20 June 2001

Attendees:
   Vidhi, Chandru, Sai, Murali, Subbu, Anand, Sanjay, Ravi K, Nancy Lesh

- Nancy Lesh got an overview of Asha since she is new to the orgn.

Projects update
---------------

Swanirvar
---------
- Murali presented an overview of Swanirvar.
- Told us about what Swanirvar is currently planning (won't go into the
   details since he already has detailed documents about).
- We discussed about future possibilities and whether Swanirvar would need
   funding from us.
- Decided that at this time, they are not in need of our funds.  Besides,
   they are a well-established and well-known orgn. and we can help them
   write to foundations if that will help.  But, they may not necessarily
   need Asha's intervention in a direct manner.
- However, we will continue to be in touch with them if nothing to continue
   to learn what they are doing.


GIRD
----
- Subbu presented an overview of the GIRD project.
- Latest feedback from Shanmuga and Arundhati (who visited GIRD recently --
   around April) was discussed.
- We got some negative feedback about what they are doing there in terms of
   what they have achieved.  For example, their methodology leaves much to
   be desired in terms of what the children are actually learning.
- Besides, Shanmuga and Arundhati felt that they are not approaching the
   problems of that land in a very practical manner.  They felt that the
   group needs exposure and guidance.
- What however they clearly mentioned was that the group was committed and
   sincere and could be trusted.  Further, it is clear that Manipur needs
   some kind of developmental intervention given the situation in the
   northeast.
- So, we decided that we'll support them for another year.  However, we will
   not consider their new proposal in its entirety (for Rs.5+ lakhs).  We need
   to work on what the necessary components are and fund it.  Besides, we
   discussed how one could work on the feedback that Shanmuga and Arundhati
   gave us.
- Subbu had talked with Shanmuga and brainstormed on this a bit.  The ideas
   that were proposed were to see if he could visit non-Gandhian groups
   since he has only been exposed to the Gandhian ideology.  This is so that
   he can also get different perspectives, some of them pragmatic.  Further,
   we could talk to a couple of folks in Assam (Sunil and Jenny) and see if
   they can guide the group and also provide us feedback about how they are
   doing.
- Another possibility is to see if B.C.Sharma could visit Sujit Sinha at
   Swanirvar.  In order to pull this off, we need to co-ordinate with Sujit
   Sinha.  Murali needs to be involved in this since he is in touch with
   Sujit.
- It was decided that this project needs to be examined more closely and
   a meeting should be devoted to go into details and thrash this out.
   Chandru and Vidhi will be following up on this.

[ PS: Will send a separate mail about what to do with GIRD and send info.
      that I have.  -Subbu. ]

Regional conference
-------------------
- Sai brought up the idea of the regional conference between the Midwest
  Asha and AID chapters.
- He will be getting in touch with these chapters and keep us updated about
  the developments.

Subbu.