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Minutes of Asha Seattle meeting on 09/10/08 Venue : RTC LWSD No 414, Morton Johnson Room, Redmond, WA Attendees: Ken, Vibhavaree, Binay, Srijan, Harini, Althea, Meera, Jaya, Kannan, Vaibhav, Vijay, Lakshmi, Eera, Tulika, Raji
Guests : Vaibhav’s parents
CALL FOR ACTION : -------- PROJECT STEWARDS : send nominations to Palani for projects to showcase at AllGo --------
1. 735pm Introductions
2. 740pm Binay : Asha Seattle at peak funding capacity to stay solvent; new projects can only be considered under “Asha Star” program (project-specific funding).
3. 750pm Project : Amar Seva Sangam Meera to upload docs under project proposals location – good details in the proposal and supporting doc; few questions : a. Do they serve the mentally disabled ? b. How many people served in each area – for ex, polio center? Why only specific projects detailed in their proposal ? c. Do they pursue govt quotas for jobs for their students ? d. After vocational training do they go back ? what success metrics they look at ? do they move to next level in life ? how many ? over what period ? metrics and some stats help understand the scope of their work. e. Do we evaluate the entire org ? or do we want to take a specific project ? Meera to choose. f. Site visit needed before we can vote – if we can get a visit to Ayikudi, we can look at it all. Meera to work with chapter coordinator to get a site visit done. g. Refine the ask - Ask is for whatever we can fund; depending on (d), you may need to refine. h. Need to go thru Asha orientation and project steward orientation. i. Binay and project coordinator team to work with Althea to get a site visit done quickly to help them raise fund in October through Microsoft giving campaign.
4. 825pm AllGo : what projects to show case ? Project stewards please respond to Palani. Project requirements : must have been with Asha for more than 1 yr, good metrics for success, website up to date, not recently showcased
5. 830pm chapter update – Binay / Srijan a. MS giving campaign prep : presentation done to LE; want more volunteers. b. Vote : Should Asha organize a hike this weekend (9/13) to raise funds for WAH project (Vigyan Ashram)? Yes-9, No-0, Abstain-6 c. Eera/Raji presented plans for food sale – they brought snack samples and sought feedback. Will present plan in next meeting.
6. 9pm Balavihar: presented by Lakshmi Kumar a. Reason for presentation: 1st year review. b. Holistic education c. Focus on reading habits d. Conduct classroom using story telling, quizzes and other alternative methods of teaching e. Target urban slum areas f. Sessions are done in small groups for better attention to all individuals g. Personality development activities involves singing, poetry, chanting, … h. Libraries and reading rooms: government schools don’t have library. Lakshmi to followup if there are any binding laws that can be leveraged to push for it through RTI. i. Chitra and Manjunath are full time employees and they are supported by two part time staff. Chitra has 20 years of experience in alternative education methods and Manjunath has background in theatre. Manjunath mostly focuses on personality development. j. Budget: Rs 300K. No increase from last year.
Notes from Lakshmi Kumar: - Programs aimed to provide holistic education to lower middle urban children studying in poorly equipped urban schools. - Project started in July 2007 and has been funded entirely. Site visit was conducted in Jan 2008 and report presented in April 2008. Today's presentation is mainly to seek vote for recurring funding. - Currently two types of learning programs are conducted in the project (a) English language training in 4 government schools Question from Srijan: How is English class conducted? Is it interactive and students participate? Answer: Yes, class is interactive. A small story is narrated and students are asked questions about it. The instructors work with small groups consisting of students and individual attention is provided. (b) Personality development activities in two private schools. Activity - Learning programs are supplemented by small libraries established in the private schools and in the co-ordinators home. For children who aren't library members, reading room facility is available. Question from Eera: Don't the govt schools have a library? The government Answer: and reading, storytelling, quiz sessions are conducted to encourage. Question from Srijan: Why isn't library open to all students? Answer: Students have to pay a small deposit (< Rs. 25) to become members. Question: Why? Answer: Not sure. Most likely its ensure that parents are accountable for books borrowed. - Project staff: 2 full time teachers, 2 part time teacher and 5 volunteers. - Annual recurring Budget: Total Rs. 300000 per year. Teachers salary: Rs. 8000 per month for full time teachers, Rs. 2000 per month for part time teachers and Rs. 1000 for volunteers. Library books and learning materials: Rs. 2000 per month Question from Eera: Is Rs. 2000 required for library books every month. Answer: Books are small and children finish them quickly. So new books need to be procured. Library stock has been growing steadily and it has more than 1000 books currently. Misc Expenses: Audit + Conveyance expenses Rs. 2000 per month
k. Vote: Should we support this as a recurring project? Yes: 7, No: 0, Abstain: 7.
7. 9:20PM St. Catherine of Sienna School and Orphanage: presented by Althea a. No differentiation on kids that are brought in based on religion. b. 237 underprivileged and/or homeless “street” children in age groups of 5-12. c. 15 residential support staff d. Trauma therapy to help counsel and prepare kids for education/schooling e. Organization is getting bigger donations recently but they don’t have good recurring support. f. Planning to expand the facility as they are running at full capacity for current building g. Looking for help from Asha till Althea can register a 510c3 organization here that she can leverage for fund raising for this organization. h. $10K is target for next year. i. Binay and project coordinator team to work with Althea to get a site visit done quickly to help them raise fund in October through Microsoft giving campaign.
Notes from Lakshmi Kumar Background: ------------ Organization provides residental care and schooling for destitute children. The residential facility and school are located in Church's premises. The society is 50 years old, but has no guaranteed source of funding. Its partly funded by the church. Currently 237 children are housed in the residential facility. 15 staff support the residential facility.' Children need to taught even basic living habits such as personal hygiene, courtesy, manners etc. Staff are very caring. And they've found that many of children have great talents.
Purpose of presentation: ----------------------- Presenter is not Asha volunteer. Her mom helps the organization. Presenter is currently establishing a non profit foundation that will serve the society. The purpose of presentation is to brief Asha about the foundation's plan for FY2008-2009 and to try and seek support funding from Asha volunteers through Asha Star programme. Presenter would like to mainly the Microsoft Give campaign to raise funds for the programme and would like Asha's approval of the project before the GiVe Campaign.
Minutes of the presentation -------------------------- - Organization wants to expand to serve 244 residential children and 300 children in St. Catherine of Sienna School. - Organization is located in Church's premises in an urban area. The destitute children come from neighbouring areas and parents live there. So they would like to expand within current premises and not relocate to suburbs, though it might be cheaper to obtain space for expansion in suburbs. Presenter ran out of time and a brief discussion outside LWSD. Question: What are the daily activities conducted for the residential children? Answer: Most of the time is spent in the school. Teaching method is similar to Montessori schools. Children are encouraged to explore and learn things that interest them. Question: What happens to the children after they finish school? Answer: Some of the students are supported through college. Some droput. We would like to expand the support to cover more children and reduce the dropout rate.
Minutes take by: Kannan Iyer, Binay Pathak, Lakshmi Kumar Tiruppukuzhi
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