August 17 2005
===============
All,
Here is a summary of what we discussed on yesterday's call with Naveen Deshpande, our contact at SSS project.
They generate their donations from three primary sources: 
Recurring donations: About 350 people donor-base donating anywhere between Rs. 50 to Rs. 5000 
Ad-hoc donations: Non-recurring donations typically ranging from Rs. 25,000 to Rs. 50,000 
Programs: They do charity programs, dramas, etc. from time to time to raise money.
They have three phases of their program: 
Special Education: where they impart education of skills depending on level of retardedness (e.g. for a borderline retarded child, they teach skills like lifting a cup to drink water, etc.) 
Vocational Training: where they identify positive points in children so that they can learn how to do mechanically repetitive jobs (e.g. teaching how to do screen-printing) 
Rehabilitation: where children actually work to produce products sold in the real world and generate money. Here there are two types again: (a) shelter workshops: where children work under close supervision, (b) open environment: where children work under indirect supervision
SSS does not accept government grants, because if they do, they will have to abide by government's rules and restrictions that are applicable to normal children, but that do not take into account mentally handicapped children (one example is that govt may allow only 2 years for a child to remain in a certain program/level, but a mentally handicapped child may take 6 years to cross the same program/level). 
SSS has a total of 80 children (32 are girls) with the following breakdown: 
55 in special education (ranging from 4 years to 22 years of age) 
18 in vocational training 
rest in rehab centers, with the following distribution: 
Group 1: making rakhis (4 children) 
Group 2: making office files/screen printing (5 children) 
Group 3: making Dinshaw icecreen spoons (8 children earning Rs. 700/mth) 
Group 4: making garlands
They have 5 levels of retardedness amongst all their children - ranging from borderline retarded to profoundly retarded. Profoundly retarded children need 1-on-1 attention for them to do their daily tasks (like brushing their teeth, eating, etc.). More than 13 children in SSS are profoundly-retarded. 
They have 32 staff members that they employ full-time for these children. These staff members are treated like regular employees with all benefits like provident funds, etc. offered to them. Recently, they made long-due salary increases for the staff members. 
SSS runs its operations from 10:30 am to 4:30 pm. They do not provide staying facilities for children, only education. All children come from a diverse range of family backgrounds - some come from poor families, some rich families, some rural areas, some urban areas, some where families are concerned about children, some where families are not concerned about children (in 50% cases, in which case SSS takes responsibilities of all expenses of child). They have kept 2 buses that take children to and fro from their homes to SSS. The monthly expenses for the buses runs at Rs. 50,000 per month. 
Next Steps: Naveen to send Asha-Athens the following documents: 
Salary structure for teachers 
Financial details (balance sheet for year ending March 31, 2005) 
Categorization of children in different categories (how many girls, how many rural, etc.)
Their goal: Their primary interest in dealing with organizations like Asha is for us to be able to give them some assurance of funding for a certain amount of time, irrespective of whether we can live up to our word for delivering the funding. Of course, they will continue to raise funds in their current ways, however, if Asha can help them raise more money, then can do a lot more for the children which they have currently planned out.
Regards,
Yash

September 1 2005
=================
Dear Yash,
            Classification of our students for the year 2005-06 is as follows,

Total no of students.---------77
M--------------57
F--------------20

Special schooling
M------------34
F------------13

Vocational Training
M----------7
F-----------3

Rehabilitation
M-----------16
F-----------4

Home based Training
M---------1

Classification as per severrity of retardation
Border line 			----01
Mildly retarded			----18
Moderatly retarded		----33
Severly&profoundly retarded	----25
      			Total   ----77

These 77 children have multiple disabilities as follows
                      	M    F    Total
1]Autistic            	8    2      10
2]Down`s              	6    2      8
3]Eye sight problem  	3    1      4
4]Cerebralpalsy      	7    0      7
5]Epilepsy            	12    2      14
6]Microcephaly        	00    1      1
7]Seech problem      	17    7      24

Dear Yash the above details regarding the multiple problems our children will give you fairly good idea about the complexsity and enormity of the project called SSS.Because of this factor the no of staff and no of faculties required is very high and thus the salary expense is also very high.I hope you realise how difficult it is to bring about imrovement in each child. Tonight I shall send you the staff salary details,till then
                                              Navin