Report 2023

Start-of-year balance CHF 5,133.

Income CHF 11,800: Regular monthly donations from four donors.

Applications received: 74 Theological Studies + 11 Personal Need.

Payments GBP 6,809: 52 grants have been made as follows:

• 2,437 Theological College fees (25 students, nearly all finalists (BA4 or MTh2))
• 4,200 Bible Translation Consultants in training (monthly support) – 3 individuals
• 182 Food and Relief supplies
• 472 IDPs
• 679 Health care (cornea op.)
• 313 Primary school fees

End-of-year balance CHF 8,650.

Activity is thus comparable to previous years.

Extracts from thank-you letters and spending reports and full detailed accounts are available to donors on request.

Report 2022

Start-of-year balance GBP 2,092.

Income GBP 9,300: All regular monthly donations from four donors.

Applications received: 72 Theological Studies + 24 Personal Need + c. 20 by email.

Payments GBP 6,809: 52 grants have been made as follows:

• 2,791 Theological College fees (28 students, prioritising finalists)
• 2,160 Bible Translation Consultants in training (monthly support) – 3 individuals
• 261 Food
• 502 IDPs
• 241 Health care
• 55 Primary school fees
• 799 Ajamin Hausa and Chadian Arabic Bibles for free distribution

End-of-year balance GBP 4,583.

Activity is thus comparable to the previous two years.

Extracts from thank-you letters and spending reports and full detailed accounts are available to donors on request.

Peace Ambassador’s Award

The Hesed Fund is honoured to receive this award from Sower’s Ministries:

The coordinator, 
Hesed funds.

Sir

Greetings to you and all management of the Hesed funds. On behalf of the Sower’s ministries international, we wish to share our profound gratitude to you for all the support you granted us to reach out to humanity in different ways over the years of our partnership. Your support has really helped us to reach out to inmates in prisons, sick patients in the hospitals, internally displaced persons, physically challenged persons, widows and orphans, we affected the society positively by preaching the message of peace. You have changed our perspectives about brotherliness and inter-faith coexistence. Today we have learned to bridge the differences created by religion extremism and ethnicity leading to violence, terrorism, kidnapping, banditry etc. The Sower’s is now recognize and accepted by the Muslim council of Adamawa state as the only Christian organization that can address 21 local government Imams, and Chairmen of the Muslim council right in their state secretariat three times. This year we are awarding some stakeholders as peace ambassadors, among which we have Imams, Alhajis. We have four Muslims and four Christians. This understanding is all because of you shaping our minds. Our unique approach of using sports to preach peace is giving us a huge breakthrough. We have started the inter-faith football peace tournament on Monday and will end on 21st September, 2022 to mark international peace day 2022. Each team is expected to register equal number of Muslims and Christians before the are registered to participate in the tournament. Please accept our humble offer of award as a sign of our recognition of your silent work for humanity in Nigeria and the world as our peace ambassadors. 

Yours sincerely

Ozumba Emmanuel Nicodemus
Founder

Report 2021

Start-of-year balance GBP 4,683.

Income GBP 9,460: Nearly all regular monthly donations.

Applications received: 60 Theological Studies + 13 Personal Need + c. 25 by email.

Payments GBP 12,051: 49 grants have been made as follows:

• 4,167 Theological College fees (prioritising finalists)
• 2,100 Bible Translation Consultants in training (monthly support) – 3 individuals
• 181 medical case
• 87 primary school fees
• 1,272 major projects of partner organisations (IDP camp Maiduguri, N’Djaména churches)
• 4,242 Ajamin Hausa Bibles (funds returned to donors + 1,165 held separately = 5,407)

End-of-year balance GBP 2,092.

Activity has slowed due to COVID, a block on certain activities due to a spate of fraudulent applications in 2020, the CBN forex policy, and many incomplete applications.

Extracts from thank-you letters and spending reports and full detailed accounts are available to donors on request.

Report 2020

Start-of-year balance GBP 2,981.

Income GBP 14,895: Approximately 50% regular monthly donations and 50% larger one-off gifts. The total is very close to the ideal level of GBP 15,000 (as per last year’s report) – large enough for us to do something significant, but still small enough for us to administer it responsibly.

Payments GBP 13,193: Grants have been made as follows:

• 4,339 Theological College fees (prioritising finalists) – similar to last year
• 1,800 Bible Translation Consultants in training (monthly support) – now 3 individuals at the same level as last year (as per last year’s report)
• 1,262 medical cases (head injury, ileostomy, heart & liver problems, road traffic accident, wheelchairs etc.)
• 67 primary school fees
• 3,218 major projects of partner organisations (IDP camps Maiduguri, Yola Peace programme, N’Djaména COVID relief)
• 2,018 poverty relief (bereavement, ethnic crisis, bomb blast, COVID)
• 489 Bible translation and distribution

(The fund still holds GBP 5,407 in trust for Ajamin Hausa Bibles, due to be published in 2021.)

End-of-year balance GBP 4,683.

Approximately half of applications are unsuccessful, usually due to misreading the terms of the Fund or making speculative applications. A particular problem this year has been fraudulent applications for wheelchairs and assistance to widows (the Fund has clearly become known to scammers!); this resulted in a partial lockdown of the Fund in the latter part of the year. In December, we heard that the Central Bank of Nigeria has blocked transfers direct to Nigerian bank accounts, greatly impacting our work until we find an alternative.

Extracts from thank-you letters and spending reports and full detailed accounts are available to donors on request.

Payments to Nigeria

We regret that many payments have been delayed due to many fraudulent applications and others submitted without adequate evidence.

We have also now received this message from our main transfer service:

We are working to find an alternative money transfer method, such as a reliable partner holding accounts in both Nigeria and Europe. In the meantime, we regret that our services are very restricted.

With all sincere good wishes for the holiday season!

Report 2019

Start-of-year balance GBP 1573.81.

Income GBP 8395.19: This is up from 2018. It could happily grow back to around GBP 15,000 (2014-16 levels) without overburdening the administration or prejudicing the small-scale character of the Fund.

Payments GBP 6988: Grants have been made as follows:

• 4006 Theological College fees (prioritising finalists)
• 1200 Translation Consultants in training (monthly support)
• 829 medical cases (cervical cancer, VVF, amputation (gangrene), hepatitis, miscarriage, kidney transplant etc.)
• 391 primary and middle school fees
• 562 major projects of partner organisations (Adamawa hospital visit, Borno IDPs)

(The fund still holds 5407 in trust for Ajamin Hausa Bibles, due to be published in 2020.)

End-of-year balance GBP 2981.

In 2020, we plan to:

• be stricter in our prioritisation of final-year theological students (we expect well over 100 applications in Jan-Feb 2020)
• start supporting at least one further Translation Consultant in training
• slightly increase our giving to health and school fees
• increase our giving to IDPs (though this is particularly problematic, as it usually requires mediation by a partner, and hence a high level of trust)

In its 20-year history, the Hesed Fund has managed well over GBP 110,000, mostly in small grants to help needy individuals. Please pray for us that we will always be faithful and discerning stewards, always compassionate and generous.

Extracts from thank-you letters and spending reports and full detailed accounts are available to donors on request.

Report Aug-Nov 2019

In this period, in addition to regular commitments to Bible translation interns etc., the Fund has assisted with:

• children’s schoolfees for three families (widows and orphans)
• food for IDPs in a camp near Maiduguri
• health and welfare needs of two TCNN students
• and TCNN fees for five exceptional cases (who were unable to pay even the 50/70% required by the College this semester)

Alongside these 11 successful applications have been over 50 other applications from TCNN students, which have been unsuccesful due to not reading the form correctly, not providing adequate evidence, not belonging to one of the relevant categories or applying the wrong time of year.

Regular TCNN fees applications for the final 25-30% due will be accepted in Jan-Feb 2020. Applicants must belong to at least one of the relevant categories of support as stated on the form, and complete documentation must be provided, including evidence of any special circumstances (e.g. bereavement, theft).

Fund Status

Since the beginning of this year, the Fund has disbursed around GBP 3,000 in small grants to over 30 individuals – mostly for school fees or theological college fees. As a result, funds are currently depleted and we are only able to assist with top priority cases, such as final-year students who have experienced severe personal crisis.

Much peace to all our Nigerian friends in this election season!

Report 2018

Income GBP 6431: This is about half of that of previous years, reflecting several circumstantial factors. As a result, we for the first time made a small appeal for extra funding in December (which however yielded nothing).

Payments GBP 9253: Grants have been made to:

• TCNN fees (prioritising finalists) 4295
• Translation Consultants in training (monthly support) 1200
• primary school fees (Nigeria and Ghana) 442
• medical cases (hypospadias, lipoma)
• attendance at a mission conference (various West African nationalities at SGCC, not including flights) 1938
• major projects of partner organisations (Borno widows twice, Rivers flood relief, Bauchi medical outreach, Adamawa prison visit) 1222.

The fund still holds 5407 in trust for Ajamin Hausa Bibles, has one outstanding loan repayment overdue of 318 and has become aware of one grave case of diversion of funds (OW).

We have received encouraging reports on the health of those assisted with medical expenses last year, though one child with cancer has now been withdrawn from medical care in the belief that the problem is best resolved through spiritual means (FL). It remains painful to have to say no to requests for help with kidney dialysis; two such applicants have died in the last year

Several beneficiaries have sent encouraging letters of thanks; extracts from these, further details on the above and full detailed accounts are available to donors on request.

End-of-year balance 1573.