Asha-Madison meeting minutes
Wed, 24 Oct 2001

Present: Venkat, Ashutosh, Ritu, Nandini, Kamal, Zeena,
Charu, Navin, Param, Ravi R, Sai, Subbu, Murali, Srinivas, Manoj

- A number of prospective new volunteers turned up.

- Future meeting times were fixed at Wednesdays at
  6:30pm at Union South.

- Intro and review of Asha for new folks:
  - Murali & Subbu gave a short intro to Asha and
    Asha-Madison's projects
  - Kamal asked about how project proposals come
    to Asha, Subbu replied that they are usually
    sent through contacts in India or directly
    to Asha
  - Project selection and review procedures were
    briefly discussed
  - Nandini suggested involving student bodies in
    India to visit and review projects, as well
    as social schools (e.g., Madras School of Social Work).
    Subbu mentions that there is some activity
    on IIT campuses, e.g., IIT Kanpur/Bombay involving
    faculty and the NSS. Ashutosh mentioned the
    Center for Rural Development at IIT Bombay. Kamal
    mentioned the Madras School of Social Work as
    a source of people who can study local issues
    in depth and will be in a better position to
    judge project proposals. Param says that
    Asha's presence in India has only recently
    started increasing.
  - Asha's mission: Param mentioned the
    mission statement of catalyzing social
    change through education. Nandini asked
    about the kind of education Asha supports.
    There was some discussion, it's not just
    literacy, but there's no clear-cut definition.
    It depends a lot on the project environment.

- We had decided that we would be going through
  our projects and doing an update for each.
  We start this week with Muskaan and the
  new Kakrana School proposal.

- Muskaan update by Murali: [email received by Sanjay] 
  they've got FCRA clearance on May 15, $6300 was sent 
  by Asha-MSU, we need to send $1500 to MSU

- Rani Kajal Jeevanshala School Proposal [reviewed by Subbu]
   - School run by a coordination committee on the
     "Jeevanshala" model
   - the school's village (Kakrana) is in the Narmada 
     submergence area, tribal population, a teacher retired
     5 years ago, was replaced by a government
     teacher who did not teach, so the local
     population took over the running of the school
   - The recent drought has caused financial
     problems for the school, they need
     funds for one year
   - total required = approx Rs 1.93 lakh (around $4000)
   - contact people: Arundhati (forwarded proposal)
   - FCRA: will be mediated through Vikas Sahyog Pratisthan
   - curriculum: Jeevanshala model, other organizations
     like Digantar and Eklavya have trained the
     teachers, emphasis of tribal language and
     culture, textbooks in tribal languages,
     the writing of stuff normally passed orally
     from generation to generation
   - Many questions came up:
        - why are there many more boys than girls in the school?
          [mainly patriarchal society]
        - how many children are there in the village? (i.e,
          what is the reach of the school)
        - are they going to expand the school?
        - curriculum contents: are they also preserving
          superstitions in addition to traditions? are
          they teaching new things as well?
        - what are the living conditions in the school?
   - The questions didn't seem like showstoppers and
     given their need, it may be good to send
     some money now (in parallel with sending the
     questions) and sending the rest later
   - Sending half ($2000) now seemed like a good plan
   - Brief discussion of payment options: check from
     Asha Central, or wire transfer?

- Brief discussion on how Asha-Madison raised funds
   - Newsletters were mentioned, Srinivas and Charu
     volunteered to handle the Fall 2001 newsletter

   - Srinivas also mentioned that Asha figures
     in a list of organizations to which employees
     of Epic (in Madison) can donate. We should figure
     out where Epic sends the money and try to
     get Asha Central to credit it to our account.