About the organisation
The Venkat Trust provides and improves education for the children of Kovalam. This includes buildings, equipment and teachers. Our sponsorship scheme brings more than 400 children under the protective wing of the Trust, matching them with sponsors from the UK and elsewhere and guiding them through their school and further education. Our Brighter Futures Fund pays for the village’s young people to go onto university or vocational training. Thousands of Kovalam’s children have been supported by and benefited from the Venkat Trust since it was set up in 2004 and have had access to excellent education, pastoral support and the opportunity of a fulfilling career and route out of poverty.
About the role
We are looking for help to complete our accounts for the Charity Commission, due on 31 January 2027. Our annual income is generally around £200,000.
The accounts are not complete and we would need help with this. We have all the information as our bank statements are reconciled every month using a custom-made Excel system. We can provide the annual totals for individuals, corporate, restricted and unrestricted, legacies etc. Once a year we receive details of the annual outgoings in India, which comprise money paid to sponsored children, university fees, salaries and all the usual overheads.
Our ideal candidate
Our ideal candidate would be a qualified accountant who has experience of small charity accounts.
What’s in it for you
Your help would be of huge assistance to a small charity which achieves so much despite having no UK staff and no overheads - all our costs here are paid by the trustees and all the money raised goes to our work in India.
The Trust was set up on a wing and a prayer in August 2004 to bring education to the poor fishing village of Kovalam, near Chennai in South India which had no free secondary school.
That was 23 years ago; today that then poor village is a village of educational excellence, the higher secondary school we built for a thousand pupils has been named the best free school in the state of Tamil Nadu. From a life of poverty, the village now has hundreds of graduates, many of them with brilliant careers, all with ambitions which are being fulfilled. On behalf of the Venkat Trust, our Founder Sylvia Holder was awarded the British Empire Medal (BEM) and won The Times Sternberg Award.
Can you help us? It would make all the difference.
Apply for the role
Please provide a short cover note setting out your motivations for volunteering for the organisation, any relevant skills/experience and why you think you might be a suitable candidate.
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