Asha Atlanta Project Group Meeting

1. Asha AtlantaProject Group Meeting Feb 24 2008

2. Old Projects • Rehabilitation Centre for Blind Women in Tiruchirappalli District, TN: The institution aims at providing Rehabilitation, vocational training and placement services to adult blind women below the poverty line and from the remote villages. (Sent $11000 in 2003-2007) • Door Step School in Pune, Maharastra: Non-formal education center for children from slums. (Sent $5400 in 2005-2006) • Sahyog - Anusandhan Trust in Maharastra: Community based educational programme for adolescent girls.(Sent $8100 in 2004-2007) • Vanavasi Ashram - Kerala: Non-formal education centers forchildren of dalits/tribals. (Sent $4250 in 2006) • Vivekananda Kendra - Rural development programme in Thoothukkudi district, Tamilnadu: pre-primary school for children of migrant workers. (Sent $1760 in 2006)

3. Current Projects • Nishtha in West Bengal: Providing education to children of sex workers and rehabilitation of women in brothels. (Sent $6500 in 2006-2007) • Gram Mangal in Maharastra: Providing elementary education to tribal and rural children either by sending teachers to homes of students or setting up schools. (Sent $14000 in 2007 including matching donation of $7000) • Trinita in West Bengal: Right Based approach towards child labor in kolkata and Bankura. (Sent $2660 in 2007) • Prayas (Rajapark integrated school) in Jaipur, Rajasthan: Provides education, health care and nutritional support to mentally challenged, physically disabled and socially deprived children. (Sent $5550 in 2007) • Bhagavathula Charitable Trust (BCT) in Andhrapradesh: Formal schools in Vishakhapatnam district. (Sent $5600 in 2007) • Jeevan Gnanodaya in Tamilnadu: Providing education to rural, deaf and disabled children.(Sending $7000 in 2008) • Approved Projects: Parijat Academy in Assam ($4000) and Viklang Vidyalaya in Bihar ($2100).

4. New Project Proposals (2008) • Hope School by SINSERE, Bihar ($2500 requested): School building construction costs for Musahar community children • R N BASU Girl's high school in WB ($6000 requested): Infrastructure (renovation) costs for a girls' school. • Vidyavanam, TN ($3-5000 requested): A rural project run by Bhuvana foundation. • Humana, UP ($5000 requested): Rehabilitation and education of working and street children in Sahibabad Industrial Area, Ghaziabad. • Kalyania, WB ($5500 requested):This project is to support a prayas center for special education and vocational training for children of the deprived in Kalyani, West Bengal. • Book Bank, WB ($3-4000 requested): Run by Ramakrishna Mission, Narendrapur. Money is being requested for the purchase of books. • Anandadhara, WB ($3000 requested): Primary school's educational material, furniture etc. • Vidyarambam, TN (minimum $4K):Pre-primary and remedial education

5. Appraisal Results 37-39: Hope School, RN Basu Girls’ School, Kalyania, BookBank 33-35: VidyaVanam, Humana, Anandadhara, Vidyarambam

6. Personal Comments Hope School (Site Visit required) • The budget is reasonable and they don't have other sources so we should fund them.FCRA is a big concern so we should wait till they get that before we commit to them. • A very important project in that area with literacy as low as 0.7%. Asha should support projects like this in remote areas. • As it’s a grass-root level project and will help to develop a rural community, we should go for this funding. We can support teacher’s salary, furniture and books for library in this year. RNBasu Girls’ School • One thing which struck me very odd is the low attendance. If the teaching is indeed very different from regular schools, the students should be motivated to attend. The reason could be lack of space and early timings. We should keep track of the attendance with another site visit once they move. • I personally believe that increasing education awareness among women, promoting self-help schemes in rural community, is a very essential part of rural development, women empowerment and a total development of the society. We should encourage this project in funding for school building, toilets, drinking water facilities, electricity, black boards and library in this year (furnishing school building, furniture and others).

7. Personal Comments VidyaVanam • Overall its ok. We should wait for the second site visit and revised budget before we decide funding. Also FCRA funding is also pending. • It is a very well-organized project to support. The lack of affordable elementary education in the village seems very essential. We should support this project with teacher’s salary, building the computer lab and children’s outdoor play equipments. Humana (Site Visit required) • We need to figure out how to get a site visit done for Humana. Once we have all the details we can fund them partly. • As per my understanding it is really difficult to get a regular attendance of the children who don’t have the basic necessities (e.g. enough food, clothing, and basic hygiene system) in their lives. But we can go for this as I found very practical approach to give them third grade level of elementary education in a year. We should support in renting the educational premises, health check–ups and medicines for children, purchase of carpets for seating, chairs and tables for teachers, stationary, and salary for two teachers.

8. Personal Comments Kalyania • I really liked the proposal and feedback from site-visit. Depending on how much funds we have we should probably decide on what to fund.One concern could be the small strength of the school. • As proposed by the site visit, we can go for the teacher’ssalary in this year. Book Bank • Books make a significant impact on students. I think we should definitely support this project for this year. We should specify though in the contract that funding for subsequent years is dependant on the funds available with Asha Atlanta. • It seems to me that the Book Bank helps needy students in surrounding schools. It is a big help for them. We can support in purchasing of reference books which are expensive for poor or middle class students.

9. Personal Comments Anandadhara • We should support part of the proposal and specify to them that funds should be used only for specified purposes. I suggest asking them for exact breakups as to how the funds will be used. Currently it seems like they just put together random figures.Lastly, tell them about future funding (ref. book bank) • Impressed seeing the pictures of the children are attending school and enjoying it! I feel that it is quite worth to support this project if we can in this fiscal year. We can support in Instruments and Apparatus, and setting up the library. • The issues raised in May 2007 site-visit were mostly resolved in the Dec. 2007 site-visit by Abhyuday. Also 3 main concerns arose in the reviewer meeting on Feb.10 which have been clarified by Mr. Prabir Basu, the org. contact, in email response to me - • 1. They have only 1 functional computer, asking for 3 more from ASHA • 2. 13 teachers are on payroll, 2 are volunteers. Asking ASHA for help with 2 more paid teachers because of increased no. of students • 3. The children's corner is proposed to give a chance to children to express themselves in music/poetry/writing and provide • them a small reading area. Asking ASHA for: • a) Furniture like Reading Table, Chair, Book Racks • b) Books • c) Tape-recorder/DVD players/headphones • d) Audio and Video cassettes • e) Stationery materials

10. Personal Comments Vidyarambam (Site Visit required) • Funding 5 villages might not be possible. After we get the site visit report we can probably talk to other chapters. Do they have FCRA? • The kids associated with this program are first generation learners (kids of agricultural laborers). Some parents move from village to village. This program supports kids who move all the time. Health care is a part of curriculum. They provide clothing during natural disaster. Tutors are very motivated, they use their homes for teaching. Schools are in the vicinity of homes of these kids. The schools use active learning strategies. Parents are involved in the education process. • We can support the remedial courses for 1, 2 and 3 and the children’s library for students’ 2 to 8th grades.

11. Funding Status • We have 37+ K in the Bank • We keep 12K for Currently supported projects • Trinita---- 2-5 K around April/May • Prayas---2-5 K April-August • Gram Mangal– 3-5 K April-August • Rural Development Center– 2-3 K April/May • Parijat Academy/ Viklang Vidyalaya • Max funds to be disbursed------ 20-25 K (Vidya Vanam funds to be sent after May/June for their FCRA delay)

12. Funding Options 37-39: Hope School, RN Basu Girls’ School, Kalyania, BookBank 33-35: VidyaVanam, Humana, Anandadhara, Vidyarambam

13. Next Step • Site visit required • Fill up checklist for sending funds (FCRA number and their bank information) • Send the final checklist to Padmanava Sen (padmanava.sen@gmail.com) • Send them Disclosure letter and obtain a scanned copy for records • Upload the scanned disclosure letter in the projects group. • We need half-yearly progress report for all the projects. Thank U