Meeting minutes 04/27/08
Attendees: Gaurav,
Itisha, Sharanya, Bharath, Rahul, Arvind, Molly, Ganesh, Savitha, Abhinav,
[I] Election decision
[II] Prasanna Jyothi
- Intro to the organization given by Sharanya.
- We have 21 kids this year.
- They now have two buildings in the same compound.
- They are planning more repair work over the summer (might increase the expenses).
- Asha Austin support is used for admission fees, monthly fees, books, uniforms etc.
- Kids come from various backgrounds and the interaction with other kids is how they bond and get really rehabilitated.
- Sundari mami has been very involved in our SAC program and has direct contact with donors. So we take her input on whether we increase the amounts or not. So far she has not really been encouraging in increasing this amount.
- Also many folks do donate without any association and that will cover the extra expenses.
- More updates on individual kids (3 left; 1 found a job in IBM; 5 joined new).
- A few donors have not responded: discussion on when to move on.
- Vote on supporting the expenses from Apr08 to Sep08 for a sum of Rs. 136000
-- YES (10) NO (0) ABSTAIN (0).
[III] Gnanodaya
- Intro to the organization given by Bharath.
- DIK, a German NGO, has been a long time, large donor.
- Bharath and Preeti visited Gnanodaya in first week of April. Bharath gave an account of their visit.
- Teachers' access to the school is an issue, particularly during rains. Teachers come from nearby towns.- The Gnanodaya name is associated with leprosy and that might brand the kids graduating from the organization. Question is what have they seen, and how prevalant is this, and what are/do they plan to do about this?
- The hostel kids eat together in the first floor room, and the local village kids eat together in the ground floor room. Are they trying to merge them etc.?
- Do they do any medical tests regularly on the kids to find out if they have any symptoms of leprosy? They send kids to a nearby community regularly for the check up. They focus more on patients who are currently affected.
- Can leprosy recur?
- Discussion on helping Gnanodaya to raise more local funds.
- Bharath showed photos from the site visit.
- Find out details of PPF scheme offered by Gnanodaya. Why only Mr. Thangaraj is contributing?
- Until we decide on the van etc. we should ask them to have a temporary arrangement which we can include in our budget.
- Why diesel van? Why not a Maruti van?
[IV] New off-campus mail box for Asha Austin
- A USPS post box which can be accessed by everyone. Costs around $28 per month. We will slowly phase out our current mail to be sent to the USPS PO Box.
[V] Mehdiganj
water conference discussion conf call with Anita and
Santhosh during the week. Gaurav
will send the details of the call on
the chapter list. Might be a little late at 10:00pm or
10:30pm.