Asha for Education: An action group for basic education in India

The second issue of the Patrika has focussed on followups on developments in Asha, and one project. The objective of this Patrika is facilitate the flow of information within Asha with regard to the various happenings at the volunteer, chapter, project, focusgroup and asha-wide level. While many of the Asha-wide lists have been relatively silent, there has been many a quiet initiative at the asha-wide and chapter levels. The regional conferences at Europe, US-East Coast, US-West coast and US-Midwest are being organized for volunteers from respective regions to meet up in person. It is recommended that volunteers try to attend these conferences.

Chap coords, please forward the Patrika issues to your appropriate chapter lists.

Champa Mahila Society runs 35 pre-primary schools in different villages. All the teachers come from the community & all are trained by Vikramshila in early childhood education. Each school is supervised by a committee of parents & villagers. Most of these schools run under open sky or a tree. Some have sheds & very few have pakka building. However all have some space for playing/dancing etc. Each school caters to around 25 children of the age group 2-5. In some cases slightly older children also continue. The children learn reading, writing, math, names of familiar animals, birds, fruits & vegetables, songs, action rhymes & drawing. They also play different games. The schools supported by Asha also provide tiffin. Other don't due to lack of resources. One day a week the mothers provide the food.

It was Shanmuga (in March 2001) who suggested that these highly motivated & committed teachers can benefit from some training. Accordingly CMS contacted Vikramshila & within the next month the training was organized. They learned a lot & also got charts & other teaching aids that they started using at the schools.

So when I went in September 2001, we saw some fantastic schools (in terms of how the teachers teach) where the children learn in using the Montessori method but in their mother tongue. It was clear how the children used their brain & not just their memory. To some of our questions they surprised us with very correct & innovative answers. The trend continued in the all the site visits we have done so far. Not a single question has ever been left unanswered. Also we have never escaped either. We either had to tell some stories (which were 1 year later retold to us by some children in a different school!), draw pictures & show them how to draw simple ones & teach them new games.

Since my mom is also a Montessori teacher trained by Vikramshila, we started having some workshop from 2002 during our visits. The teachers were very enthusiastic. They made sure they had written down every single poem my mom had brought. Then they discussed their experience & what they do as sports. In 2002 teachers from only the Asha supported schools were invited. So after a "mild scolding" we had ALL teachers in 2003. We also showed them how to make teaching & learning aids using easily available material as old calenders, cardboard boxes & some colors.

In addition, after a lot of effort for more than 2 years, we recently got Vikramshila to provide the 2nd phase of the training. This time the teachers got a set of material each & they also formed a team of 10 who will create more teaching & learning material. The training was for almost a week & they worked very hard from morning till late at night. They ended the training with a great program of songs, dances & recitations. No one was allowed to escape from participating!

After our 2003 workshop, quite expectedly, the "non-Asha" teachers came to see me separately with a single question: "Why do their children get food & ours don't?"

This has been a problem for CMS, too. It's difficult for them to explain why some schools provide food & some don't. So we had started thinking of adopting the Support A Child model to raise funds for these schools. So far Asha Seattle has been supporting 15 of them.

So accordingly, we got information on each school & set it up as Support A School. The concept is very similar to SAC. We need $25 per month per school. There are 2 larger schools catering to 50 & 100 children with 2 & 3 teachers respectively. For those 2 it is $50 & $90 per month. The donations can come in as check or through online credit card donation. Donors can even set up recurring credit card deduction. For logistic reason we prefer 6 moths or 1 year payment at any installment unless its automatic monthly credit card donation. The SAS volunteer keeps track of how much support each school has received in a spreadsheet. That helps send out reminders to the donors when their next installments are due.

1) Virtual Asha Goes Live! Since asha-wide conference is held once every two years, chapters meet at the regional conferences held every year. Here are the upcoming regional Asha conferences:

a) East coast conference will be in Washington DC on 4th July weekend. Contact Gagan Kanjlia (gagsin@yahoo.com) for details.

b) Mid-west conference will be in Chicago by Asha UIC. Contact Prasanna pendsepr@pendsepr.com or Arun yocatch@yahoo.com

c) West coast conference will be held in Seattle during the Memorial Day Weekend (May ?) Contact Preeti or Swati for details.

d) Bay area chapters (Berkeley, Stanford, Silicon Valley) met on April 10th to communicate chapter updates and to share best practices in the areas of fundraising, projects, website updates.

e) Europe chapters are meeting at the upcoming Europe conference. Currently, there are 21 registrations of which 17 are confirmed - London, Oxford, Eindhoven, Aadar, Munich, Zurich, and couple of Swiss people who want to do volunteer work. More info at the conference website

f) As was decided in the India December conference, another India conference will be held during last weekend of May in Assam, Gauhati. Vallabh is the coordinator of the conference - DP will work with him to post this info soon.

Attending the regional conference is a useful experience for new volunteers. It is know to give a big boost in the effectiveness of the functioning of the volunteers and chapters and improves inter-chapter functional relationship.

Conference host chapters are requested to upload information regarding their respective conferences (including agenda, minutes) at the conference webpages

2) IRS Filing Some chapters have still not submitted their financials to Asha Treasurer. Chapters are urged to treat this as extremely urgent and submit their financials to Pankaj (pankaj.gupta@morganstanleycom). Those who wan to help in making this happen should email S.K.I at sskiyer@yahoo.com or DP at dp@btv.ibm.com

3) Partnerships Many organizations approach Asha to work in a collaborative manner for either fundraising events or for projects. AAPI (Assoc. of American Physicians of Indian Origin) is one such organization that would like to work with Asha to promote health education and awareness in Asha projects. AAPI has also approached NYC/NJ, Boston and USC along similar lines. Chapters are highly encouraged to sync these efforts (especially when it comes to outside Asha communication) so that we can best leverage this collaboration with partners. Those interested in the AAPI partnership can email Sharique (shasanx@yahoo.com) or Netika (Netika@hotmail.com)

4) Mentoring New chapters Asha's strength is the decentralized working of chapters - however, Asha will have greater impact only when chapters understand the interdependence nature of chapter functioning . Things will get done when we work together. Such is the case for mentoring new chapters. Realizing the increased demand in new chapter requests, Vignesh and Badrish written a document outlining the need for a mentoring group (virtual); this does not rule out mentor chapters and in addition to mentoring new chapters will also mentor new volunteers and new focus groups. Those who would like to participate in the mentoring process should email secretary@ashanet.org

5) Sharing Best Practices: Over the last 12 years, Asha has learnt some valuable lessons which we can share with other smaller groups that lack in organization skills. There is an ongoing effort to organize a management workshop where Asha will share organizational best practices help cut down the learning time of partner organizations. Those interested in joining this effort can join asha-mgmtworkshop@yahoogroups.com

6) The PR team, consisting of seven volunteers, have proposed a PR plan. Those interested in this effort are encouraged to read the proposal (on datastore - under publicity) and give feedback to the PR team at prteam@ashanet.org. Europe chapters are especially encouraged to have a representative on the team.

Like different instruments and vocals sing in harmony to make a symphony melodious, the asha chapters should work in an interdependent and harmonious manner in order for Asha for Education to sing to the world!

Disclaimer: The views expressed in Asha Patrika are not necessarily those of Asha For Education. The views of the editor(s) do not necessarily reflect those of Asha and the views expressed by volunteers don ot necessarily reflect those of the editor(s).