Minutes of Asha Seattle Meeting, Sep 15, 2004 Venue: Redmond Regional Library Attendees: Arindam, Sairam, Paramita, Srijan, Srinivas, Ambrish, Astha, Siddharth, Vani, Kentaro, Parna, Gagan, Manasa, Bash, Jayashree, Swati & one more new volunteer. 1) 4 new volunteers – Siddharth, Astha, Vani, Kentaro 2) Arindam – provided a overview of project that we support from Asha for new volunteers. a. Fund raisers b. Contribution match c. Text Books review (Gujarat, Karnataka, Bengal) d. Twice a month learning meetings 3) Bash - suggested to put a link for learning meetings on the web-site also, like one for chapter meetings. 4) Coming up events are a. Microsoft give campaign b. Seattle Marathon 5) Bash – Asked Astha to find out if there is any such give campaign at Amazon also. 6) Jayashree – Bash and Jayashree spent 5 months in India last yr to start some school for Irula tribals (snake catchers). Asha has been working with Bharati trust for quiet sometime. Most Irulas live together in a hamlet. Idea is after getting through these schools for sometime these children will go to the nearest govt school. Bharati trust has put lot of effort to derive a good socio economic change in this community. This was supposed to be a pilot project, and is not Asha approved yet. The main person involved with this project went through some personal problem after the whole survey completed for the proposed land to be purchased for the resource center. To help it out Jayashree tried to setup a model center with the plans of funding it through personal funds. But instead of giving out more money for this project, first they decided to make a better deployment of money already gathered for the first phase which got held up due to above mentioned reasons. Teachers are also mostly from the same background, so that they can communicated to students more efficiently. Motivational centers occur in the evening, and daytime use of centers if for day-care and learning purpose. a. Talked to coordinator, Siddama about setting up an early young children, providing healthcare, nutrition and education. b. Not to be started simultaneously in 15 villages, rather community decided to start it in …. Village, as this was very isolated. c. Community picked 2 teachers who were already in the area and motivated. d. Provided a whole collection of activities (initial curriculum) gathered through last few years of experiences. e. Spent sometime with teachers, to provide them enough background about the curriculum. f. Plan was to start with only half a day process, but Community demanded it to be full day. g. Village has electricity, no telephone line, h. Teacher’s salary Rs 1500 pm, decided by community. i. Children get 3 meals a day cooked by people in the village. j. School has been build by Irula community people and the supervision of this was also taken by a volunteer from the village. k. New school building has 2 classrooms, but actually school has started functioning in the old community building itself. l. Jayashree and Bash want to support this school for full 2 years, but only after the chapter reviews it and approves it. m. There is parent supervisory committee which will make sure that school is running properly. n. Plan is to get a support from govt as a “Baalvadi” 7) Astha – asked how is the efficiency of expenses in various projects is guaranteed, still to be answered  ???? 8) Gagan -  RHEDT Also a project about tribals, some hilly area near Coimbatoor, Karamadi district. Started with funding for teachers and basic supplies for children in 3 villeges about 20 children/ school. Moved one school from one village to other due to lack of perception by villagers. 50/50 ratio of boys and girls. Three parts for the RHEDT teachers salary, noon meal and third for misc purposes. Goal is to prepare children to go to Govt school. Funding was also provided to some kids who could make it all the way upto high school and were ready to go to college. The main effect noticed was kids understood necessity for the hygiene. Main problem is not the money, rather it is to find enough teachers. a. Suggestion is to keep track of students who got help from RHEDT. Gagan to get contact info for Asha Chennai Chapter from Jayashree, to keep close track of this project. b. Second part of this project is to get a residential school, there are problems in getting govt funding etc. So far several steps have been cleared like get the land, build the structure and finally they got school going. Finally govt has also agreed to provide teacher’s salary, and it has been like this for 3 years. Now the problem comes is structure has thatched roof, and as a part of the govt regulation school has to get rid of it. Good thing is that other communities are also realizing the value of the school and they want it to grow. 9) Swati – Pratidhwani, there is going to be an event on 28^th, which will have some music and they want Asha to partner with, we can serve Asha tea and snacks and in return we can do 2 promo presentations. Don’t need any other man-power for their work. a. Bash suggested to do only 2-3 mins talk instead of longer ones. b. Our logo will be on the flyer. Concern is since this is not directly related to the fields Asha takes part in so is it okay to take part in it. Suggestion was to co-sponsor it. c. We can put booth there, presentation, Asha tea and snacks. Similar things have been done by Asha in the past for some Tamil org as well. 10) Srijan – All chapters come together, this is proposal for the Asha publicity plan. a. Website enhancement, to include more info regarding various chapters. b. Providing templates to provide

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