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Minutes of Asha
Seattle meeting on 09/27/06 Venue : RTC LWSD No 414, Morton Johnson
Room, Attendees: Ken, Rajesh, Shayon, Arvind, Vibhavaree, Swati, Priya, Chapter/Project Co-ordination - Updates §
Tasveer email,
Raaj Manhaas ( §
October check sending reminder (Vibhavaree) Project – CMS Emergency funding –
Presented by Swati. §
Massive cyclone last week, which affected
10 panchayats. §
Affected 3400-4400 people, ie, rendered homeless. §
CMS is trying to help the affected. §
They have started distributing dry food
and tarpaulins, and there is one CMS school that is currently housing 100
affected people. §
CMS needs around $8300 to cover the
relief expenses. These include tarpaulins, baby food, and dry food. This
amount is a lower-bound and the cost can be expected to go up since the
actual number of affected people is likely to be higher than the above Questions : Why the plan to distribute
(packaged) baby food, which is known to be not particularly healthy, in
addition to being expensive. There might also be problems preparing the baby
food in the absence of shelter/clean water. Have the alternatives been
considered? Project - Baikunthapur
Tarun Sangha – Presented
by Arvind. §
Background: BTS is being funded by Asha Cornell; Cornell was unable to fund BTS's last year's budget in entirety, and so approached
us (Seattle) for funding. §
In a previous meeting, the funding
request was approved conditional to Cornell's having approved the budget. §
It turned out that Cornell had approved
the budget, but nevertheless, we (Aparajita, Swati,
and Arvind) went through the exercise of scrutinizing
the budget and picking the budget items that looked reasonable. The total
amount of items thus picked turns out to Project - PPI – Presented by Niranjan Benegal, Anshu, Alka, Suresh, Pran. §
Established 1977. §
Had talked to Asha
earlier about promoting India-related charity organizations to a wider
audience. §
General Modus-Op: Help start a project
and then let it grow. §
Annual budget: $30-40K, distributed among
8-10 projects. §
Stay involved with a project for 3-4 years. §
Have shared 3-4 projects with Asha in the past. §
Generally don't support capital expenses
(unlike Asha). §
Limited by volunteer bandwidth (like Asha). §
Explore avenues for collaboration with Asha (an Asha workshop
dedicated to this might be useful). Project - Puvidham
– Presented by Arvind. §
Request for a one-time funding for a new
school building. §
They also a long-term program called
"Lots of little drops" which is essentially a program to support
children in the school. §
Jay and Bash interested in supporting 4
children; Arvind interested in supporting two. Vote: 3 approved, 3 abstained (Result:approved) §
The school construction has already
started, and has been funded so far from personal funds and loans. §
The school has expanded from around 10-60
children in 5 years, necessitating a new building. §
The school uses Montessori and other
experimental methods for education. Also very interested in teaching organic
farming. §
Current sources of funding: Asha London (recurring costs) Vote for school building (Rs. 324065, ~ $7000) : 7 Yes, 1 abstain
(approved) Project
- Swanirvar – Presented by Swati. §
Different pedagogical experiments in §
Balvividha,
children's festival (organized by Comet Media) geared towards parents, teachers
and children. §
Exposure to creative ideas on schooling. §
Swanirvar felt
that not much focus on middle and high school. §
They have set up a school in Kolkota that would become a resource center (Sikshamitra). § The goal is to attract Bengali medium govt schools and network with them in the fair. Question: Are we willing to support such projects and is
this ithin Asha's charter
to invest in pedagogy? Voting : 8
yes, 0 abstains/no's - (approved) |
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