Meeting Minutes Venue: Neha Kaul's residence Date: 5th Feb. 2006 Volunteers: Shiv Mathur, Pavan, Meera, Uday, Satyandra, Oindrila, Neha, Kanchan, Rohini Agenda discussed: 1.20% reservation project: We need a name for this project. Few names have been suggested. Neha suggested that we do a poll to select the name for the project. Volunteers are requested to send in other names for the project so that a poll can be conducted. A project page needs to be created. All the relevant documents to be forwarded to Shubh Mangal for the page. 2.The monthly meeting for this project was held on 4th February, 2006 at India Habitat Center. Sahil Sehgal, Meera, Ritu, Ramashray, Arif, Rajiv, Uday, and Rohini attended the meeting. The updates are: i)Ritu- East District. Working in Rajiv Camp, Ambedkar Camp, Sonia Camp, Aradhak Nagar. 21 school have been approached with 48 students. 36 students have got registration forms. 16 students have got admission. 2 students have started going to school so that they can get adjusted to the school atmosphere. Also, working in Anand Vihar Camp. 6 children have got forms from DAV. ii)Rekha- South District. She has been working for the past 15 days in Sriniwaspuri area. She has approached 4 schools: Oxford, Cambridge, Saraswati, and Dev Samaj. All of them have refused to issue registration forms. A RTI and a complain have to be filed. Sahil Sehgal will be working with Rekha on this issue in the South District. iii)Arif: North East District-10 schools have been approached with 40 children. 97 applications have been filed as well as RTI. 50 cases went for appeal of which 11 appeals have been heard. 7 complaints have been filed with DDA. 3 schools have started giving forms. Nutan Vidya Mandir has given registration forms to 9 children and 1 child has been given admission. Greenfield has given registration forms to 7 children and 3 children have been given admission. 3.The funding for this project is from Asha Munich. However, LA has also remitted $1000 for this project. The money has arrived and Vallabh Bhai will be transferring it to our account. Asha Munich has provided funds to support this project for six months. However, the chapter felt that follow-up on the admission process will be important as we need to monitor the progress of the child as well as whether the school is treating them on par with other children. Thus, the scope the project might be beyond the admission process. Uday and Kanchan to have a discussion with the project volunteers as well as with Parivartan to work out the further modalities. 4.Publicity: Neha and Oindrila to coordinate the publicity efforts both for Asha Delhi and for the 20% reservation project. Rohini to forward all the relevant materials to Neha and Oindrila. Neha has also started working on a poster for Asha Delhi publicity. They will also get in touch with Minali for the publicity. The publicity issue also raised the question about identity. As there are many groups with the name tag Asha, it was felt that we need to create a different name for ourselves. 5.Funding situation: Currently we have Rs 55,000 pledged through MPS. We have also sold about 200 calendars. In our Asha US account we have $5000. And we have a donation of $5000 solely for Sakshaar project. 6.Projects: Concerned Action Now has forwarded two projects: one for their pre-primary school and the other for their vocational training for people with disabilities project. Both the projects have been forwarded to India Focus Group. Meantime, we had agreed to support one teacher's salary in their pre-primary center. The amount agreed is Rs 1500/- per month for one teacher for one year. The total comes to Rs 18,000. 7.Danny: When Danny had written to us for an internship, Sahaj Sankalp an NGO based in Delhi had agreed to pay him Rs 2000/- per month if he would do some work with them. However, it did not materialize after Danny came to India. Asha does not have a policy of paying interns. However, in this case as there was an expectation, the chapter agreed to pay Rs. 12,000 for the period Nov 4th to May 4th. 8.Sshristi: Asha Berkeley will be supporting the project. Kala has written to Sanghamitra to apply for a FCRA. 9.Adobe: Pavan, Mrs. Kumar, and Lipika met with Adobe systems who are trying to support educational projects in Delhi. Adobe Systems will get back to us as to whether they want to support this project or not. 10.MCD schools: Danny has done considerable work on the MCD schools. He has talked to AEO and DEO of the schools systems and his conclusion has been that the most basic problem is that teachers do not teach. He is planning to do a cleanliness drive in few schools where he wants to do a basic teaching/training module with the children on the importance of cleanliness and using the trash bins. In addition he is planning to do a survey of the headmaster/mistress, teachers, and children to find out the lacunae and what they each expect from the school system. The chapter debated on what should be the next step. They felt that we should work with the MCD schools and somehow improve the quality. Shiv Mathur suggested that we offer positive incentives to the teachers. The chapter finally agreed that we should work with one MCD school. A scope of work should be prepared and we should look for a full-time person, maybe a retired school teacher, with whose help we can try to improve the school. Uday updated on Mahila Samkhya and his meeting with Dr Rashmi Sinha who is the director of MS in UP. He pointed out that there are govt. agencies through which we can work. 11.Asha Sanctuary conference: Rohini gave a brief update on the conference held in Kolkata. 8 groups- Natpurwa, Guria, SARC, HELP, Vimochana, MICDA, Sanlaap, Odanadi, Himmat, Swadhar, SAATHI, SUPPORT, and Tomorrow's Foundation- attended the conference. The theme was children at risk and the discussions centered around who are the children at risk, the laws, rehabilitation and reintegration, and children employed as domestic labourers.