With JOA setting a new course for one of their many charitable activities – to provide accountancy professionals’ services to charities and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) outside of Jersey, building knowledge and proficiency – I could not miss my opportunity to combine three things I love doing… my job, travelling and sharing with others.
My volunteering placement took me to organisations in Malawi, Africa. All of them have been long supported by the UK donor, Tools For Self-Reliance (TFSR). I was due for travel in November/December 2024, but my departure got delayed by logistics at the destination. In January 2025 I finally took off and landed in rainy but warm Africa. I was very excited and a little scared at the same time. Africa is such a giant!
The NGOs I worked with place the utmost priority on demonstrating a high level of management integrity and uncompromising controls on donated funds. This provides the donors and potential sponsors with confidence to fund the NGO’s projects and activities. In other words, the quality of financial presentation and reliability of the organisational financial reporting is the golden key to opening doors to existing and new charitable projects.
By looking at the map of Malawi, I saw my first two assignments were not far from the capital city of Lilongwe. The other two charities took me out of the capital city, into the rural area of Nkhotakota (Kota), five hours drive towards the well-known and special Lake Malawi; that is so long (to be precise 365 miles making it ‘the calendar lake’) that the ferry Ilala takes several days to cross from one end to another; and is so wide that the other side of the lake bank, stretching to Tanzania and Mozambique, cannot be seen over the curve of the Earth’s horizon.
Here in Kota the two NGOs were beautifully organised and proficient in running Quickbooks software system. My presence underlined the management’s confidence in the run-up to their organisational audit period. On their request, I reviewed current procedures and financials. I also got an opportunity to tuck into creating procurement document templates, specified to the organisational procurement procedure. Some of these procurement documents are not available to purchase in Malawi – hence we produced them.
One of the NGOs utilises a newly acquired modern ambulance with full medical equipment, providing a mobile medical clinic in remote places where a doctor’s help is a day’s walk away. Their diverse activities are well-recognised within the Malawian community.
The other two NGOs operating in the capital city receive smaller funds from fewer donors but are continuously and steadily growing. I got highly involved in practical training to use the newly introduced Excel management reporting templates. The aim of this was to equip the users to produce the utmost transparent and accurate reporting for their donors. I enjoyed creating stepping stones for NGOs in Excel administration for bookkeepers, and management control accountancy.
All the NGOs I visited established their presence over fifteen years ago. The number of donors varies from one to fifteen. Their charitable efforts touch farmers and would-be farmers, provide vocational skills and activities for youth, and focus on remote areas where villages do not have access to medical or food supplies. Often, these areas are also affected by flooding, and at these times people are extremely vulnerable, lacking access to basic hygiene and clean water sources.
The vocational skills training delivered by these NGOs include: cooking, farming, sewing, fashion design, welding, carpentry, mechanical engineering, musical instrument making and playing, singing, artistic painting, business skills and Excel skills.
To find out more about volunteering, visit the accountant page on our website, or get in touch at enquiries@joa.je.
