Charity Status

Friends of African Nursing (FoAN) was registered as a charity, by the Charity Commissioners of England and Wales in February 2006. Charity Registration Number 1113054

Brief Overview of 2008

Meeting charitable objectives

The Board of Trustees met on 3 occasions during 2008. We have continued to build on charity governance, transparency and new requirements of the Charity Commissioners. We updated the website and whilst the traffic continues to elicit interest and enquiries, it has not assisted the fundraising efforts in the way we had hoped that it might.

We have welcomed to the Board, Graham Merriam who has assisted us to a much greater understanding of our costs by providing regular management accounts. We have thus been able to assess the potential costs of each visit, and to budget more effectively. In difficult economic times, we must make even better use of every single penny raised and donated to our funds.

We have had a number of individual donations of considerable value, which will help enormously to meet the objectives of the charity. We thank each individual and organisation who has donated monies to FoAN in 2008, we are most grateful.

We value the contact and enthusiasm of Martha Loefler in Nairobi and her support to FoAN as well as colleagues in NNAK who give us opportunities to speak at their annual conference. In addition we are very grateful to all those who continue to raise funds on our behalf by a variety of means and to all those who contribute magnificently assisting with education delivery. Without the support of our corporate partners Johnson and Johnson Professional Export, Ethicon and Molnlycke Healthcare Ltd we would be unable to extend our reach as far as we do.

Enthusiasm for the objectives of FoAN has been established by numbers of colleagues in Canada, and Australia we continue to explore ways of developing chapters to support FoAN (UK) in those countries.

Meeting education objectives

We visited a number of countries during the year, to deliver the education programmes which are our core business. Individual visit reports are included on this website. We were approached by a number of new contacts asking for our assistance in delivering education. In order to prioritise need, the Board has developed a selection process using criteria particularly focussed on poverty and HIV/Aids levels in countries. The connection between these and poor access to education and healthcare, is well established. New perioperative organisations have started in Botswana and Ghana after encouragement from FoAN. Links have been facilitated by FoAN between perioperative tutors and Schools of Theatre Nursing in Lusaka and Accra.

Working with WHO has been an important new educational aspect for FoAN. We have assisted as expert advisors with the development of the surgical checklist and the Safe Surgery Saves Lives Campaign and will as a partnering organisation help to disseminate the message in Africa, at every opportunity. Kate Woodhead was invited as a result of experience in Africa, to be a temporary advisor to the World Alliance for Patient Safety in 2007-8.

Mission and values

FoAN is a family-friendly, hands-on charity with whom our Board, volunteers and nursing colleagues can feel personally engaged. We will actively seek to bring out of Africa and disseminate good practices and benefits for international healthcare systems.

Mission

To facilitate the development and improvement of patient care and nursing practice in Africa

Values

We believe that the work we deliver is driven by our mission statement and our value systems. FoAN will live its values through:

The Board of Trustees comprises:
Kate Woodhead- Independent Healthcare Consultant and Co- Founder, Chair of the Board- Friends of African Nursing
Lesley Fudge –Independent Healthcare Consultant and Co- Founder FoAN
Debbie Lee - Independent Healthcare Consultant and Trustee.
Jackie Younger - Independent Healthcare Consultant and Trustee.
Graham Merriam – Treasurer.

For further information, please use the Contact Us area of the website.