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Date:
Feb 18 2004
1. Meera's proposal re: documentary on Abdul Kalam:
There is a documentary produced in Tamizh on the
life of Abdul
Kalam. Its intended to
motivate students to stop dropping out of
school. Its been screened in various places in Tamizh Nadu by
volunteers in Chennai. It has been watched by some Asha
seattle
volunteers including Meera and Lakshmi.
The impression is that the documentary is good. People felt that there
should be a way of getting to know how effective the documentary is.
The producers are adopting the approach of asking children who watch it
to respond with letters. Where Asha can help is
with the logistical
support. The total expenses are expected of the order of Rs.
9 lakh,
which, everyone felt, is a little excessive for Asha
to help out with.
2. Rahul spoke about guidelines for project
nomination for this year
with regard to WAH. The main points are:
a. WAH target for this year is $175k.
b. Only one project can be recommended per chapter.
This project must cost atleast $20000, the chapter
must have worked on
it for atleast 1 year, and there must have been a
site-visit.
c. The goal for this year is to support projects in poorest areas
(such as in Uttaranchal, Bihar, Uttar
Pradesh), preferably rural.
d. March 7 is the deadline.
e. The potential candidates that came up in the discussion include
CMS, SPS, Bhoomi Heen, Uttanau, Micda.
3. Amit spoke about multiple topics:
I. Father Sedrick
Prakash from (Ahmedabad?)
Guajarat had visited
Asha-Seattle and given some information on the
quality of text books of
the state syllabus. Volunteers from Asha-Seattle (Srijan and Amit) have
since examined social science text books of Gujarat
state. Their
conclusions are that the syllabus is severely flawed. The coverage of
history
a) is not comprehensive (first of all, history becomes a subject only
from grade 5, even so it begins with the Vedic age; in particular,
nothing regarding the Indus valley civilization is covered), b) is not
coherent (history and myth are mixed, including for example Ramayana
and Mahabharata in history), c) promotes biases and stereotypes (eg.,
Gujaratis are portrayed as natural businessmen, Rajasthanis are
portrayed as being naturally frugal, etc.), d) is not factually
accurate (eg., cites fishery as the main occupation
of South India,
mentions that rose is
*used* as a flower), e) promotes rote learning, f) not forward looking
with regard to issues such as the caste system. People felt we should
study the text books of more states. Its also not
clear how to fix this
serious problem.
II. Vidya Bhavan
project (Vidya Bhavan
is an eductional resource-center
in Udaipur
funding multiple schools). Asha works on this with
NGO Seva
Mandir.
Amit felt that while their organization is
bureaucratic and hence
somewhat inefficient, they still try their best and are pretty
effective. While the current commitment from Asha-Seattle
is ($1k per
year) for 3 years, he felt its worth continuing it
beyond 3 years.
Since Amit is returning to India, Rahul will take over as the project
coordinator.
III. SPS (Samaj Parivarthan
Samudhai) project based in Dharward,
Karnataka: this group does not directly educate people, rather its
driven to increase community support and awareness. They have requested
a renewal of funding for this year. A volunteer from Asha-Stanford
is
planning a site-visit in April.
Currently, all funds for SPS go through AIF. People felt Asha-Seattle's
involvement must be more direct.
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