Minutes of the meeting held on February 5, 2005 (Minutes by Anirban.) Here are the minutes of the Asha Princeton meeting held on February 5th, 2005. Attendees: ---------- Venki, Satish, Vijay, Sridhar, Amrish, Anish, Priyanka, Ravi, Ananya, Sumathi, Vikas, Ravinder, Hetal, Anirban. Topics discussed: ----------------- 1. Fundaraiser 2. Annual review of our Asha fellows Anu and Krishna 3. Quick update on the Nalamdana project Minutes: -------- 1. Fundraiser ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Two of the artists who will be performing during our fundraiser Venki and Satish (from the group Gitanjali) were present during the earlier part of our meeting. They told us about the format they had in mind and welcomed suggestions. They are already on our email list. The format they have planned is 1.5 hour of music + break + 1 hour of music (total 3 hours). There will be around 75% Hindi songs and 25% songs in other languages. They plan to have some visual effects along with the music like projecting scenes on the sides of the stage using a projector. Further, they plan to have audience participation by projecting lyrics of a few popular songs and will ask the audience to sing along. The school sound system will be used and Gitanjali will arrange the sound technician. The MC has not yet been decided. If anybody is interested, please reply to this email. There was a discussion about the theme and name. There are some suggestions so far. Ananya suggested "Asha" or hope and has a list of songs within this theme. Hetal suggested "Rangotsav" or festival of colors associated with Spring when the program will happen. Venki (maybe Satish) suggested that the theme could be "Gitanjali" or an offering of songs. This has not yet been decided. Tickets for the event are available. Please contact Kumar to get tickets. 2. Annual review of our Asha fellows Anu and Krishna ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Sridhar summarized the Asha fellowship program and Anu and Krishna's activties. Anu and Krishna (a couple, wife and husband) are Asha fellows supported by our chapter. All documents related to this are available of the webpage http://www.ashanet.org/princeton/projects/anu-krishna/ About Asha fellowships: The idea of Asha fellowships is to encourage commited people who are doing social work by supporting their living expenses. The impact of fellows, unlike a project can go beyond a small geographical area. When the Asha fellowship program started, it was thought that there would be a central Asha Fellowship group (with volunteers from different chapters) which would evaluate and review the Asha fellowships. This has not happened so far and currently individual chapters support Asha fellows and for all practical purposes, the review process for Asha fellows is just like any other project at the chapter. Anu and Krishna work with Adivasi children in Sittilingi village (Tamil Nadu) and organize various activties to provide an environment of joyful learning for them. Their organization is called Thulir. The age of the children range from 5 to 16 and their attendence varies from 15 to 30 every day. They are also tutoring two school dropout children who are appearing for the 10th standard exam this year. More about their activties at http://www.ashanet.org/princeton/diaries/general/archives/000155.html Our volunteer Shankar recently visited Thulir and has sent a very positive site visit report. He recommends that we support them for the next two years. Ravinder: What has Asha learned from Anu and Krishna? Sridhar: It is a little early to say and the effect will be seen in a longer term. We started funding in April 2005 and it has only been around 8 months now. They have got settled (built structures to house Thulir's activties) and have a steady attendence of children. Amrish: A long term effect is that an Asha volunteer visiting them can take home new ideas, for example, environmentally friendly living. Ravi: We can learn from them because they are aware of the ground realities. Sitting here we may get an idea, but they may have tried somethign like that already and may quickly tell us about its feasibility. Sridhar said that Anu and Krishna prefer that we interact with them more and learn about their activties. They are easily available on email. Please email Sridhar to be introduced to them. Ravinder volunteered to be involved more with Anu and Krishna's activties along with Sridhar. The funding required for this fellowship is $4,100 per year. Sridhar asked two questions: 1. Are we satisfied with our involvement with Anu and Krishna during the past 9 months? 2. Should we fund them for 2 years? Based on Shankar's positive recommendation and the review during the meeting, it was unanimously agreed to fund Anu and Krishna for the next two years (a caveat is that we have funds next year and this will be communicated to them). 3. Quick update on the Nalamdana project ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Sridhar said that Nalamdana has not sent us an annual update in 2004 and we have not sent them funds in 2004. This project will be reviewed at an upcoming meeting when we have decide about this project. --- Minutes taken by Anirban.