Policy Plan 2018

Policy Plan 2018

Stichting Studiehulp Kay-Kok

Board: Mw. J. du Bois-Minholts, president

Mw. L.M. Kuijer, secretary

Mw. R. van der Kroef, treasurer

Website: http://ileavache.blogspot.com/

Email adres: reinhildevdk@gmail.com

Bank : NL06TRIO 0391025457

Address: Jensemaheerd 147, 9736 CK Groningen, The Netherlands

Postal address : Postbus 1485, 9701 BL Groningen, The Netherlands

Telephone: + 31 654786602

RSIN: 8555.41.143

Here we finally come up with the Policy Plan 2018 of the Stichting Studiehulp Kay-Kok. Under this post you will find the annual and the financial reports of the Foundation in the year 2017 being published as well. 

Who, what, where, how?

We start with some statistics to allow you to get an impression of the progress of our project in relation to the candidates we tested in 2015. 

If we will be successful to collect again sufficient funds in 2018, the 2 students still awaiting admittance can start their study in the academic year 2018/2019. If more funding will become available, we can supplement these 2 with the best from the second group from the tests. 

Funding is mainly found in our personal social network. Though we would be grateful to find also institutionalized sponsors (like schools and enterprises) that are willing to financially adopt one or more students, it appears that this is very difficult. We tried this several times, but failed so far. Of course we will grab any opportunity to broaden our financial basis, and we will keep on looking for this kind of sponsors, but on the other hand we have to be realistic on what we spend our limited time and energy and to take care in the first place we keep those sponsors we have.

Objectives 2018

• Objective in 2018 is to send once more 5 to 10 students from Kay-Kok, Ile a Vache to vocational training courses in the city of Les Cayes. To enable this we need to raise sufficient funds, which of course will be the biggest challenge, while this year we will have to do without the very important contribution that was made available the last 2 years via extra fundraising in Switzerland .
  Although we have gained some experience, both with the collection of funds and organizing schooling, housing, school supplies and food, Haiti continues to confront us with surprises. The project should therefore always be carried out with creativity and flexibility and keep a considerable financial buffer.
• While one of the goals of the Foundation is to be active during a period of 5 years we have to start to prepare for the last 2 years: strictly interpreted as off the course 2018/2019 (the 4^th year of functioning) we cannot take in students for courses that take longer than 2 years. When we have sufficient financial room to phase out (with those students still attending school) we could add for those already attending courses in the 5^th year, an extra 6^th year. This decision we have to make dependent on the amount of money we will be able to raise for such an extra year. We should discuss this issue with our main sponsors by the end of 2018, while by the start of the course 2019/2020 this should be clear.
• By deciding about admittance to our program we will also take into account the perspectives for work of the studies chosen as we will look to the distribution between the type of studies the students applied for. For example: we helped already 3 people to become electricians, so from now on we prefer to take in students who want to learn other professions. 
• Ensure that the schools we use perform as expected (see also Annual Report 2017) and that the students we take in engage themselves to finish their studies and not to quit prematurely.
• As to the housing: try to encourage the students to find places to stay by themselves, especially female ones, while in the rented house they cannot stay mixed, and renting a second place is very expensive, as we have experienced in the course of 2016/2017. When we end up with only 2 students in the rented house, we should consider cheaper solutions. 

 

Main challenges 2018

1.  As mentioned above, in 2018  the contribution of our Swiss fundraisers will come to an end. This will mean we have to find alternative ways to achieve the same financial results as we did in 2017.  If this will not be possible, we have to reduce the quantity of new students. The goal is to collect an amount of € 6,800, through the focused approach of individual supporters/sponsors (small businesses, Dutch schools and individuals). This amount should be sufficient to cover the tuition for the 4 students in the school year 2018/2019 (3 for their second year and at least one new one) and to keep a reasonable buffer.
2. At the other end of the bill we observe that several courses are becoming more expensive: for educational reasons we choose to use a more expensive technical school, which provides a wider range of courses. Several schools ask extra fees for the examinations and graduations, and expenses in contributions to materials and internships also grow. These costs often come up only during the course, resulting in unforeseen higher costs per student than estimated. For this reason it is important to keep a considerable percentage of the budget up our sleeve. 
3. Since we are not able to offer him a perspective on a career inside the limited goals of our project, our local cooperator, Nickenson St firmin had to try to find a (paid) job elsewhere. For this reason he had to travel abroad and he was replaced by his mother, Madame Joleine. She is now in charge of the payments to the schools and the students, and executes the local project management. Fortunately all knowledge and experience are still available to her, but we have to observe carefully if things are still working out as smoothly as we were used to, especially on the level of the communication with and feed back towards us. Final responsibility still rests with Nickenson St firmin.
4. For the first time since we started one of our students quit his studies prematurely (end of 2017). Fortunately we were able to replace him by another candidate (with only a small extra payment) , but still this incident is something that we have to prevent to happen again. To do this we will ask our local collaborator to have a personal talk with every student, before admitting them, to show them that we take a responsibility for their studies, but that in return they have an obligation to study sincerely and to finish the program they applied for.  

Finance

For the academic year 2017/18, we had (in January 2018) available + € 12 000, - from donations, of which by December 2017 we spent nearly € 7000,-. Based on our experiences so far the cost per person per year should be set on $ 1700, -. The expenditures for the academic year 2017/2018 are thus well covered.
The school fees for the six students amount for the course 2017/2018 to + $ 2700, -. This is considerably more than the year before, due to the type of courses that were chosen and the necessity to change schools, the incident with the student that quit our program , and the change of schools because of the course that was cancelled.
 In the academic year 2017-2018 an average of $ 300,- per person is being spent on schooling materials (books, tools, internships) in the first year of the studies. Diplomas and graduations(also cost extra money, but the amounts vary considerably. So far the conclusion is we have to reckon with amounts of about € 250,-- per person. The graduation of a student in Haiti is supposed to go with some kind of a party (food and drinks), but we decided that to pay for this is possible by our project.
In June 2018 we will decide about the admittance of new students for the academic year of 2018/2019. Every € 1700,-- we collect above € 6800,-- will pay for a extra student. 

Remuneration policy

The Board nor any other person in any way involved in the Stichting Studiehulp Kay-Kok receives remuneration or compensation for their work from the funds of the foundation. Our on site collaborator or his representative receives for his/her work nor a reward or compensation of the Foundation (see also under "our local collaborator” in the Annual Report). (S)He does have access to a small amount of cash (max. 5% of the budget) to cover common administrative and similar costs.