FAQ about the Trigger WAH proposal

Overall

1) It appears that these are five projects supported by five different Asha chapters, which are completely independent of each other, being clubbed together under one heading, to match the "minimum" requirements of this year's WAH. If this is not just politics, an explanation is required.

This is NOT politics and as long-time Asha volunteers who form this group we try not to engage in such politics and honestly, politics is the last thing in all of our minds. Please allow us to explain why this is not politics as some of you have suggested in your emails.

Before any discussion of WAH or funding of projects a number of us within Asha thought we should form a group that deals specifically with under-privileged disabled children because in our experiences the situation and plight of these children in general was significantly worse than the able-bodied underprivileged children. Initially we tried to get more information on disability in India (facts from various sources) and still continue to do that. During this initial process we were fortunate to have 3 blind volunteers become part of our Asha-Special group. This is "special" because they have provided us with very useful insights that many of us able-bodied Asha volunteers wouldn't have ever realized. Finally, in the spirit of Asha we collectively thought to put our ideas into action. As a group we are aware that there a number of "disconnected" initiatives around India which are doing great work in this area but their work is generally done in isolation. Our goal in implementing in Trigger is to work with initiatives in 5 different regions of India (North, South, East, West, Central) that may appear "different" to begin with but become integrated so technology, people, ideas and resources are freely shared among them. This forms the basis of connected action. The grand vision is to create momentum so this effort accelerates around the country. Even to our surprise, this connected action is taking shape sooner than some of thought and some of the examples are listed below:

a) Asha Chennai volunteers are quite intrigued by the concept of Helpline ASTHA (Delhi) has proposed for the North zone. ASTHA has shown willingness to work with Asha Chennai on the helpline concept to implement such a helpline in South Zone as well. ASTHA also has shown interest in making use of volunteers and computers resources of Asha Chennai's for a better implementation of the North zone helpline. Similar "Quality helplines" are envisioned for most of India in coming years utilizing existing resources of Asha funded disability related projects and other well recognized and willing groups.

b) Connected yet technologically diverse pilot projects for empowerment of blind persons in West (Rajasthan) and South (Chennai) zones will enable large-scale impact on availability of information to the blind persons.

c) The East zone coordinator, Joy has traveled to West zone project and many other Asha projects and meetings and provided guidance and feedback.

d) Under the leadership of Asha special team members one of the Asha funded projects, Udavum Karangal is planning to hold a conference of all disability related groups in South zone. Trigger team is committed to provide all support to this large scale demonstration of collaboration and exchange of ideas.

e) Asha Chennai team has provided feedback on how to develop a survey for the disabled children in Bhopal.

The group of volunteers that comprise this group is unique because some are visionaries, some have years of relevant work experience working with disabled children, some are passionate about the use technology to assist disabled children, some are disabled themselves, some don't want to impose solutions on the disability community and let the community drive solutions with some guidance.

The volunteers in this group do not formally represent different chapters within Asha but share a common concern of many Asha volunteers regarding disability. Our primary mandate is NOT necessarily to work with our individual chapters to come up with funding for the projects we work with. We will, however, approach all chapters including the ones that Asha-Special volunteers represent for funding. So there is no question of this i.e. Asha Trigger being a project of five different chapters. Chapters are not driving this project but volunteers of Asha-Special are. There is only one set of common volunteers i.e. Asha-Special team that is driving all these 5 different projects and we don't view each project as coming from any one particular chapter. Few Asha-Special volunteers are also Asha-Stars who are funding various aspects of the project so far such as the traveling expense of grassroots volunteers who travel from one project to another to give us feedback about their progress. (Specifically, Joy, an Asha volunteer is spending time in Lucknow learn about important administrative issues such as FCRA accounting and then he will travel to Chennai to work with the team there).

The research component of Trigger team is gathering information from experts in various areas. This will lead to generation of clear action items for disability related issues in all of India at the end of one year. Our aim is to work on these proposed zonal projects, involve many more groups, learn from involvement in projects and from the experts, and to come up with a booklet of prioritized actionable items by the end of one year.

Irrespective of WAH funding we plan to work with our partners and take this forward. And furthermore, we are willing as well as determined to work with other Asha-supported disability projects in India. The goal, again, is to be connected. We are learning about disability issues and the Asha-supported disability projects are a great resource.

2) How were these 5 particular projects chosen for Project Trigger?

Asha-Special wants to work in 5 different corners of the country to begin our effort. In lieu of this, individual volunteers from this group decided to search for credible partners who were open to working on this initiative. These partners share our vision and are part of the Trigger effort where they will share human resources and other resources with other Trigger projects. In this process we contacted existing Asha-supported projects as well as new ones we were referred to.

3) I do not see the site visit reports in the last year for all 5 projects. This is a requirement of WAH 2003 candidacy.

Astha http://www.ashanet.org/projects/document-view.php?id=118
(This site visit date is not clear and have asked the Delhi volunteer)
A recent site visit is underway by Asha Delhi and will be uploaded by May 15 at following site:
http://www.ashanet.org/projects-new/documents/25/May2003SitevistASTHA.txt

Lead into Light
http://www.ashanet.org/projects-new/documents/340/SitevisitofVidyavrikshah.doc
and
http://www.ashanet.org/projects-new/documents/340/SouthZoneSitevisitReport.doc
Sample of Braille Magazine:
http://www.ashanet.org/projects-new/documents/340/brl-mag-3.gif

Tribal Empowerment
http://www.ashanet.org/projects-new/documents/354/SiteVisitEastZone.doc
and Photographs at:
http://www.ashanet.org/projects-new/documents/354/TribalEmpowermentPhotos.txt

Look Ahead
http://www.ashanet.org/projects-new/documents/353/Look-Ahead-Site-Visit.txt
(This is a recent update by Asha Volunteer to the project and he will post greater details once his travel is complete)

Sambhavna
http://www.ashanet.org/projects-new/documents/342/SambhavnaSiteVist.txt

4) Parts of the proposal have not been supported by Asha (Look Ahead, Tribal Empowerment) for at least 1 year? Again, a requirement for WAH 2003?

Trigger work is being anchored from India end by Udavum Karangal in Chennai. This organization has been a long standing partner of Asha and has been awarded state govt recognition in 2002 for "best institution for disability services". Udavum Karangal will be involved in all aspects of Project Trigger across India as the collective goal is connected action. Their FCRA would be used for south zone work. The WAH rule applies completely here. Astha also is in the same category. Asha Lucknow and Asha Chennai are the other key anchors for Trigger work in India. Resting on the anchoring organizations like Udavum Karangal, Ashtha, Asha Lucknow, Asha Chennai, Trigger will be able to expand and reach out to less served areas such as Rajasthan (where female literacy rate is 8%, the lowest in the country) in the West zone and Manipur (where tribals are largely neglected by mainstream India) in the East zone. The Trigger team looks upon this arrangement as completely appropriate.

Astha Questions:

5) Is the funding amount required $7300 over three years? or $7300 + 2* $4000 ? If the former, then what happens to the next two year?

Funding amount required in first year is $7300 and only one year is requested from WAH. This includes $3540 non-recurring charges and $3750 for recurring charges for one year operation. The recurring charges for continued long term (beyond 5 years) operation of Helpline will be raised through fundraisers of Asha-Special team. First major fundraiser is planned for October 2003.

6) What is the photostat machine for? Considering that the initiative has four employees only... Can they use the photostat machine as a service and generate revenue?

The reason we had asked for a photocopy machine is that we do require a lot of information to be photocopied. ASTHA's centre is based in Tughlakabad Village. There are no photocopying facilities available either in the village or anywhere nearby. Each time anything needs to be photocopied we need to send someone to get it done. Many times it is not possible to get it done the same day.

We have an arrangement with a photocopying centre. A person from that centre comes to ASTHA twice a week and takes whatever needs to be photocopied. So there is a delay of up to 2 or 3 days in sending out information, which is not conducive to our work.

We require photocopying regarding schemes that the government offers for persons with disability, information on laws, on concessions, insurance policy and other benefits that are extended to persons with disability. Besides this, when parents come in and require any information regarding any disability, laws, rights of their child etc. a photocopy machine there will enable us to hand out the printed information there and then. This makes for effective information dissemination.

We also need to photocopy all relevant information and send a set to both our Centers in the Govindpuri and Lal Kuan community based programs. This information is required there so that it can be shared with the parents of children whom we work with.

The number of copies that we require on a daily basis varies from time to time. When we have meetings or workshops we do require a lot of photocopying. Besides this whenever people - parents, professionals, and organizations request us for any information, a lot of photocopying is again made necessary. We also need to send out information to people who call us on our helpline. Here again, photocopying is needed. We can say that we require photocopying on a daily basis. A photocopier will just make the whole process easier and prevent loss of time.

7) Are there institutions in India that are already working on networking groups working on the disabled children or involved in the dissipation of related information?

There is no real net-working of organizations on a formal basis, as far as working with children with disability is concerned.

Organizations, do however, collaborate with each other but this is with regard to certain specific objectives. None of these really focus on collaboration with specific regard to working with children with disability.

As far as dissemination of information is concerned many organizations are now disseminating information about their organization and the work it is involved with through newsletters. These newsletters are printed and disseminated to other organizations on a quarterly basis.

Focused dissemination of information is now just beginning to happen - but it is something does not always happen.

At ASTHA, we try and disseminate information from time to time. We do not have a newsletter. ASTHA had published a booklet entitled 'Exploring Caretaking Arrangements for Persons with Mental and Multiple Disability' This was the result of a lot of research into the legal rights of persons with disability and how they are viewed by our laws. As soon as this was published we sent out these booklets to organizations, parent associations, individuals working in the field of disability and many others through out the country. This again was ASTHA's initiative at reaching out to people with information that concerned them. All costs for this were borne by ASTHA.

8) The numbers above require some explanation. The ratio of "number of calls" to "number of calls attended" does not look healthy. The numbers also conflict with the "650 beneficiaries" cited in the proposal.

As explained earlier, the project proposal was sent to you much earlier (sometime in October-November 2002) and the answer to the questionnaire that you e-mailed were given later(March-April 2003).

This explains the difference in the number of calls and the break down of calls. Many more calls were made in the intervening period.

As we had explained that we have a tie-up with 'Just Dial Service', a private directory enquiry service. They are supposed to refer all calls that they receive concerning disability. But what has been happening is that they refer calls not only concerning disability but also concerning non-related areas. So when the list of calls is sent to us on a fortnightly basis it would probably have about 25 calls. The areas in which information is sought is broadly mentioned example 'voluntary organization,' 'adoption', 'mental retardation,' 'old age home' etc.

When we are calling people back we first look at all the calls that are directly linked to the disability areas.

Once this helpline is funded we will be able to reach out to people independently. We will be able to advertise the helpline and have people working full time on this.

The other point that we would like to make here is that when we say Number of Beneficiaries, it does not reflect the number of calls. We often are required to make 4-5 calls to provide referrals and adequate information to one caller. So, number of beneficiaries and no. of calls will be different.

9) FCRA exemption end date for ASTHA is 3/31/2003.

FCRA clearance is a one time clearance. ASTHA does have FCRA clearance. However, our income tax exemption (80G) was valid till 31-March-2003. As clarified earlier we have already applied for renewal of this exemption. We shall be getting this very soon.

10) Annual report does not contain the budget though it has been uploaded for the annual budget.

The numbers for Annual Budget of ASTHA organization will be provided by May 9, 2003. The annual report is uploaded to reflect the details on activities of ASTHA.

11) Is the photostat machine to generate revenues? why helpline is involved with revenue generation? Also, the cost for photostat machine seem very high..

No, the photocopy machine will not be used to generate revenue. It will only be used for the reasons listed above.

The cost of the photocopy machine that we had quoted in the budget was based on information given to us by dealers last year. In response to your query we have contacted the dealers again. We still await a detailed quotation from them. But what they have tentatively told us is that the cost is Rs 98,000/-

One of the dealers whom we spoke to also mentioned that there is a new model which has just been introduced which is priced at approximately Rs.60,000/-.

Once we receive the quotations from them we can forward them to you, whenever desired by you.

12) Why is a photostat machine needed? How many copies are made in a day and for what purpose.. Can't ASTHA contact some local (big) photocopying centers for doing this job for less?

See above related answers

13) Rs 3000/ pm for part time computer person and Rs 8000/pm for communication person are very high? what are the qualifications and responsibilities of these individuals??

The computer person: We see this person as being a graduate with a diploma in computer operations and being proficient in computers. He will be responsible for compiling information for the database, on the computer. He will also need to constantly update this information on the computer. This involves a lot of work as constant updating is required. Information required ranges from name of the organization, services offered by it, fees to the kind of work it is involved in.

The communication person: We see this person a holding a masters degree preferably in the area of mass communication or social work. This person would be responsible for conceptualizing the database, how it is to be organized, updated and details regarding the when and how. This person will also be making and taking calls on the helpline. She/he would need to establish links with other organizations working in the field and maintain these links by keeping in touch on a regular basis.

She/he will also to be involved in arranging and conducting meetings and workshops; culling out the main issues; linking them to the information already available; finding out further information; updating information on schemes, work happening in other organizations, new laws, intervention strategies etc. All this information needs to be organized and disseminated.

All this involves a lot of work and we see this person working full time i.e. 8.30 a.m. to 4.p.m. Monday through Saturday. We believe these salaries are in line with those in Delhi region for such experts. (Note added by project steward: I have had many phone conversations with the Staff at ASTHA and it is clear to me that the caliber, training, and commitment of the personnel at ASTHA are very high. Looking at the staff's collaborative published work with ActionAid, NIMH and others they clearly are making recognition for themselves by focusing on Quality of personnel and work.)

14) What is the social/economic/geographic background of the 650 beneficiaries of Helpline so far?

We get to speak to a wide range of people. From inference we feel that the majority of the callers belong to the lower-middle class to the middle class generally. Though it is not a very easy classification to make. The reason being that our interaction with people is mostly over the telephone. Very few people, who call us, come to the centre to meet us.

Added to it is the fact that people from the lower/middle class are generally the one who are not able to access information that easily. People who are not connected or linked to organizations find access to information more difficult.

Besides the people whom we reach out to over the telephone, we also reach out to people through workshops, meetings etc. here again we reach out to a range of people. Some of these meetings are arranged in the communities in which we work. These are attended by people who belong to the economically weaker section of society. On the other hand we also have workshops that are attended by people who are better off too!

So we can say that we are able to reach out to a range of people - people living in the slums to those who are financially sound.

15) Is there a fee for the meeting, workshop and counseling for parents who attend them?

When we have meetings and workshops in the community we do not charge any fee from people who are attending. But when we have workshops on a large scale we do charge a small amount. This is basically aimed at recovering our costs. For instance we recently organized a workshop on social security and care-taking arrangements. For this workshop we did not have any funding. But we had to incur costs of booking the conference hall, lunch and tea, travel costs of the resource person, costs of handouts and printed material etc. For an organization like ours it is not possible to incur huge costs like this. So we charged nominal amount from the participants. However, wherever people who wanted to attend the workshop but were not able to pay the full amount we did not charge them anything. At ASTHA we believe in empowering people through information and reaching out to as many people as we can. We believe that inability to pay fees should not deprive them of the opportunity to access information that they need. With regards to counseling : No, we do not charge anything from parents or for that matter, any other person who comes to us for counseling. Our trained counselors are always there for parents who are in need of counseling. Many of the parents who come for counseling, come to us on a regular basis. At no time is any sort of fee charged for that.

16) Reqd: $7300 of which $4000 is recurring. The recurring amount is more than half the required amount. One of the WAH guidelines was that recurring expenses should not be the main part of the proposal.

This project breaks new ground in linking disabled community with available resources and counseling making use of current infrastructure previously funded by Asha Seattle and MIT. The project makes very pragmatic use of current rehab facility and staff to expand the services to much larger population. This maximization of resources should be recognized. It is our plan that this model of quality helpline (something Govt institutes such as National Institute of Mental Health are not able to provide) will be replicated all over India in next five years using the existing resources and facilities and maximizing their potential. Information generated at ASTHA will be shared with many other institutes and organizations Asha DC volunteer and ASTHA project steward Sirish Agarwal is planning to spend 4 months beginning July 2003 traveling to all zones of India to work closely with ASTHA and many other groups on connected action for raising awareness of issues of persons with mental disability.

The relatively higher recurring costs in this case are thus in fact, the type that will serve the intention of WAH by providing a substantial impact.

Lead into Light

17) Do they have to use used Xerox paper?? Braille paper is expensive, and there is reason people use it. Braille markings require thick paper.

Xerox papers are just one of many options. The aim is to suggest that if it works for Braille, much money can be saved. Yes it has been the experience that papers like Xerox are good for temporary short-lived notes sometimes but for Braille magazines we will require thick papers.

Vidya Vrikshah has been working on developing low cost/no cost solutions to Braille printing. One such model involving a manual method of producing a master embossed copy and then producing multiple Braille copies, utilized Xerox paper pasted together or folded together as well as old thick magazine papers .They have found excellent results with the same.(details available on their website-project Braille Pusthak)

It is desirable to use Xerox paper/ old magazine papers as this would drive us towards a sustainable solution. The volunteers would work on developing indigenous Braille embossers too of the kind they have proposed to have in the budget.

18) What will be the content of the magazine? Any samples?

The Braille magazine is proposed to be in three parts The first part will consist of articles related to textbook chapters or latest articles derived from leading print magazines for educational purpose. The second magazine section will contain stories for the children and third will cover topics on general knowledge and general building up of motivation, self confidence etc.

The editorial team consists of three distinguished visually impaired volunteers of Vidhya Vrikshah as well as others including teachers.

It is an extremely moving experience to see a happy smile on the face of a blind school child as he/she reads a lesson in Braille and recognizes that it is in his/her own mother tongue.

The sample content including a Tamil story in Braille is attached as gif images.

19) Project is in Chennai - FCRA of Asha Lucknow?

It was initially proposed to use the FCRA of ASHA Lucknow.

The project would operate from Udavum Karangal with the help of Vidya vrikshah and the printing process would be set up at Udavum karangal. Hence the FCRA of Uduvum Karangal can be used.

20) Annual budget: broken link.

Broken Link Fixed

21) What is the use of Braille embosser? Is it to be used to create educational material for visually impaired children?

The content of the magazine would be created on the computer using the multilingual editor developed by IIT madras. The multilingual editor allows for typing of material in different Indian languages.(in the present case, we would begin with Tamil).The software has provision for computer generated Braille which permits text in Indian languages to be read through the conventional six dot system. Braille codes have been recommended for Indian language aksharas and the IITM software can generate the language specific Braille codes or simply the Roman transliteration of the text.

The Braille embosser would be connected to the computer to produce copies of the Braille content.

22) Why is it categorized as street/homeless children?

That was an error on the WAH log. It should not be categorized as street homeless children. In the WAH log as well as in the projects database the project will be listed under disabilities--in this case blind and visually impaired.

23) Does this project propose to train 1000 children in Braille in one year using WAH funds?

It's not at all a training project. It's geared at spreading knowledge through Braille. the project does not propose to train children in use of Braille but to provide them with reading material in their mother tongue through Braille.

The project proposes to initially produce 200 copies of the Braille magazine and these would be distributed to children in schools for the visually impaired as well as regular schools where visually impaired children have been integrated. At least 5 children would benefit from each magazine. This way it is anticipated to reach 1000 children with visual impairment to benefit from the project initially.

24) What is the social and economic background of the 1000 blind children who will be beneficiaries of the project?

The children targeted are those in local blind schools or blind training institutions belonging to working class families, close to the poverty line, with little or no access to Braille books or publications.

25) Is there going to be a subscription fee?

The magazine will not carry a subscription fee.

26) Are there any other Braille magazines already in circulation? (in the area and elsewhereÉjust concerned)

(a) There is NO magazine in Tamil Braille in Tamil Nadu or elsewhere. A limited amount of Biblical religious material is circulated in Tamil Braille by a couple of Braille presses run by Christian missionary organizations.

(b) A couple of organizations offer school text books in Tamil Braille but these books are prohibitively priced and beyond the reach of the vast majority of blind children of the State. No arrangements have appeared so far under state or private auspices to offer these books at low or no cost on a subsidized basis.

(c) There is no Braille magazine in India, as far as can be ascertained, that circulates school text book content on the lines that we propose.

(d) There are a few Braille magazines generally in English with limited local circulation produced in other parts of the country. Some examples are :

Braille Chronicle Ð (monthly) Annual Subscription Rs. 50/- Publisher
National Institute for Visually Handicapped, 116, Rajpur Marg, Dehra Dun 248 001. Uttaranchal Ð India.
Content : Current topics from leading National periodicals.

Braille Digest Ð (monthly) Annual Subscription Rs. 50/- Publisher : All India Confederation of the Blind, Institutional Area (near DTC Depot I) Sector V. Rohini, New Delhi 110 085.
Content : Select articles of current interest from the leading National Magazines.

Blind Welfare Ð published thrice a year, in April, August and December. Annual Subscription Rs. 10/-. Publisher : National Association for the Blind India, 11, Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan Road, Worli Sea Face, Mumbai 400025.
Content : Matters relating to Welfare Activities about agencies, NGOs working for the Blind, Educational Information, Technology Developments, coverage items on seminars, workshops etc.. Size ranging from 90 and100 Braille Pages.

All India Confederation of the Blind also publishes some selected publications of National Book Trust for sale at a highly subsidized price. Similarly they also print some books on spiritual subjects with support and distribution from organizations like Sathya Sai Samaj, which utilize the services of AICB.

The Maharaja Ranjit Singh National Braille Press Society,Dehra Dun, which publishes Sikh scriptural texts, and school text books in a few local languages

27) Both Look Ahead and Lead to Light are purchasing a Juliet pro Braille printer. Prices differ by $150.

The purchase current price of a Juliet pro Braille printer is $4095.

The embosser which has been proposed for in the lead into light project has a higher number. It appears that the difference come about keeping in mind any manufacturer modifications if needed for use of any other paper other than the regular thick Braille paper and also the depreciation cost has been added.

However both the Braille embossers would be purchased here in US under the able guidance of Prof Vileen Shah,(project contact for LOOK Ahead) who has personally been using different embossers for the past more than 20 years and has vast experience in this area. The needs of the project would be kept in mind and we would attempt to negotiate the best price with the company " enabling Technologies Company based in Florida. ".

Lead Into Light provides a unique model that rests on a single, simple, free software package that can bring literacy, education with employable IT skills to the visually impaired based on both Braille and voice, in all languages of India. A strategy of replicating this model in a few blind training institutions in each state of the country is perhaps the only practical strategy that will really reach the blind millions in India within a short time frame.

Tribal Empowerment

28) Why is construction cost so low?

The cost of living in the region is much less as compared to the mainland Manipur which makes the labor relatively cheap. More over, Joy is trying to ecomonomize the cost of as much as possible and will also try to draw volunteers to contribute their labor from the region.

29) Leveling of ground + Road modifications + school buildings + bio gas plant + furniture = Rs 3,00,000?

The land cost is Rs. 1.5 lakhs. (Joy will provide additional details on this by May 8, 2003)

30) Can we have more specs on the building - floorplan, area etc. A breakup of the 3,00,000.

(Joy will provide these details by May 8, 2003)

31) Who are the teachers? How many? What is the qualification of the teachers?

We have divided teachers in two categories: (i) who are going to be paid Rs. 2000 and (ii) those who are going to be paid Rs. 3,500. The first category of teachers will be drawn from the local graduates and the second category of teachers include the teachers who are highly qualified and fluent in English who happened to be graduated outside like Delhi or some other part of India other than being from local region. This second category of teachers will be engaged in teaching important subjects like English mathematics, science etc.

32) How much do Jersey cows cost?

Rs. 15,000 per cow.

33) Why are the children being categorized as street/homeless children? The project proposal indicates only at the heading that it is for street/homeless children. The description does not indicate anything of that nature. Seems like a force-fit into the "special children" theme.

Street/homeless children is one of the categories as a WAH guideline (and not the only category described in the proposal for empowering the tribal) along with other category of children from marginalized section including disabled children. More importantly, the focus will be on disabled children once a platform is established to work with tribal children. We didn't think working with only disabled children at this point in time when no facilities exist for any tribal child is appropriate. Our long term goal is to first establish such a school and then bring disabled children into the mainstream fold utilizing this school (please look at answer to Question No. 44 also)

34) Where did the number of children (500) come from?

The children will be from the region around the village where school is going to be set up. However, as explained, once the school becomes popular, children from well to do families outside the region, will be recruited in order to generate revenue which will form one-third to one-fourth of the children to be educated. At the same time, extremely marginalized children particularly, the disabled children can be admitted from anywhere in the state of Manipur or even the neighboring states as the disabled children are to be given the greatest priority.

35) Contact person/email are different...

I am not sure what does this question mean, but Joy has given his contact in addition to the contacts in US which include the contacts of Jags, DP, Mani and Ajay for this project.

36) Manipur project - FCRA of Asha Lucknow?

Since the accounts need to be handled by some established Asha branch, Asha Lucknow is the nearest and accessible Asha-chapter through which money is going to be channelized and that is why Asha-Lucknow FCRA number is given. Again, this is an Asha-sponsored project and we are taking this initiative to implement this project. There is no existing "Manipur Project" as such.

37) I strongly feel about Joy bringing children to Delhi as domestic labors (servants).. Though I understand in ground reality my concerns are superficious, but still these children were made to work to feed their respective families. Also, if these children are street/homeless, which families they food and who lines up to send the children with Joy?

Most of these kids brought by Joy are from his own village and most people brought in the initial stage happen to be related to him. However, in the course of time, once the villagers developed confidence in Joy, most villagers (even those who were not related to him), started lining up to send their kids to Delhi once they realized that after a year or so these kids were independent earners and bread providers to their starving families. it needs to be elaborated here that these teenagers brought by Joy were initially placed as domestic servants for year or so to smoothen the process of their transition from the remote hill tribal society to mainstream north Indian life in Delhi. In the mean time, Joy trained them to learn basics of Hindi and English so that they could communicate with the local people in Delhi. once these kids (who are generally in the age group of fifteen to twenty years) learn basics of Hindi and English, Joy was facilitating their placement as beauticians and sales-girls/boys and become financially independent and bread providers to their families. Hence, it needs to be emphasized that these kids did not remain as domestic servants forever. Their placement as domestic servant was generally limited for a year or so then they were able to stand on their own feet and choose what they wanted to do. In the absence of good education, most of them ended up being beauticians in different parlors in Delhi. However, even Joy feels that this trend was not desired option, but, a survival mechanism for the starving families. This was so far the only way, he could think of rehabilitating the starving families and once a kid was independent and send some money back home, then, one or two of their sibling was able to be educated too. Through my (Jags's) intimate relation with Joy in the last ten years or so, I have been witnessing this process very closely and some of these kids were also able to pursue their education through open school system or even regular schooling if the employer of the children happen to be sensitive enough. I (Jags) myself, had Nomaya, one of Joy's cousins who stayed in my house when I was married and he was placed in a good English medium school. Due to my family problems Nomaya had to be sent back for some time, but, once again he is brought back for his education in Delhi and has just finished his tenth grade exams in the last month only. There is a slight reference to Nomaya's story in Joy's profile on the Asha-Special website. I am hoping that with the opening of this school and generation of employment in the region, this trend of massive immigration to Delhi can be curtailed to a great extent if we are able to assure a process of sustainable development, which is the ultimate goal of this project.

38) Will this project cater to a village a town or a whole district? How will these 500 children travel to and fro from the school?

Most of the kids would be from the area around the location of the school. Children living at a distance of more than two miles, will be staying in the residential facility. Children will be selected on the bases of need and the ones staying in the surrounding area will be given priority. However, the most marginalized children like the disabled children, orphans, etc. can be admitted from any where in the district or even the state or the region of north-eastern region of India depending upon the needs of the children. At the same time, the long-term goal is to have 100 to 200 children from well to do families who are going to be charged regular fee once the school is establish as a popular school. These children can also be from anywhere in the district or the state.

39) Why doesn't this project take up the govt school building to run the school.. or the teachers in the project get govt job to teach in the tribal area.

As shown in the pictures, the government school building is in ruins and it is not easy to deal with the corrupt and non-functional government machinery. The teachers are employed in the government school, but, in practice, they remain non-functional in the absence of any kind of accountability and it is not easy to deal with the government bureaucracy.

40) A more detailed budget is needed to understand various estimates..

An itemized budget can be produced by Joy in details if he is communicated about the detailed requirements of the budget and it can be e-mailed to the concerned Asha-volunteers in the next four to five days. In order to get the accurate figures from Joy, Can we know what details are exactly needed?

41) Where is the exact location of the project?

It is in a village in the Ukhrul District of Manipur bordering Nagaland. Though Joy would soon be confirming the exact name of the place, as I understand it is a village called, Lingang-chin (not sure about the spellings).

42) The 500 children who are proposed to be beneficiaries to the projectÉwhat school are they going to now? What other schools are present apart from the non-functioning Govt. school?

Most of them are not going anywhere. Most kids are enrolled in the non-functional government school in the village but that enrolment is basically on paper and nothing is happening in practice. There is some private school in the nearby area but most parents are not able to afford to pay for children's education and so even that school is not in a good position to impart a quality education as it does not get many children to go there and is not able to afford a reasonable salary to its employees. Some of the teachers employed in that school are paid less than a thousand rupees and so it is not able to employ qualified teachers.

43) What is the geographic vicinity of the children and the proposed school or how long the children have to travel to reach the school?

As mentioned above, the school will cover children in the area of two miles who will be coming from their homes. Rest of the children who are going to be living in the school hostel, will be selected on case-by-case Bases.

44) Tribal Empowerment (TE) stands apart in its focus in empowering tribal children through education while the other four projects focus clearly on disabilities of children (2 for especially for blind children, 1 for disabled from the Bhopal gas tragedy, 1 for information sharing for families of disabled children). The project TE by itself is a very worthy one for AfE to be involved with considering its location in the north east of India and people that would benefit, but whether it actually fits the focus of Project Trigger in focusing on disabled children, that is the question.

Asha-Special did discuss this question in detail. Following are the reasons for making it a part of the trigger project for disabled children:
(I) though a sizable number of the children are going to be from the tribal background in the area, an attempt will be made to get maximum number of disabled, orphan and other marginalized children from anywhere in the state of Manipur or the neighboring states;
(II) the able bodied (non-disabled) children coming from the distance of around two miles, will be coming from their homes, but, the disabled children living within this distance, will be provided accommodation lodging and boarding in the school hostel due to the mobility problem if the children concerned, happen to have physical or visual disabilities which might restrict their movement;
(III) there is no infrastructure in the region to accommodate disabled children in the area and we need to make some beginning so that a ground work is done to accommodate the disabled children;
(IV) the growing trend in regard to children with any kind of disabilities is that they need to be educated in integrated education system rather than in segregated institutions. An attempt to educate the disabled children with other children will give them a chance to grow up in an integrated social setting, something which is highly desired for a long time and now agreed universally.

The ethnic clashes in the north east, particularly, between the Naga and Kookie tribes, has rendered a large population of disabled people who need to be rehabilitated based on a integrated development approach, this project aims to achieve twin objectives of benefiting the disabled population in the region, viz. 1. providing means of income generation to the disabled people as the aim is to give priority to the disabled people in employment and 2. educating the disabled children in as much number as possible by drawing them from various parts of the state of Manipur and if possible from the neighboring states too.

Sambhavna

45) Will the funding amount reqd according to survey results be asked for later from this WAH? If not, then why was the info provided at all?

No funding will be requested or required from WAH 2003. Information on Sambhavna was provided because all other projects in Trigger will be working with and sharing resources with Sambhavna in the future. Sambhavna represents Central region of India for the Trigger project and we wanted to show that we are covering all corners of India. . Trigger team has already contributed to generation of a "Disability Survey" that will help identify types and causes of disabilities in the gas afflicted Bhopal areas.

46) When is the approx date by which the survey will be over?

September 2003

47) No FCRA?

Sambhavna has FCRA clearance. No money has been sent to the project yet.

48) What are the current sources for funding this project?

Asha-Star IS funding the disability survey which is approximately $120 for 3 months.

Look Ahead

49) Is typing and computer training the only way blind children can be streamlined into society?

We did not say so. What makes you think it? Computer training is certainly a major avenue to acquire the much -coveted independence in education and employment. Being blind does mean an inability to perform things that requires sight--reading, writing are major ones. Computers offer a major breakthrough to this barrier. Please read "My mega vision cited on the Trigger Website. I'm sure everyone will agree that if you can provide education and employment to those who are disadvantaged people, you are opening a door for mainstreaming them. At least I am aware that like other human beings, blind and visually persons differ in their ability to comprehend, store and disseminate information, thus reflecting a numerous options to train them to be a part of the mainstream. That does imply that everyone cannot learn and acquire computer skills. Such blind individuals as cannot be trained on computers should also be mainstreamed, but how? I have some suggestions for them too, but at this point my focus is to share my own experience in the modern technology with my brothers and sisters in India.

50) Speech software for $2287 ! Is there any way Asha volunteers through clout (not asking to pirate software) get some kind of non-profit concession on this?

None whatsoever. Every customer for this software asks for concessions, most of them are not-for-profit organizations. Freedom Scientific, the manufacturers of JAWS do not make any discount. I have quotes from two leading screen reader manufacturers--Freedom Scientific $2287 and GW Micro $3180. I will, however, leave it open for all Asha volunteers and groups to do their best to get any discount on this software. I will be happy to save any money. Please help me.

51) Where are expenses of paper?

$350 (Rs.17,500) shown as incidental includes the rough estimate of paper cost. Since it is a pilot project, as of now, we do not know exactly how much money we will need toward the paper cost. The best quality papers are available in India at the rate of Rs1.5 per sheet. Even if they use 5000 sheet a year, they will require Rs.7,500--approximately 40% of the incidental expenses. Above all, all recurring expenses are a responsibility of Drishti viklang Sangh, I wouldn't be so worried about the total cost of papers, though I will keep a watch to make sure that the project is running and not stuck due to the lack of a few Braille papers.

52) Current WAH proposal is for 60 blind children and adults, but the project targets to train 30,000 blind persons on computer every year by 2010!!! Does the project have a plan for this??

The project does have a plan for this on papers but it is more inspirational rather than concrete at this stage. I always like to aim high. If you aim low, you never accomplish a higher goal. I will be happy to discuss this plan any time and solicit all Asha volunteers' support to my mega vision..

53) How many are of the 60 beneficiaries are children?

We first need to define the age of children. Are all teenagers children? If so, most of them, I would say, about 80% will be children. Since computer training needs a higher plane of understanding and education, it will not be realistic to insist on primary school age children, although in our future plans we do want to educate even first-graders on computers. Such Look Ahead projects will be initiated in residential blind schools.

54) How many have been trained so far and what type of job are they doing?

If this question is related to the performance records by Drishti Viklang Sangh,
1. they have trained none on computer so far.
2. They have trained some on typing on regular typewriters. I am hoping to get their annual report by tomorrow morning. I will then come up with exact statistics concerning their training and employment successes.

55) What are the revenue sources for this organization? Is any Asha chapter(s) funding this organization?

No Asha chapter has come forward yet, but considering the validity and strengths of the projects, I am very optimistic to have a strong Asha support. Their revenue sources are local donors including employed blind persons and fundraisers.

56) What infrastructure is already in place for Drishti Viklang Sangh?

They have two rooms specifically allocated for computer training. (See Joy's report on his personal visit to the Sangh facility and discussion with Mr. Gujar, one of the founders and facilitators. .

57) What is the age group of 60 persons who are going to be trained?

Below 20.

58) Is there going to be a fee for the training?

No.

59) What is the social and economic background of the children who are to be trained?

Lower stratum of society meaning both socially and economically backward students.

60) What educational institutions are present in the area for blind children?

At least I don't have any information. I do know that there is no computer training center for the blind in the whole of Rajasthan. Look Ahead is going to be an ancillary project for school going blind children. Most blind children are no longer educated in separate schools for the blind. We will target blind children going to regular schools and studying with their sighted counterparts but deprived of the most needed computer training. Please note that the Government of Rajasthan has wisely made computer training mandatory for all high school students without realizing that some of them are blind. Look Ahead Project will prove a blessing for these kids in Rajasthan. The Sangh already has 200 blind students on their waiting list.

61) What is the nature of the job got after the computer training?

Depending on the level of skills acquired, different jobs will be open to these computer literate blind individuals. To name a few areas of opportunities: banking, accounting, teaching, practicing law, medicine, insurance, government administration, Indian administrative Service (IAS), customer service, sales, purchases and more.

Appendix - Websites

ASTHA

Lead Into Light

Look Ahead

Sambhavna

Tribal Empowerment