Attendees : Ankur, Ramya, Murali, Pankaj, ArvindV, Sanjeev, Gaurav, Santhosh

UT Event follow up:

Signup Sheet at the UT info session – person responsible should please email the list of students on the signup sheet to Sanjeev.

 

Oct 7th 2:oo p.m. next info session and brain storming for UT events – Khushbu and ramya to confirm.

   - Will need to publicize event – ramya to send out task items seeking help.

 

Sahanivasa discussion:

 

 

Proposal Documents :

The Tsunami proposal is at
http://www.ashanet.org/projects/project-view.php?p=709 and the
Sahanivasa webpage is at
http://www.ashanet.org/projects/project-view.php?p=155

 

Previous Q&A/Discussion :

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/austinasha/files/Proposals/Sahanivasa/

 

New questions :

Are the houses in the new location or the old location ?

 

How will we make the govt recognize that the people are in that area? Don't they require land entitlement before getting PDS cards?

 

How will they share based on season. In one season one fish? Are some ppl going into sea and other near the coast.

 

Do big fishes come to the back waters since tribals can only fish there? for e.g. Meluvu as mentioned in the Q&A.

 

What are the other NGOS working with APVVU?

No  volunteer  was ready to take a vote at  this point.

GSK site visit : 

Done by Asha volunteer Murali in the end of August.

 

-           Running 2 schools.

-           Was raining, school was shut. (some children were there still – b'cos they liked coming to school)

-           Interaction with teachers, community etc.

-           Started to work with other schools in the area.

-           Murali distributed  art work and other material – this was also part of the exhibition they had.

-           Bal panchayat  in school – weekly  magazine  - bal book. daily  newspaperUday patrika – completely  run by children - editor, journos  etc. (Though the school was closed the children forming the newspaper team  were working)

-           They built  5 rooms (1 lakh contributed by community and shram dhan (labor as donation) by the community)  which can take 25 children each.

-           Some pamphlets that were distributed amongst the community was also circulated

-           Murali displayed some photos from his visit.

-           Attendance in 2nd school is twice the amount  of the nearby govmt. School

-           2nd school – plans to get the buildings done by end of this year – land given by panchayat.

 

-           Q : Can land be given in the name of GSK – will ensure that school is not forced out later due to reasons that the community might  not agree with – for e.g. jurisdiction changing – e.g. case of bhandayali school

-           Q : What is the basis for the construction style shown in the photos ? -  Illumination, ventilation etc. need to be considered.

 

Murali also visited Bodh Shiksha Samithi – bigger organization – they conducted workshops for GSK teachers. 1st week – Philosophy of teaching etc. – They provide teacher training.

 

They are working in all govmt schools in jaipur  – 225 of them. Murali showed a photo of a govmt school that bodh has started working with. On paper the govmt school had a building, but when the visit was made there was no building and children were studying by sitting on a bed sheet on bare land.

 

Bodh makes use of whatever resources they have to reach out to the children. Murali showed a photo of a private area /pavement in front of a shop, that the owner had given for that school.

 

The 2nd govmt school had 65 children cramped in a small place – a muslim community – again this was a person's house and no building existed for the school.

 

Photos of music classes, pre-school etc. were shown.

 

A technique devised by a bodh teacher was shown – pictorial substitution for words – to improve association of words with actual objects/animals  etc.

 

Another technique similar to flash cards was shown – based on board games.

 

Marathon :

 

54 runners committed with Team Asha (10-12 full, 6 ultra, rest are half)

 

Need to provide cotton t-shirts and coolmax t-shirts. We can get discounted coolmax t-shirts through a partner for $6 with printing costs.

 

T-shirts colors are – black, red, white, navy blue, green – Need to check what the colors are. Need to check what the requirements from the printer are.

 

Austin Screen Printing – Murali to follow up are quote. 1-2-3

 

Ashwini - to check with IBM race people – need to send out mail.

 

Presentations  - Vinod and Arun to work on it.

 

Need to update websites.

 

Do we need one more fund-raising workshop?  We could couple it with a workshop for putting up people's websites. Need to have it at home because of net access. 

 

 

 Ankur spoke about a site visit by Biju. He will present details in the following week's meeting.