9th April, 2006
Attendees Š Sanjeev, Arvind,
Santhosh, Ashwini, Anita, Ruchika, Vinod, Sarvanan, Raman and Gaurav
1. Tsunami Proposal
The Tsunami proposal for the
houses for North Pichavaram is available at:
http://www.ashanet.org/austin/proposals/tsunami_irula_house_proposal-forARC.doc
We had collected additional
questions
http://www.ashanet.org/austin/minutes_html/26mar06.html
about the proposal that
Arvind will get answers for.
- Everyone to take a look at
the proposal and check that all their questions are captured in the list.
- Vinod to put up the
proposal for Asha-wide on ARC
- Arvind to get answers to
all questions from Jignesh
2. Banyan
- Santhosh mailed out the
split costs for the remaining streams. Not sure what their requirements are
- How long do people work Š
how to distinguish between training and work?
38.5 hours a week. This is
comparable to a full-time job.
- What about minimum wages
for the inmates? How do they differentiate between between people who are
working full-time and training?
Some discussion we had over
this topic was:
- There are social workers
to provide individual attention to each inmate
- Most people may not get
employed outside due to social stigma
- Some people are not wanted
by family and they have no place to live
- Link to Q&A on the
website:
http://www.ashanet.org/projects-new/documents/604/qna.doc
http://www.ashanet.org/projects-new/documents/604/Asha.doc
Discussion on rights of
mentally challenged individuals and questions that came ups:
- In Erwadi, there is a huge
dargah. People started religion based mental health care. There maybe some
ayurvedic, black magic used to cure people. These are not regulated. The
inmates were chained and there was a fire and many people died.
-90% of mental healthcare is
from the private sector. Much of the private healthcare as in the above case is
unregulated.
- Human rights issue is a
problem even in state sponsored healthcare.
- What is the reservation
rule in India? The policy is yet in formative stage.
- What is the context when
banyan talks about voting rights for the mentally challenged? What stage of
treatment should inmates be in and what paperwork do they need to have to be
able to vote?
3. Gramin Shiksha
Kendra update
GSK is our
alternate education project in Rajasthan. The latest GSK update is available
at:
http://www.ashanet.org/projects-new/documents/603/gsk-update-mar2006.pdf
A highlight is that
kids bring out their own newspaper
about local happenings in the village. They have created a sort of Panchayat
for the school Š one teacher and two kids.
Action Items
- We need to get the
education material from GSK.
4. Event
- No contact from EROS or
Vasu. Copyright issue for the problem is the biggest issue. Need another
contact in Eros.
- Radha sent some information
on the screens
- Ashwini will contact
Prasad and Chirag studios
- Ashwini will contact UTV
- Gaurav will check with
originalalamo.com
- Santhosh hasnÕt heard from
Tamil Sangam either
We need help to find
distributors and copyrights!
Team Asha ashawide is
working on Sulekha publicity for
this years marathon program. Santhosh will follow up with Madhav about
the publicity on Sulekha for the marathon.
5. Elections
Information about Asha
elections are available online:
http://www.ashanet.org/ashawiki/pmwiki.php/General/General
Any volunteer can post a
question they would like nominees to answer:
http://www.ashanet.org/ashawiki/pmwiki.php/Elections/AshaElections2006-QuestionsFromNominees
You can also look at the
questions that have been asked and the answers presented so far.
Many positions donÕt have
competition, but we do need to look into what each volunteer has said and
approve their nomination.
Conference call with all the
nominees happened yesterday with chapter. We have time to vote.
6. Chat with Raman
One of AustinÕs active
volunteer, Raman (ex-Treasurer) has moved to India. He is working with Intel
and working on volunteer hours program in getting more people to volunteer at
the company. So far he has managed to get 45% of the 3000 employees to
volunteer in some capacity or the other. He spoke about the work he is doing
with government schools and gave vivid examples of issues and what was needed
to overcome them.
We had the pleasure of
RamanÕs company and thank him for taking the time in the couple of days he had
at Austin to come to the meeting.