Conference call on Thursday, August 30th, 2007 at 9pm to discuss renewal of Vasundhara project. Agenda: 1. review of financials April 2006 - March 2007. 2. decision to approve matching grant for the last year 3. discussion of renewal and approval 4. collaboration between Princeton and Austin chapters on this project - we can discuss how both chapters can support this project. There are additional needs in this project. Minutes: Present: Asha Princeton: Ravi, Kavitha, Sowmya, Amrish, Sridhar, Vikas Asha Austin: Gourav, Santhosh, Sree. Asha Mumbai: Shrikant Mulik. Shrikant from Mumbai is here on a short- term project. He made the last visit to Vasundhara. The meeting was attended by volunteers from Princeton and Austin. Austin chapter volunteers participated in the meeting to learn more about the project and discuss how Austin and Princeton could collaborate in supporting the project. Ravi informed the meeting that the latest financial statements are listed on the project page. The meeting started with Shrikant sharing his recent experiences from the project site visit. This detailed report of his site visit during Feb 2007 is also available on the project page. Agenda items: 1. Review of financials of April 2006 - march 2007 - The project is funded from July to June, however, the accounts are submitted for the financial year. A review of the financials revealed that the project expenses are close to Rs. 516,074.00 where as Princeton contribution is only $7000. The project is able to raise funds from other sources such as donations. Volunteers requested for Schedule E of the financials statement. Vikas agreed to contact the project partners and obtain a copy. 2. Matching grant: Princeton chapter during the discussion on the renewal of the project in 2006 approved a budget of $7000 and a matching contribution of $1500 for this project. If Vasundhara project raises $1500, then Princeton would the match the funds so that the total budget for the project is $10,000, which is the budget proposed for renewal. In brief the matching grant was proposed to move the project in the direction of self-sustainability. In order to understand the concept of matching grant vis-à-vis self-sustainability of the project, there were interesting and passionate questions and discussions on local socio-economic situation, empowerment and participation of local community, etc. in the conference call. There were refined discussion on this issue along with agreements and disagreements. Shrikant felt that the socio-economical conditions are not conducive to the self-sustainability approach. Amrish wondered and was eager to know if there were any efforts by the project partners in making the local community owners/partners in the project. Ravi expressed his thoughts that self-sustainability necessarily not mean monetary contribution to the project. The question according him was can the project energize the local community to the extent that it would make the community realize the impact of the project on the education of the kids and make the community demand the representatives and the government to take up and support the project. Santhosh expressed that we should not support a charity model. Sridhar felt that there is a need to make a good effort on understanding and measuring the impact of the project. He suggested that Asha could find Sathis (or fellows) to work on this project to measure the impact. Vikas agreed and encouraged to find a resource (Sathis)for this purpose. He also mentioned that he would approach the project partners for this support on this. In reaction to some of the questions and concerns, Vikas expressed his strong dissatisfaction that the visit of Shri. Naik to the chapter was not efficiently used for eliciting answers to some of the philosophical questions such as self- sustainability, measurement of impact, participation of local community in the project, etc. Since the review of financials revealed that the project raised funds beyond what Princeton chapter suggested, Ravi proposed for vote to approve the matching grant of $1500, and was approved. This would be disbursed to fulfill the commitment of July 2006-June 2007, though money will be sent in the last quarter of 2007. 3. Renewal of the project for July 2007 - June 2008: Vikas proposed $10000 for the year July 2007 - June 2008 based on the 2005 proposal. There was a discussion on how to go about collaborating with Austin chapter. Austin indicated that it has approved the project for support but would like to know how both chapters can collaborate. There were questions on some aspects of the project such as documentation, seeking information from the project, etc. Vikas suggested that other volunteers from the chapter should also visit the project for a better view of the project. He expressed a opinion about that there was an effort to discourage the project. Sridhar and Ravi tried to remove such impression. However, Vikas expressed his unhappiness and desired to exit the meeting. felt that this would go a long way. Sowmya suggested that we should support the project at $10000 amount. Meeting categorically approved to support the project at $10000 but concluded inconclusively on the aspects of collaboration with Austin and the amount that the both chapters would share to support the project. However, it was suggested that an online poll be setup to measure the support for support $10000 and about the collaboration between Princeton and Austin. Minutes posted by Ravi.