lots of students and volunteers who want to come and gain experience. We are mentoring the staff of other organizations and they also ask for coaching on running their organization.
Children and families refer one another to our service and parents are also referred appropriately for help with their different needs and stress relief. Parents of our beneficiaries are reminded of our donation box in the front office to contribute to the organization. For me their donations are a big sign of community participation and ownership of the service by our own residents.
We saw an increase in numbers for teen pregnancy this year from the age of 12 years and this is one of the problems caused by Covid-19 where schools are not in their normal routine and supervision at home is not there while parents are busy with economic challenges. It was worrying the team and was happening at a very bad time where Covid-19 needs us to keep a distance but we managed to be creative to develop a strategy in communicating online than than to fold our arms, so we run awareness programmes, facilitate groups and deal with clients one on one counselling.
Lots of families benefitted from the screening phase of our service because it’s a consultation done by the Service Manager and two social workers that provides pre and post counselling with psycho-education of both parent and the child. Assessments are most powerful stage of the process as this is where families will have a good opportunity to share and be asked about their children from zero age till when the problem started. It helps the parents to understand the problem they experienced and start getting them engaged and ready to go to places of appropriate referral. Our team meeting fortnightly plays as a sharpening tool for our work because it’s where we can monitor our progress. Staff wellness is an energizing programme because it help us to unpack the client issues and avoid burnout.
DIAGNOSES COMMONLY TREATED IN OUR CLINIC
Substance Abuse i.e. for those experimenting, not regular users
Relational problems – issues with their care givers.
Trauma i.e. Post-Traumatic stress disorder,
Anxiety, Sexual Abuse, Bereavement, Scholastic problems
These client diagnoses predominate in our assessment and treatment and more commonly are female than male which is different to previous years where we had more males attending.
On the theme of World Mental Health Day “MENTAL HEALTH IN AN UNEQUAL WORLD “ I would like to share my sincerely heartfelt sympathy to all those who find themselves in challenging situations.
Thanks to all stakeholders, friends and special thanks go to Our Funders in this time of economic change.
Lulama Mfuniselwa, Service Manager
THANKS TO OUR DONORS
Department of Social Development
National Lotteries Commission
NACOSA
Rolf Stephan Nussbaum Foundation
Given Gain
Ryan Foundation
Jet Lee Will Trust
Sh’Zen
Dr. Ivor and Cora Jardine
Cathy Ward
Wendy Vogel
Mark & Sylvia Midgley
Chris Zissis
Liz Robertson
Brian Robertson
Jozo Maslov
Ivy Ellick
Big thanks to all our partner schools under Western Cape Department of Education, private schools and our partners, Clinical Psychologists, Psychiatrists, Nurses in our government hospitals ,Thuthuzela clinic, Social development Khayelitsha, FAMSA, Rape crisis , Fikelela, Nonceba Family Counselling center, Home from Home , Simameleni , Homestead, Mosaic, Vukani Local paper, Nonceba, Cape Mental Health and Safico IT.