Minutes of Asha Seattle meeting on 01/30/08 Venue : RTC LWSD No 414, Sammamish B Room, Redmond, WA Attendees: Jaideep, Satyajit, Vijay, Deb, Sailesh, Binay, Swati, Megha, Eera, Marina, Theresa, Kumar, Ken, Harish, Aditi, Srijan, Mani, Kavita, Vijay Kanagala, Palani, Kavita, Kannan, Arvind, Bansal, Sree. Deenabandhu Children’s Home – Presented by Vijay Deenabandhu home for girls aims to educate,  rehabilitate and socially integrate the orphan, destitute and estranged girls by providing them a home facility and also to extend follow up care through life oriented vocational skills until they are economically self reliant. Discussions included the following points: Boy’s home (36 boys) being extended to estranged girls based on learning from boys program. Boy’s home funded by Netherlands.  Phase 1: facility construction $85600 (2 cottages, dining/kitchen complex, drinking water facility, sanitation facility, play gnd equip, garden, vermi-composting unit).  Phase 2: $62250 (cottages 2, administrative block, rain water harvest for sanitary purpose).  Bathroom for each cottage.  Immediate need: $49250 ($13000 raised from ASTI and SEWA).  2 acres of land for phase1 and 2 already purchased.  1 hr drive from Mysore. Schooling, mid-day meal scheme are there. Not a residential program for boys.  Girls will be residential. School is co-ed (278 children) To be jointly funded by Asha Boston and Silicon Valley School is Micro-financed by mothers doing poultry School is run since 2004 Vijay checked into construction costs People not comfortable with voting on this right now because many volunteers felt they didn't have enough information. No management system in place for the girls program. Insufficient and underpaid staff and hence sustainability of program. Happy with performance in past (mid-day meal scheme 200 children eating, not unruly).  Delivered more than expected. Action Items: Rs. 1000/sq ft. - Vijay to double check with a couple of sources to check the costs.  Vermi-composting, rain-water harvesting - will be good to get more details. Furnishing, kitchen appliances? Bunk beds currently available. 3 stewards needed: Vijay, Kumar, Aditi. Vote: Voting was done (pending budget review) for $30000 from Asha Seattle with the rest coming from Asha Boston and Asha Silicon Valley. Yes – 11, No – 0, Abstain – 11 Tomorrow's Foundation Site Visit report - Presented by Swati Tomorrow's Foundation is working with the deprived children from the streets, slums and red light areas in the most extreme and vulnerable zones of urban Kolkata. They are engaged in education and child protection through simple care and apt training to help them secure their basic rights. They are UNESCO recognized NGO now! Few points raised in the discussion were: Own building. Half-way home to acclimate children.  Co-curricular activities, arts and crafts.  Output: kickboxing champion, MSW graduate, etc.  Empowering the kids.  Have been picking up other projects: community based education program --- figure which kids aren't going to school and work with them -- Asha-Seattle supports this activity. Some schools are Urdu medium --- community ownership (name of school, teacher from community and also running school) Hard and soft skills imparted. 14 teachers. Network/collaborate with like-minded organizations. Have their own psychological counselor to save money. Extremely strong in documentation. Keep track of each child. A well knit group and open to feedback. Swati joining them when she moves back to Kolkata. One concern expressed was that they do not always have a proactive outlook (Swati to try to work on that area). Open school system -> vocational training. Push them towards teaching their good processes to other organizations. Stewards: Vijay Kangala, Suma. Swati can be additional contact listed on web site. Project proposal presentation for Atma Nirbhar, Ek Challenge - Presented by Satyajit Both project proposal and site visit report was discussed briefly. First time brought up in Asha-Seattle. It has floated around in other Asha-chapters.  Training of physically and mentally challenged people Train in Tea or spice packaging and work per their abilities. Other contract work (primarily packaging) Gainful employment.  Trained and employed by same orgn. 12 adults. Non-profit charity.  Breakeven right now overall. (rent to TISS, etc. + revenue from work) Suggestions: Rehabilitate the people for opportunities outside (get past 10th class => govt. job). No turn-over since 1996  (12 people). Challenge: finding appropriate tasks in the manufacturing flow. Needs: Program assistants to train/track people.  Stipends to attract more pgm assts. Plan to increase to 6000 Rs. per month - pretty good in Guwahati (some comparisons made were Rs.5000 in other project in Karnataka - Neha, Rs. 4800 in South Delhi) ~8000$ - ask for Asha, half-half for workers and program assistants We are asking about 2 projects out of the 5 projects of the same organization. Gurukul project - unrelated but by the same organization. Evening daycare for children in neighborhood. Help with homework, grooming, confidence. Hire 2 part-time teachers $22000 current annual budget.  Need $8200 more.  All details in docs. Action Items: Request a breakup of annual budget.  Audit reports.  Tax report.  Money inflow. Rs. 1500 as stipend (for travel + giving to family) was clarified since there were some questions raised on them staying at the facility and their living expenses are taken care of. Ken's concern: stagnant program for permanent support of the people with special needs.  His question was if the money will be better spent on childrens' education. Can these people be graduated through the program rather than being supported for their life-time? Move them towards microfinance (possibly funded as a separate Asha project). Complete site visit report. Postpone this item to next meeting.  Continue discussion over email and in person. Update on change in Chapter coordinators - Presented by Srijan Ravi and Srijan have been chapter coordinators for almost 4 yrs and it's a time for change. Binay, Deb and Palani had been nominated in the last meeting and there was a 2 weeks time frame for more open nominations. There were no further nominations and therefore, the new team consisting of Binay, Deb and Palani will take over with immediate effect.  Coordinator roles were discussed followed by brief introduction from the new chapter coordinators. Chapter Updates  Annual report done and on web.   34 projects supported in 2007 Project coordinators need finances updated on web. Geetanjali on Apr 5th STP coordinators needed.

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