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2009 was a huge year for IMFA. The three big projects we have been working on for years all came to fruition at once. We have this brilliant web-site, Los Pollitos have three new classrooms and we are now recognised by HMRC as a charity for tax purposes.
As you can see the site is full of great photographs, background information and News. Do keep visiting as we are keeping it up to date. In the next few months we hope to launch a Spanish version so the teachers and parents can feel more involved. Special thanks to George Young for all his hard work in building and maintaining the site.
At the end of November we finally achieved charitable status for tax purposes. This means we can claim back the tax paid from donations. In other words, providing all our supporters sign up, the school will get 28% more money. It is government money so it should be a stringent process but it has involved an enormous amount of work mainly carried out by Helen. We now have a 10 page constitution, a mission statement, risk assessments, child protection policies, evaluation forms and a business plan!
The first request to build more classrooms came in 2005 but at that time we could see no possibility of raising enough money. Even in June last year when we sent just over £4000 we only expected one room to be built. But by getting labour and cheap materials from the council and with an additional £2000 from us, we now have three almost finished classrooms. Another thousand pounds (when we can raise it) will buy windows, lighting, paint and guttering but even without these I’m sure the classrooms will be in service next year and Los Pollitos will become a full Primary as well as a Nursery school. This is something the parents have dreamt about for years. The teachers apologised for not sending more recent photographs but they couldn’t borrow a camera (anyone got a spare?).
The extra cash from gift aid has come at just the right time because three new classrooms mean three more teachers. Fortunately the pound appears to have stabilised at a reasonable level and we now have 28 Sponsors. We also had an excellent year of pub quizzes, everyone had a great time and we raised nearly £1,500. This has been crucial for funding the building work but we will need to maintain that effort and continue to increase the number of Sponsors if we are to offer anything near a living wage to 9 teachers. We also need to continue searching for new members (or Trustees as I should now call them) as nearly all the work is carried out by six people. Please email me on contact@imfa.org if you’d like to come to a meeting to see what we are like.
For the moment though, it’s time for thanks to all the Sponsors, quiz setters, to those who have turned up on Friday evenings and who have eaten the food we’ve sold. Ernestina estimates that over 50 ex pupils of Los Pollitos are currently studying at university and this from a tiny school in one of the poorest barrios in the second poorest country in Latin America. You can make a difference.
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