Meeting Minutes 06/01/08

Attendees: Gaurav, Ganesh, Vinod, Praveen, Bharath, Rahul, Itisha , Preethi, Murali

[I]Update on Banyan project – Preethi

Preethi gave an overview of Banyan project. Banyan has been really successful in getting support from local institutions and individual donors in the past two years. Asha Austin
had supported vocational training initiative that Banyan had undertaken in 2005 and 2006. Because of enough support from donors, Banyan did not submit any proposals to Asha Austin in the past 2 years. One proposal which was submitted in Jan 2008 - Agarbathi making project through ITC, did not materialize. Since Asha Austin did not get any proposal from Banyan in the past 2 years, we decided to temporarily close the project. We will take up Banyan project if we get any other proposal from Banyan in the future. The chapter decided to disable the "donate" button from Banyan project web page since Asha Austin is not currently supporting any proposals from Banyan.

There was a general discussion on vocational training initiatives of Banyan. Some questions came up during the discussion:

i) How many inmates of Banyan work as domestic help? Is it a disadvantage for Banyan inmates to work as maids? Are they given an option to choose this profession?

ii) What is the educational background of women in Banyan? Has Banyan encouraged the women to pursue degrees in higher education (when they are fully rehabilitated)?

[II]WAH proposal – Vinod

Vinod gave an overview of matching proposal from general pool funds for WAH 2008. This matching proposal is up for ARC vote. Asha Austin supports the matching proposal from general pool funds.

Yes: 9  No: 0

Asha Austin has put up Shristi Special Academy project for WAH 2008. Austin chapter will try to raise atleast 50% of amount that we requested for Shrishti project. Ganesh will be Asha Austin representative for WAH 2008.

Action item: Include write-up about WAH in Asha Austin newsletter which will be used as publicity for Show of Hope and Strides of hope. 

[III]Shrishti Special Academy proposal: Vinod

Proposal for Prakruthi, an exclusive autism unit in an urban location (within Bangalore,in addition to current location which is outside the city) to accommodate more kids and greater accessibility.

The trust has land, need to build a building. This will be an exclusive facility for diagnosis and consultancy for autism. The estimated overall budget for the new building (3 floors-basement, ground and first floors) is approx. INR 40 lakhs.

Questions:
-Does the Shristi trust own the land or is the land under lease from the government?

-How did they arrive at the estimate for the building costs? Were there multiple estimate quotes?

-How does moving kids from the current unit to the new unit impact the various areas of their therapy?

-How do they plan to accommodate different kinds of therapy for the diferent kids who will be part of this new unit?