Minutes of the meeting held on October 16, 2004
(Minutes by Amrish and Priyanka.)

Attendees: Amrish, Shankar, Subhashree, Vikas, Anish, Ananya & Priyanka 

Discussion:

We started our meeting with a quick update on our current projects.  

We then moved on to discuss Asha-Princeton's agenda for the next 2 months. 
We discussed:  


Grant proposals 
* Decision was made to focus on writing grant proposals during the month 
of November. For now, our goal is to send out proposals to the Oracle, 
Ford, Yahoo & Gates foundation by the start of December.
* Vikas will upload a sample grant proposal template to our yahoo files 
section. We should try to view the document before our meeting on November 
6th. We will devote our November 6th and November 20th Asha meeting, from 
4:30-6:30 pm, on grant applications. Anish & Ananya will bring their 
laptops so we can work on these applications/proposals during the 2 hours 
we have together.
* If anyone would like to look into other foundations that we can apply 
to, a list of corporate & non-corporate foundations is available at
fdncenter.org
  

Fundraiser 
* We would like to focus on writing grant proposals for the next month or 
so and then re-evaluate the idea of a fundraiser.
* We would like to urge all of you to seek any possible entertainers, 
musicians, bollywood stars and/or speakers that we could bring for a 
successful fundraiser.


Walkathon 
* Subhashree has volunteered to explore the possibility of a walkathon. 
She will do some research on how Asha NYC and Central Jersey coordinated 
one.
* She has asked anyone that is interested in coordinating or participating 
in one to contact her at subash_asha@yahoo.com
* Anish & Priyanka will seek possible interest from P-AID members
 

Synergy between Asha-Princeton & P-AID 
* We discussed the idea of coordinating possible events and fundraiser (s) 
with P-AID and then splitting donation money between the two 
organizations.
* The idea of picking common projects with P-AID was also brought up.
  

Our next meeting will be on Saturday, October 30 at 4:30 PM in Room B205 
at the Engineering School at Princeton (E-Quad).

The meeting will consist of talks by eminent visitors from India:
(a) Ms. P. Saraswati of Kathai Aruvi (b) Dr. V. Suresh and his wife Saila, 
PUCL activists 

We do not have a full resume of Ms. Saraswati but we do know that she is 
known for the collection of tales that she has put together in a very 
attractive format. Hundreds of schools are using the teaching material.  
This would be a great opportunity to listen to a person who understands 
the grassroots issues involved in education.

As for Dr. Suresh, his more detailed bio is as follows:

He is an Advocate, Madras High Court; General Secretary, People^Òs Union 
for Civil Liberties; Founder, Organizational Development and Excellence
Consultants; Chennai, INDIA

With two decades of work with the human rights movement, Dr. Suresh, 45, 
serves as general secretary for the People^Òs Union for Civil Liberties 
(PUCL), a national human rights organization responding to human rights 
violations and increasing human rights awareness. As an advocate in the 
Madras High Court, he strives to advance legal principles drawn from 
comparative law to support his human rights law work. He works directly 
with the government of Tamil Nadu,

Best,

Amrish & Priyanka