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
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 4th 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 5th year, an extra 6th 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
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
