From:  Sumathi V Iyengar <[20]sumathivinay@y...>
   Date:  Mon Oct 8, 2001  2:10 am
   Subject:  Minutes of Meeting held on October 6th 2001

   
   Attendees : Anirban Hazra, Shanmuga, Amit Sahai,
   Sumathi Vinay, Vinay Iyengar, Ramamani Gopal,
   P.D.Gopal, Sadhana Gupta, Priya Rajan, Archana Rajan,
   Rajesh Elayavalli.
   We discussed 4 things : 1. Agami 2. Asha-Princeton
   directly funding education of needy children. 3.
   Asha-Princeton's financial situation. 4. Viveka
   project of SVYM
   I. Agami :
   Agami is a group based in USA that is trying to
   support a project through an NGO in Bangaladesh. About
   5 weeks ago, all chapters were asked to cast a vote as
   to whether we should lend our tax id to Agami or not.
   The time given to decide was TWO DAYS! We brought up
   this discussion during this meeting. Two issues were
   discussed.
   1. Should "Asha for Education" lend its tax id to
   Agami or such other organizations .. ??
   This can be done IF and ONLY IF the following
   conditions are satisfied :
   <a> It should satisfy the legality issue.. Will such
   an action violate our IRS charter ? Will it weaken
   Asha's credibility ? What are the long term
   consequences ?
   <b> The organization should be able to become
   independent of Asha within the next few years.
   <c> The organization will not violate Asha's policy of
   funding only 'apolitical and areligious' projects.
   <d> Atleast a few Asha volunteers should be directly
   involved in the organization's activities, monitoring
   the flow of funds and making sure that the projects
   funded are evaluated as required by Asha.
   <e> If we are going to help such organizations in the
   future too, then our mission statement needs to be
   changed.
   2. In case of a chapter vote, what should be the
   minimum time required for any chapter to respond with
   its collective vote ?
   Many chapters meet only once a month... Hence 4 weeks
   is a fair time-period to get chapter votes.
   In case of a situation where a decision needs to be
   taken immediately, authorized people in the chapter
   may do so.
   II Rajesh's proposal - Asha-Princeton directly fund
   deserving children who cannot go to school due to lack
   of financial resources.
   Rajesh proposed taht there are lots of deserving
   children whom we can help. We can select such children
   with the help of our relatives and friends in India.
   The criteria for selection would include parents'
   annual income, inclination to get educated etc. We can
   support children upto the end of highschool(12th
   grade).
   Shanmuga said that Asha-Berkeley and Asha-Seattle have
   already made similar experiments.. Projects named SAC
   and Each One Teach One. They have not been very
   successful, as it has been very difficult to for them
   as a Asha chapter to monitor the children. It becomes
   a huge administrative task. Anirban and Shanmuga
   mentioned their own difficulties in trying to monitor
   the progress of the children they are supporting.
   Amit supported Rajesh's idea, but was concerned that
   such a project would not help towards achieving our
   final goal which is a much improved educational
   infrastructure. Vasundhara is a fine example of a
   project that is aiding us reach our goal.
   After much discussion on similar lines, it was decided
   that we will start the experiment with a small number
   of children to start. All volunteers in our chapter
   will try to find and identify children who can benefit
   from Asha-Princeton. We will periodically discuss
   about selecting and evaluating children.
   III Current financial status of Asha-Princeton.
   Priya will update us shortly of our chapter's
   financial status. Depending on availability of funds,
   we can
   a> Fund the Aajgaon Project completely($4,000
   more..4,000 already approved)
   b> Fund the Viveka project of SVYM, Mysore (see below
   for some details)($4,000)
   c> Fund Eureka Hall part of Vasundhara
   III Anirban briefed us about his discussion with Dr.
   Balasubramanium of Sri Vivekananda Youth
   Movement(SVYM), H.D. Kote, Mysore. SVYM is working to
   improve the health and education of Adivasis in the
   area. They run a school for adivasi children and are
   also working with 40 government schools in the area to
   improve the quality of education. They serve a total
   of around 10,000 children.
   Dr. Balu was here in USA to raise $100,000(in addition
   to the $500,000 they have already raised in India) to
   build a new 100 bed hospital with modern facilities.
   Funding a portion of their education program would
   free up resources for the hospital. SVYM is well known
   among several of our volunteers, including Shanmuga,
   Shankar and others. Asha-Silicon valley is funding one
   classroom. One good aspect of SVYM is that its not run
   by a single person, but instead has 10 - 15 highly
   motivated individuals involved.
   Support to the Viveka project can be either in the
   form of supporting 40-50 adivasi children or financing
   the workbooks that SVYM provides to the children in
   all the schools. This support would amount to about
   $4,000. There was no objection among volunteers to
   support this project. But we can only decide after we
   know for sure our current financial status. Sumathi
   has volunteered to coordinate the project.
   Sumathi