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Minutes of Asha Seattle meeting on 05/21/08 Venue : RTC LWSD, Redmond, WA Attendees: Mukul, Hareesh, Ken, Deb, Nagendra, Srijan, Pooja, Arvind, Megha, Ravi, Eera, Smita, Vijay, Sandeep, Rekha, Binay, Ameya
- Asha Pune did site visit in Feb., but not complete - 2 hr. drive from Pune - Rural education development system, vocational system - 2 programs: o Formal: Introduction to Basic Technology (IBT) w/ board exam § Part of school curriculum, no separate payment o Informal: Diploma in Basic Rural Technology (DBRT) § 1 year course, fees are Rs. 10,000 - Asha is supporting teacher salaries and the coordinator for the formal course - Children are around 13-16 years old - DBRT: o 1 year program for which students pay and Asha helps subsidize the cost o Exercises and morning prayers for the students o Q: Do we use the same curriculum in other schools? § They are not looking to expand right now § Maybe Vigyan Ashram could help train other schools to run similar courses like IBT? § See if Learning Network could benefit from this (contact Binay, Jayashree) o Were 3 people in charge, 2 left, now only 1 remaining (Yogesh Kulkarni) - IBT: o Currently in 28 schools, targeting 100 by end of 2008-09 o We (Asha Seattle) initially funded 2 schools which are now running independently o They have consultancy charges for schools § Q: how much? o Q: once school is set up, do they monitor teachers? Right now they train in IBT program and send them out - This project was submitted to WAH (Work An Hour) for hostel construction - Corpus fund of Rs. 50,000 set up for budding entrepreneurs to provide an interest free loan o Large % of graduates (~40%) start their own business o Q: how much do graduates of this program donate back? o Q: does the Ashram get the money back that they give out in loans? - Added 45 min. documentary on Google Video (link in site visit report) - Instructions given in Marathi o Q: What about for people coming from all across India? à Right now, small number of such people - Questions can be answered over e-mail
Project updates (agenda item #2) - Seeing if we can have Asha West conference in Seattle this year - Date not decided, hosting chapter not decided - Last year was in Stanford, 16 people total representing 10 chapters - 2004: Seattle hosted Asha West conference, 20 people from other chapters, 15 from Seattle - Knowledge sharing is a positive gain from the conference - Have to get agenda right for 2 day conference - Have to figure out venue, food, rides, logistics, hosting people - Need volunteers to help out à short term commitment (6 weeks) - Maybe Labor Day weekend? (September) - Pooja will get things rolling with the other West Coast chapters, need someone else to help coordinate - Vote to hold in Seattle: For – 13, Abstain – 4, Against – 0 à Seattle will host conference
Talk by Ravishankar Arunachalam, AID fellow, Jeevan Sathi - Used to be IIT Madras professor - Visiting Seattle, AID is bringing him June 1 (Sunday) and they are organizing the talk, flying him in from Phoenix and hosting him - He is involved in EQUIP, we are supporting their efforts in the Krishnagiri district - Should we cohost? (split costs, etc.) à decision was yes - They are working with govt. schools in 3 or 4 districts to improve curriculum in science, math, Tamil - Currently in Phase II. Phase III is to cover all of Tamil Nadu
Reviving Sunday Asha Chapter meetings - Need someone to coordinate the Sunday meetings b/c Wed. evening is inconvenient for some - Ken has document on how to coordinate meeting logistics o Need to book rooms 1-3 months in advance o Send out initial request week before meeting o Compile request 2 days before meeting - Maybe hold Sunday meetings once a month? - Is 7:30pm – 9:30pm okay, or should we move to 7pm – 9pm? à No, because that is too early for some folks - We have seen West side attendance go down, have lost UW students and UW recruiting efforts have gone down - Megha will take up organizing West side meetings after Aug. 14 - Note: parking is free at UW from Sat. noon – Sunday midnight - Buildings are open till Sunday 6pm
Recruiting UW volunteers - No one showed up at info night last week o Maybe not enough communication on time o Poster boards don’t really work, especially if they are not in a good location o Sent mails Monday evening for Thursday, too late - Ideas for next quarter (not fall) o Figure out key events o Set up a booth at the activity fairs o Put up posters on a regular basis, and make bright posters o Set up rapport and partnerships with faculty, maybe use their bulletin boards? - Deb is getting in touch with student organizations this summer - Volunteer work with booths from different clubs - Maybe promote through ISA and continue association throughout the year - Orientation week is a good venue for grad students, create a first connection quickly
More project updates - Ravi: need tertiary steward for Mumbai based projects o Avehi Abacus o Each One Teach One o highest funded projects across Asha - Megha: looking for 4th project coordinator - Vijay Kanagala is joining project coordinator team - Consensus that project coordination team did an excellent job with the 3 brown bag informational meetings - Megha is sending check emails
India Sponsorship Committee (ISC) Pune (agenda item #1) - Well established group: in Mumbai since 1967, Pune since 1979 - Working with children of migrant workers in slums in Yerawada area of Pune, located in outskirts of Pune - Asha Pune did site visit and got proposal and has sent it to us - Proposal is for education and gender components - Education component has study classes to reduce dropouts, also in Balwadis - Gender component works for rights of girls, and arranges campaigns to educate about child marriage and sexual abuse - Background of community: (more extensive info with report) o 50% from scheduled tribes o 74% have monthly income of < Rs. 4K o 78% work in unskilled labor o 30% parents are literate
- Proposal Part I: - ISC total: 30 support classes total, 680 children across Pune - Asking support for 9 centers, 334 children, education component and gender component in Yerawada o 3 centers in ISC, 6 in slum areas - Current funding is from Karuna trust, but they want to emphasize other areas - Would we be filling in for Karuna trust? o ISC has another project that Karuna trust will support - Would be good to hear from Karuna trust on their experience working with ISC (like reference for us) - Support classes are held in morning or evening, then regular school - Where are the classes held? - Each center has 2-3 classes - What is the org. structure? - Education component has 9 teachers - Audrey Ferrera started this organization - We are in touch with Dennis @ ISC (2nd in command) and Premnath @ Asha Pune o Got contact through Swadhal, former Asha Seattle project - Follow up on org. structure: are they paid?
- Classes are 3 hrs/day, 6 hrs/week - English as a subject - Emphasis on reading and math - Marathi is another subject - They have pre-tests, midterms. Slow learners get specialized attention - Use Plaway techniques (like Montessori system) well in I, II standard - They have classes from balwadi till 10th standard - How are classes/teachers divided? o Currently 9 teachers for 334 students à 1 teacher for 40 students - Does 1 teacher teach multiple grades? - What is the format of the classes? Teaching methodologies? - Classes taught in Marathi - They have library program to help reading skills o Plan to extend usage to nearby municipal schools - Computer program is an outreach effort of volunteers of L & T InfoTech - In past 5 years: (more info in report) o 100% = 60 children finished primary school o ISC estimates that 15% complete middle school, 15% complete 10th standard, 7-8% complete college, 7-8% get a job - How big is ISC facility? What is the infrastructure like? o 2 story building, 8 computers - General statistics? How many joined? Dropped out? We need better idea of growth of organization - Asha Canada was interested in funding gender component: Rs. 1.15 lac, but they dropped the proposal o Why? b/c of problem? Or not enough funds? o Suggested by ISC b/c they didn’t want to split support across multiple groups - Can we get Asha Canada’s notes? Meeting minutes? - Does ISC have an FCRA (Foreign Currency Regulation Act) clearance? - NOTE: Need 3rd project steward for approval - We have 1 page audit statement, we want detailed income expenditure account o We would like FC audit report - Site visit from Asha Pune, but was done during holiday, so couldn’t see classes in session o Maybe it would be fair to ask Asha Pune to do a follow-up visit o Talking to parents and teachers is more important - Will present again in 2 weeks
Skipped items 4 and 5 in agenda (Agenda item #4 was developing guidelines for paid site visits, Agenda item #5 was what do with unresponsive stewards?)
Minutes by Arvind Kannan
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