Virtual visit to Asha Princeton on 7/8/00 ----------------------------------------- Participants were Richa, Milind, Amrish, Sai, Anirban (the last three were from Asha Princeton). The conference call started at 12:15 PM and went on till about 2:30 PM. 1. Introductions ---------------- 2. Chapter specific issues -------------------------- Stats: Currently supporting five projects. Raised ~ $20K in 1999. Average volunteer size 10/meeting (two meetings per month). The Princeton volunteers felt that the priority this year for the chapter was to understand it's projects better and work more closely with them. Towards this end a project's focus group has been set up at the chapter. All projects have also have had multiple site visits. This seemed to be the right approach rather than getting bogged down by fundraising; making sure that the quality of projects is good automatically causes a flow of funds. There was some discussion on how to judge the success of a project. Some indicators put forth were i. Reduction in school dropout rates. ii. Better girl to boy ratio. iii. Increase in average years of schooling. iv. Positive feedback from parents about the project. For getting this feedback it was suggested that a parent's opinion poll be done without the NGO's intervention. * Action Item: Milind to send the POP questionnaire prepared at Asha-Boston to Asha-Princeton. v. Reduction in inequality/disparity in the community. Whatever be the criterion, it was felt that it should be quantifiable. It is important to give new volunteers some things that are interesting to do so that their interest is retained. Asha - Berkeley's presentation was due to the effort of new volunteers. A student discussion group called Drishti has been set up in Princeton University which is an off-shoot Asha Princeton. This group discusses socio-economic and political problems in India for the sake of understanding them better. This provides a forum for in depth discussion of a lot of problems in the country today. A summary is presented in the regular Asha meeting after a topic has been discussed in the group (a web page will soon be created). 3. Long-Term Vision ------------------- On Universal Primary Education, some of the Asha Princeton volunteers felt that the 2047 deadline is too conservative. As a first step realizing universal literacy in the next 20 years should be the focus. It is important to get the government involved for large scale social change. The question of where Asha should start in its goal of UPE was raised repeatedly. It was felt that we need to understand the issue of scale in dealing with this. If we want to scale up, will just doing projects like we do now help? What can we learn from previous experiences? For example, How was Himachal Pradesh successful in implementing mass-literacy campaign? Can we assimilate the good points of such success stories and adapt them to needs in other areas? There have been instances where individuals or NGO's have done good work and provided a working model for the government to take up. This is a good way for Asha to go about in it's work. The 100-block development plan of BGVS (or AIPSN -- All India People Science Network) seems to be a good avenue for Asha to participate as an organization as one of the starting points. This not only addresses education but also the issue of decentralization of power that might achive bigger results. A thorough review of this proposal is required Asha-wide. * Action Item: The Asha-UPE focus group has been set up for the purpose of discussion on UPE. Some Princeton volunteers should participate in this group. (http://www.egroups.com/group/asha-upe) 4. Asha Center -------------- There was some skepticism about the reproducibility of the Asha Center because of its relatively large budget. However, the first Asha Center did not turn out to be expensive, as the primary component -- land -- was obtained free of cost. It was however made clear that the Center is more like an experiment; it is an investment for the future to develop strategies and solutions. The latest news from Asha-Lucknow is that the Center will be self-sustaining very soon. In the long term, Asha center(s) will be focal points in addressing the role of education in the social context. These will exist beyond Asha's UPE target date and presumably deal with the quality of education and its relevance. 5. Asha Fellows and NAPM ------------------------ These have only been briefly touched upon in the chapter and will be discussed in the chapter soon. Sandeep and his brother (Rahul) as representatives of Asha-India have advocated the merging of Asha with NAPM and want to build consensus around the idea. Asha-USA chapters have not had enough time to study the merits of the proposal and therefore a resolution to this effect cannot possibly be presented at the NAPM meeting in August (the original aim). Each chapter will discuss the issue in the coming months. Richa confirmed that most Asha volunteers have no idea what NAPM stands for. At Princeton, one or more individuals will take the lead in collecting information so that a discussion can be started to determine the decision of our Chapter.