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Earlier this year, we shared that Siam-Care and our previous donor Siam-Care UK have decided to split up. Our statement has led to many questions; several people have asked for more details. We have decided to share a little more now, as again our names have been used in official overviews of Siam-Care UK, without our permission and without letting us review these documents.

In this article we will explain a bit more, as we believe that donors have the right to know what happened with their donations. Siam-Care hereby also publicly distances itself from the financial practices of Siam-Care UK. 

Refused to share financial statements

Siam-Care UK annually writes an official financial statement, in which they share how much they have received and how much they have transferred to Siam-Care in Thailand. Over the past 5 years we have requested to see this document several times, but Siam-Care UK has always refused to share it with us, even though we were their main beneficiary. We have recently received these statements of the past years from an individual donor from the UK. Some details in these statements surprised us and we want to distance ourselves from these statements.

Financial details don’t match with our administration

First of all, the financial details in Siam-Care UK’s statements do not match with our financial administration. The amounts shared in the statements, are much higher than what Siam-Care has actually received. For example, in 2015 Siam-Care UK has received 99.172 GPB in donations, according to their own statement. Of this amount, Siam-Care received 39.237 GPB. Which leaves a gap of 59.935 GBP. Without making any assumptions, we have asked Siam-Care UK to explain what happened with the rest of the money (60 percent of the donations they received). During a meeting in October 2017, they promised us to explain everything and provide all financial details. Yet we have never received complete and detailed information and after this meeting, Siam-Care UK informed us that they would stop supporting us immediately. The last time Siam-Care received a donation from Siam-Care UK was on 16 October 2017. Siam-Care UK promised in December 2017 to make a final payment to Siam-Care in March 2018. This has never happened. When we learned that board members of Siam-Care UK were in Thailand, in March 2018, we have invited them to have a coffee, but our emails were never answered.

Used our names without permission

For many years in a row, Siam-Care UK has stated on their financial statements that we (they mentioned specific names of our board members) served as external advisors for their financial statements. This gives people the idea that we have checked and approved their overviews. We would like to make clear that this is NOT the case. We have never seen these documents before they were published and have not approved the details. We have shared with Siam-Care UK that we don’t want them to use our names on a document that we have never reviewed and that they even refused to share with us when we requested to see it. They promised us to not use our names again. Yet, this month we found out that for the statement of 2017, Siam-Care UK has used a name of one of our previous board members again. This person has never seen the statements and doesn't want Siam-Care UK to use her name. Siam-Care UK was aware of this and have yet decided to use this name on their official statement.

Very high monitoring costs

Another detail that surprised us, was the amount used for ‘monitoring’. According to Siam-Care UK’s statement, in 2017 21.279 GBP was used for monitoring our projects (air fares from UK to Thailand, hotel fees for board members of Siam-Care UK, etc). This amount is almost as high as the total amount of donations we have received from Siam-Care UK. Siam-Care believes this amount is very high and out of balance. We try to keep overhead as low as possible and want a as high as possible percentage of donations to end up with our sponsor children. 

Questions and financial statements

People who have more questions, are free to contact us: natasja.kelder@siamcare.org
Here you can find the official financial statements of Siam-Care UK.

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