Annual Report 2019
DEDICATED FOR CHANGE
We consider international development collaboration that honours equal partnership, as the only way to eradicate extreme poverty, conclude forced migration, ensure fair international trade, enable independent professional governments, offer employment opportunities for all and establish
social security systems in all countries.
Message from the CEO
We consider social enterprising as the only way to become free from aid dependency within the international development domain, and thus the only way forward towards equal partnership international development. We may seek collaboration with the Traditional Aid sector for developing new tools and for having and influence on the traditional aid approach (a transition from aid dependency to equal partnership between independent institutions). We will avoid being donor driven, consequently will we not create a situation where our expenses are dependent on grants or aid consultancies. Our normal expenses including core costs and salaries will always be secured by our own firm income from selling our products and service, as a professional social enterprise.
One important expected source of income are our social businesses in Africa. It shall be noted though that the businesses in Africa are not expected to generate income in the near future, due to that it takes time to establish the mutual trust, transparency, accountability, management and efficiency. On the other hand, when the procedures are in place, we expect our social enterprises to out-manage the traditional development aid, we expect them to eradicate international development challenges and be financially very strong.
Financial Analysis
Financially the period 2015 – 2019 has been characterized by bootstrapping and volunteer work. The founder has contributed with capital when income was low. The income consisted of three consultancy assignments and one Major Giver donation. One Major Giver donation created the foundation ActionInvest capital, which was invested and regained. The expenses were limited to fees for co-working space, bank, website, telephone and insurance.
Operation Report
The operations at the HQ in Stockholm have been strong while dependent on volunteer work by our volunteer staff and internees. We have improved our tools, strengthened our partnerships and interventions, taken on new assignments and enlarged our network. Most of our partners and and interventions have been visited once or several times. The operations among our Country partners have also been firm. Interventions have been concluded as impact has been reached, strengthened while ongoing, and initiated as new opportunities arises. Challenges have been faced, lessons learned and compiled, and reimbursements have been paid according to agreements.
Management Report
The 2019 annual report captures the development since the founding of the company in 2015. The report also captures the collaboration between HR&S and Action10, since the founding of Action10 in 2009. Action10 was created to test the Founder’s idea in actual practice, in order to assess whether the idea was doable. If the ideas made sense the plan was to to register a social enterprise. The idea made a lot of sense and HR&S was registered in 2015. Action10 was set up as a volunteer driven organisation with no employed staff and the lowest possible administration cost (3%). Thus, Action10 and HR&S share the save value platform and approach and Action10 is now supported by HR&S to cover gaps that necessarily arises in a volunteer driven organisation. Action10 pilots some of the new programmes with new partners, allowing time and collaboration to enable our innovative approach. Successful pilots are taken up by HR&S, which allows for a scaling-up.
Active assignments during 2019
We have taken on 44 assignments in collaboration with a variety of partners. Some are on-hold for different reasons (please find detailed information in the section on Lessons learned) and some have been concluded as impact has been reached. During 2018 we worked actively on 21 assignments.
- Basic education with sustainable economy & children abuse prevention Togo
- Community services Kenya
- Ghetto interventions & survey addressing former child soldiers Liberia
- Waste management in slum areas Liberia
- Promoting local handicraft by former child soldiers; knitted items glass-pearl items Liberia
- Botanical Reintegration Village Liberia
- Back2Shool Nigeria
- Promoting local handicraft; Shea butter Togo
- Promoting local handicraft; West African fabric tailored items Togo
- Early pregnancies prevention & tailoring training Togo
- Research management workshops; Zambia, Zimbabwe, Burkina Faso, Togo, Mali
- An office established ready to create central laboratories with sustainable economy Nigeria
- Offering light and homework support in rural areas in the evenings Togo
- Installing sustainable solar-panel businesses in villages Togo
- Adding value to crop Liberia
- Improved irrigation Togo
- Installing sustainable milling businesses Togo
- Radio call-in to ask questions to stigmatised citizens Liberia
- Promoting local handicraft; baskets, jewelleries Rwanda
- Promoting local handicraft; jewelleries and cards Uganda
- Promoting local handicraft; tailored clothes in fabric East African style Kenya
Country Partners in 2019
We have been collaborating with 15 different Country partners in seven African sub-Saharan countries during 2019.
- S.E.VIE
- IDEFOCS
- SpellAfrica
- LIP
- PSAN
- STYLOS
- Amani Women group
- Dolas Creation
- Mr. “Rasta”
- Ms. JeanetteTIDJOUGUENA
- Ms. Délali ADEDJÉ
- Mr. Bernard OMONY
- Turtle Ghetto, Du Pont Road Ghetto and Kink Grey Ghetto Community leaders
- Little Bassa Community leaders
- Local karitée producers in Togo
THE YEAR AHEAD
Increased visibility and stronger support to our partners.
The year ahead 2019 will be focused on business as usual in terms of networking among all of our categories of partners, continue to initiate new initiatives, get established in new African Sub-Saharan countries, increase the number of (volunteer) staff, seek grants and consultancies. Two new targets for 2019 is a more professional out-reach and seeking sources of funding outside the traditional international development sector. A more professional outreach includes an upgraded website and new potential sources of funding during 2019 include crowd-funding, Major Givers, our shop, and our travels.
Acknowledgement
We are for ever thankful to all of our Country partners, who fight for development in a professional way, often under challenging conditions. We appreciate you and we admire you. We appreciate our Advisory Board for guidance. We are also grateful to the amazing team of Action10 volunteers who bring new ideas and manages the Action10 programme on a volunteer basis. We thank the financial contributors of Action10. We want to acknowledge M.Sc. Caroline Brundin for visiting three of our partners and making an academic assessment of TAct, Ms. Inez Is, and Mr. Tancrède Chambraud for visiting our partners and sharing updates about our tools.
We are grateful to Assoc. Prof. Anna Ågren for guiding us with expert advise through our Ebola prevention intervention and to Åsa Schlyter, our first Major Giver. We thank M.Sc. Johanna Öman for Website design and development, Mr. Joseph Cooper for the innovation of ROPEdata and Ms. Cathy Xiao Chen for continuous encouragement and professional visibility support over the years. Thank you Melissa Dixon, Stephensen Gyamfi, Romina Carrasco, and Anders Kinding for extraordinarily work on a volonteer basis.