Annual Impact Highlights: What We Achieved Together in 2024

Transparency is not a policy for AFJS Trust. It is a value. And so, as we close out the 2024 programme year, we want to share a complete, unvarnished account of what we accomplished: what we got right, what was harder than expected, and what comes next.

This is not a fundraising document. It is an honest reckoning.

Children Enrolled and Retained In 2024, AFJS Trust supported the enrolment and continued attendance of 200+ children across Bhavnagar and Ahmedabad.

This figure includes: - Children enrolled for the first time through AFJS Trust scholarship support - Children whose continued attendance was at immediate risk due to unpaid fees and who were retained through our intervention - Children in our after-school tutoring programme who were not directly scholarship-supported but received learning support

Of the children in our direct scholarship programme, over 90% completed the academic year. The children who did not complete did so primarily for family-level reasons, such as sudden migration, medical crises, or family relocation, rather than because they chose to leave school.

Nutrition Drives: 52 in 12 Months We ran 52 food and nutrition drives in 2024, more than one per week. Total meals served: approximately 4,000.

Every meal was freshly prepared on the day of the drive. No packaged rations. No powdered supplements. Real food, cooked by volunteers, delivered hot to communities in Bhavnagar and Ahmedabad.

The drives that stand out from 2024: - The monsoon drives: Running nutrition drives through the Gujarat monsoon season is logistically challenging. Our teams navigated waterlogged streets in July and August to reach distribution points on time. No drives were cancelled due to weather. - The Diwali community celebration: We combined a nutrition drive with a community Diwali celebration, serving 150 families and distributing sweets to the children. The photographs from that evening remain some of our most viewed. - The birthday drive: When donor Nikhitha mentioned her upcoming birthday, John organised a surprise: a nutrition drive run in her name, with the children presenting a handmade birthday card decorated with drawings. The photographs circled the world.

Girl Empowerment Programme Our girl empowerment work reached 150+ girls in 2024.

Programme activities included: - Weekly confidence and life-skills workshops (attended by 80+ girls regularly) - Mentorship sessions with female role models from the community - Legal rights education: property rights, marriage age, right to education - Family engagement sessions with 60+ parents to shift attitudes toward daughters' education - Dropout intervention: 30 girls who were at immediate risk of leaving school were retained through targeted support

The digital literacy sessions in December 2024 were a milestone we had not anticipated when we planned the year. Two laptop computers, an afternoon in a classroom, and girls discovering for the first time that technology was something they could use, not just observe. Meera and Asha, the first girls in their families to ever touch a laptop, became emblematic of why this work matters.

Family Welfare Programme Our family welfare team conducted 200+ home visits in 2024.

The majority of these visits were focused on: - Connecting families with government welfare schemes they were eligible for but not accessing (PMJAY health coverage, BPL ration cards, MGNREGA entitlements) - Counselling support for families in crisis - Facilitation of access to healthcare, particularly for elderly members and children with chronic conditions - Support with documentation for families attempting to access formal services

Family welfare is our quietest programme. It produces no photographs of children smiling with new books. It produces families who stay together, children who stay in school, and crises that are resolved before they become catastrophes.

The Financial Transparency You Deserve Total expenditure in 2024: approximately ₹18,00,000

| Category | Percentage | Amount (approx.) | |----------|-----------|-----------------| | Education (fees, materials, uniforms) | 55% | ₹9,90,000 | | Nutrition programmes | 25% | ₹4,50,000 | | Family welfare and administration | 15% | ₹2,70,000 | | Communications and outreach | 5% | ₹90,000 |

For every ₹100 received, ₹95 went directly to programme delivery. Our administrative overhead, which covers documentation, communication, coordination, and reporting, was maintained below 5%.

All expenditure is documented. School fee receipts are photographed and filed. Nutrition drive costs are logged by event. We can provide a full expenditure breakdown to any donor who requests it.

What Was Harder Than Expected We want to be honest about the challenges.

Donor consistency was our biggest challenge in 2024. We had moments of significant funding, driven by social media posts that reached new audiences, followed by quieter periods where commitments didn't materialise. This made planning difficult.

The gap between children who need support and children we could afford to support was painful. We turned away families we could have helped if funding had been available.

We are working on building a more stable monthly donor base precisely to solve this problem.

What Comes Next in 2025 Our 2025 targets: - 300 children in direct education support - 60+ nutrition drives (at least one per week, every week) - Formal digital literacy curriculum as part of the Girl Empowerment programme - Expanded women's literacy component - Full case study documentation system: publishing verified impact stories with photographs and documentation

We set these targets knowing they require more funding than we currently have committed. That is why we publish them: because donors deserve to know what their support makes possible, and because ambition, made public, becomes commitment.

Thank You Every child we supported in 2024 was supported because someone, somewhere, chose to give. Donors in India, Germany, the UK, the UAE. Volunteers in Bhavnagar who gave their evenings. Community members who trusted us with their children.

We do not take that trust lightly. We never will.