£900 a month. Four staff. Two thousand students.
CAFFE — Computers Are Free For Everyone — has run free classes in Sylhet, Bangladesh since 2011. We are a small charity with no paid fundraiser, and we publish exactly what it costs to keep the doors open — in Bangladesh and here.
- students taught since 2011
- 2,000
- children who can now swim
- 60
- of costs met by our own sales
- 75%
- to teach one student for a month
- £8
Our mission
CAFFE provides practical, vocational skills to young people from low-income households, supplementing the national curriculum of Bangladesh with skills that improve their employment and income-generating opportunities: coding and game development, graphic design, cooking — and swimming, which saves lives.
With these skills students can find work with local companies, take on freelance clients online, or start their own micro-business. Everything we teach is free, and every family that wants a place gets one.
Bangladesh concentrates its best opportunities in Dhaka — the city accounts for 48% of all jobs in the country. We think young people should be able to build a creative or technical career in Sylhet without moving away from their families.
Every pound, every month
These are the costs of running the centre in Sylhet: 4 members of staff, a teaching pool to keep clean and filled, the electricity, gas and internet bills, materials for class, and getting students to the centre.
Charity Commission register →- Staff salaries (4 people)
- £600
- Utilities — electricity, gas, internet
- £180
- Class and cooking materials
- £50
- Pool maintenance
- £40
- Transport
- £30
- Total per month
- £900
Running the UK side — hall hire for our pop-up sales, a loan repayment, insurance, travel and hosting — costs a further £600 a month, so £1,500 covers the whole charity. Around three quarters of that is met by our volunteers' sales; donations close the gap.
How we’re funded
- 75% · Pop-up sales
Our volunteers raise 75% of everything, one sale at a time
A team of volunteers runs pop-up sales of new and sample clothing donated by Tesco's F&F range. Every pound raised goes to Sylhet.
Next sale dates at caffebd.shop → - 25% · Donations
Regular givers
Monthly Direct Debits from individuals, collected through GoCardless. £8 teaches one student for a month; Gift Aid makes it £10 at no cost to the donor.
- Grants & partners
One-off gifts that build things
A grant of £8,000 from Digital Ocean and a trustee's gift built the swimming pool. Tesco F&F donates the new and sample clothing our volunteers sell.
Registered, regulated, and easy to check
CAFFE is a registered charity and company in England & Wales. Charity no. 1147000, company no. 7978453. Registered office: 4 The Pyghtle, Westoning, MK45 5LJ.
Our accounts and trustee details are published on the Charity Commission register. If you’d like to see anything else before you give, just ask.
£8 of £900. That's all one student costs.
If you are a UK taxpayer, you may be eligible to give Gift Aid at no extra cost to you.