From:  "Sridhar Desikan" <[20]sridhar_desikan@h...>
   Date:  Tue Oct 23, 2001  3:16 am
   Subject:   Minutes  of  the  Asha-Princeton  meeting held on Saturday,
   October 20 2001

   
   Dear friends,
   Following is the minutes of the meeting held on
   Saturday.
   Attendees: Amrish, Madhav, Diana, Kumar, Anjali, Sridhar, Ranjani
   1. FODRA - Discussion by Madhav
   Madhav presented the new proposal from FODRA project.
   (Post meeting note: Please see Madhav's recent e-mail
   to Asha-Princeton regarding the project).
   FODRA has answered some of our questions regarding
   the implementation of the Remedial Education Centers
   and the Bal Niketan. Funds have been requested for
   continuation of three RECs and for the Bal Niketan.
   Funds for six months have been requested with a message
   to Asha to conduct an evaluation visit after the
   six month period. Differences between the RECs and
   Bal Niketan is not apparent from the proposal. Ideally,
   Bal Niketan should be accessible for all children.
   Current consensus is that we support the REC's for the
   six months and evaluate the progress of Bal Niketan
   after six months. Financial need for supporting REC's
   and monitoring for six months would be Rs. 1,01,200.00
   2. LTTO project review
   Sridhar reviewed the LTTO project by Khajurdaha Nabankur
   United Club (KNUC). The LTTO project provides primary
   education (Upto Class IV) for 118 children of Khajurdaha
   village in West Bengal. This project was visited by
   Shanmuga earlier this year. As an outcome of his visit, the
   project coordinator (Mr. Sathyajit Mondal) has identified
   ways in which the project can grow and have a larger
   influence in the area. The current proposal consists
   of four individual projects;
   A. Continuation of and upgrading the current LTTO school
   to Class VIII
   Current LTTO school is upto Class IV after which the
   students attend the government secondary school. The
   student to teacher ratio in this school (only school in
   the area) is very high (~ 100:1) leading to poor quality
   and lack of personal involvement in children's education.
   KNUC feels that it would provide better quality education
   for  the  children  in  the area by expanding its scope to Class VIII.
   This
   proposal requests for construction of classrooms (4)
   and recurring expenses upto Class V (for the first year).
   We decided that the recurring expenses for the current
   project (till Class IV) and the nonrecurring expense
   for construction of a restroom for girls should be provided
   soon (total amount Rs. 2,62,200). Discussion on
   expanding the school to Class VIII will be taken up later
   as this is likely to start in April-May 2002. Sridhar
   will explore the possibility for shipping used computers
   for starting the proposed child resource center.
   Other three project proposals (Government primary school
   upgradation project, Disha Doot program and 50:50 matching
   program for upgrading the government high school in Khajurdaha
   to higher secondary level) were also presented. Due to time
   constraints, discussion on these were limited and will be
   taken up later in a separate meeting.
   The next meeting will be held on November 3, 2001.
   Regards,
   Sridhar