Luncheon

Richard Shirley is a Chartered Accountant with 12 years' experience in the Charity sector.

Richard went to an Indian charity called YSD (Youth for Social Development) at Berhampur, Odisha, North East India.

Its primary aim is to assist in the relief of poverty in the local area (Ganjam) specifically in its effects upon women and children. The town has a population of approx 420k and a significant proportion are below the poverty line. The charity was established fifteen years ago by a couple of academics and it employs about twenty people. It is run by one of its co-founders, Bibhu, a very charismatic local man.

His trip was to run for four weeks but was cut short because of the speed with which the virus disrupted international travel. He consequently had to return on 18th March, having set off from Guernsey in late February.

The purpose of the trip was to advise on a charity’s administrative best practices. It involved taking the UK’s charity rulebook as a template and assessing the way it would be possible to make it fit within a provincial Indian charity.

The trip was arranged through an organisation called AFID (Accountancy for International Development) who are affiliated to my institute (ICAEW).