Asha Meeting
Attendees: Gaurav, Vishal, Pankaj, Itisha, Raghu, ArvindV., Ankur, Mohit,
Agenda:
1. Privacy Guidelines (Gaurav)
2. Formal Studies on Educational Intervention (Raghu)
3. Work an Hour Update (Santhosh & Arvind)
4. Bhangra Party (Vishal)
1. Privacy Guidelines (Gaurav)
In the meeting on
The presentation from the meeting,
and the Proposal for Privacy Guidelines have previously been sent by email.
For details, please read the proposal and the meeting minutes from
The goal for today's meeting is to vote on the overall Proposal for Privacy Guidelines in order to take this to the ARC. The individual points will be debated later within the chapter. This vote is to decide whether this idea is worth taking forward to the next step.
Gaurav briefly went over the (8) points.
Discussion points today:
- Would this hamper fund raising efforts?
- Hopefully not, we can still use pictures of children. But the basic goal is to protect the child's identity.
- Have any SAC donors displayed bias (ie gender, caste, location)?
- Some SAC donors have asked specifically to support a
girl. Many also prefer to support someone near their hometown in
- Do we talk to project partners currently when posting pictures?
- Not currently, at least not as a policy.
- Is a waiver really needed, especially since perhaps a lot of project partners may not understand the implications of the waiver?
- While some partners may not understand, there are certainly a lot of partners particularly in cities that do understand privacy concerns, and have expressed them. We should as a part of this, try to educate the partners about privacy concerns.
- An example of privacy protection from Prasanna Jyothi: one of the girls is blind at PJ, and requires additional help. Though we may discuss this situation within the meeting, we do not want to identify the individual by name in minutes or other public communications.
Vote taken to take Proposal for Privacy Guidelines forward
Yes: 11 No: 0 Abstain: 0
Measure is passed
2. Formal Studies on Intervention (Raghu)
Raghu has a background in economics and has been involved with a group called Seva Mandir in Rajasthan. They are doing work with literacy, particularly with tribals.
He gave an example of a study done by Senthil Mullainathan, a renowned economist who won the Macarthur Award for a study done with Seva Mandir regarding the effectiveness of educational intervention:
A big problem with some of the non-formal education centers was that teachers were not often there, because of a lack of incentive, monitoring, etc. As part of a study, tamper proof digital cameras were given to the teachers, and they had to take a picture when arriving at the class, and when leaving. Bonus was tied to performance, attendance. This had dramatic impact on teacher attendance.
However, is this useful? Does the presence of the teacher actually make a difference? A follow up study was done on children's test scores and attendance, and yielded positive results.
These types of studies and their data can be useful to organizations like Asha. Raghu mentioned he can forward these types of studies if he comes across them. He also offered help in analysis if needed for future projects.
3. Work an Hour Update (Santhosh & Arvind)
The Work an Hour (WAH) campaign has been going on since July 4, and will last until Sept 5. Overall, the pace of fundraising has not reached the target. However, Asha Austin has raised over $1,000, which makes the chapter eligible to receive the equivalent amount from the central funds.
Please get the word out to friends and colleagues.
We have prepared a flier for WAH, and will be handing it out at the ICC event and other events.
During the WAH conference call, some good ideas were put forth by other chapters regarding publicity, this could extend beyond WAH. These included:
· Reaching out to the local NPR station. For example, provide volunteer time for their fundraiser in exchange for some air time.
· When approaching regional cultural groups (ie Kannada Sanga, etc), try and use projects from that part of the country to create more interest among that group.
4. Bhangra Party (Vishal)
Vishal is hosting a Bhangra Party in
The party is:
JALWA to JATKA
Location: Club Spiros
Date: Friday –September 7-2007
Time: DOORS open @ 10.15 PM
Please contact Vishal at vishal@vishaldave.com for more details