TRY
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Melli
Oct. 12^th, 2003

http://www.ashanet.org/projects/project-view.php?p=207


TRY has been an Asha Boston project as our chapter has routed funds in the past. Individual donors have donated to the project that has kept the project going for the past few years. Anand’s home has been around for 3-4 years now.

TRY had a proposal for building a house for themselves, as opposed to continuing to rent.
Renting and having to move is difficult and expensive. They presented a proposal to WAH 2003, but it did not get selected. At this time, TRY approached our chapter with a proposal for stabilizing the funding for the next 6 months. This basically includes running costs, salaries, rent, health expenses, some educational and other expenses.

Currently the project supports about 13 children. These are children of commercial sex workers. The
project takes them away from there current atmosphere which is not conducive to better upbringing. The
project houses the children, and provides for the children. Chandravel, the coordinator of the project
does receive constant requests to take in more children, but is unable to due to the limitations of
the project, financial and otherwise.

The children are definitely doing very well with TRY. A young boy who was scoring very high marks in the Tamil medium school was moved to the English medium school, where he was not able to fare so well. It may have actually led to loss of confidence. This experiment should have suggested the importance of mother tongue in the early years of a education. Not to say that English is not important, but it is more important to be learning in one’s own language, and other languages on the side. The young boy was moved back to the Tamil school where he is continuing to excel again.

Realizing the important bond between mother and child, TRY does strongly recommend the mothers to remain in contact with their children, visiting and meeting often.

This project led to quite a bit of discussion. It seems that this project is trying to help the children of the commercial sex workers. But it is not trying to fight the issue of prostitution from the root. Can this project not get involved in the community to reduce prostitution and increase the awareness of the effects? Should the project not also try to fight the stigma associated with this profession?

There are other projects like Odanadi and Street to School, and Natpurwa to some extent that are going
beyond just helping the children. If the process is not stopped at the root, then there will always be
children in need of help and counseling. It was suggested that TRY consider getting a better
understanding of the root of the problem, and somewhat get involved there also.

Yes, it would be optimum for all projects to understand the root of the evils in our society, and
work on eliminating them. Nevertheless, we all have our limitations, and we all start small. I.e. start with helping the children, and once that process is under better control project coordinators can think of the root of the problems.
Further, different individuals want to solve different problems. It is clear that the set of children will be benefiting, and another set will benefit thereon. That in itself is healthy, and one way of decreasing the negative effects of prostitution.

Further, the proposal request is for $3000 for a 6-month period. Anu, the current steward, will take
this project to the LA chapter as she has moved there. Nevertheless, the cost per child is somewhat on the higher side. For $6000 annually, this project is able to provide for 12-13 children only. This suggests about $40 per child per month, whereas the cost per child in other similar projects is about ~$25 pm. Obviously, the comparison does not take into account geography and other costs associated with the project.


This project is an ideal candidate for Support A Child process, and will be added to the Asha SAC page.

The cost breakdown from the proposal is as follows. These figures are costs per month.

Provision (Vegetables, Gas, Milk,
monthly provisions like rice, dal, oil etc.) Rs. 8500
Rent Rs. 3000
Cook’s salary Rs. 1500
Staff salary Rs. 2500
Coordinator Salary Rs. 5000
Electricity / Transportation / Communication Rs. 3000
Tuition master salary Rs. 1000
Medical Rs. 500
Total Rs. 25,000

All figures above seemed fine with the exception of the coordinator salary. Compared to some other
projects, this seemed somewhat high. Chandravel is single handedly running the project, which is true,
but his family also is able to provide and support him.

The figures above don’t include education expenses, for schools and books, why? Various other chapters
are also associated with this project, i.e. Syracuse. We will try to find out if Syracuse would be
interested in splitting the funding for the next 6 month period.

Asha Boston has been requested to fund ~Rs. 25,000 x 6

(Rs. 150,000) for the next 6-month duration for this
project. With the current exchange rate, this would
be ~$3,300.
A vote was taken asking Should Asha Boston fund this amount for this project?

Yes : 6
No : 0
Abstain : 2

It was approved that Asha Boston would fund this project as a one-time funding for the next 6 months.
Anu will take this project to LA after that as it will be easier for her to be involved with the LA chapter.

We will ask Syracuse if they want to share the funding, and also contemplate on the coordinator
salary.

TRY

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April 8th, 2001

Past Project Discussion

Ranjini Reddy

'To Reach You' (TRY) based in Madras. Ranjini visited this site, and provided an account of this organization. Currently it is not supported by any ASHA chapters. ASHA Boston does have a proposal on hand from TRY.

Started in 1996 as a non profit organization by some people from the Madras school of social work. The first interest was community field work, and to educate via distribution of information. During this effort, they realized that children of commercial sex workers did not have any opportunities to develop themselves. There were no services aimed at these children. Thus, this organization decided to do something for the betterment of these children.

It was realized that these children do not have an appropriate family environment. An effort to identify and gather these children through activities, and knowledge of their whereabouts.

Along with the children, the women were tested for HIV, and those found +ve, were sent to the govt. hospital. This hospital keeps HIV patients till their end. Else the women are rehabilitated as maids. To restrict the resistance from the employer, the occupations of the women are withheld. These women are also provided counseling at the Madras school of social work. It was noted that 80% of the women return as commercial sex workers mainly for the monetary reasons.

The children who have HIV are referred to another organization which takes care of HIV infected children. Children without HIV disease are grouped and helped. They are provided counseling at the Madras School of social work. TRY tries to focus on these children, trying to send them to school. It has been observed that these children tend to stay in school.

TRY was in need of monetary assistance for basic needs, i.e. rent / electricity / food etc.

Individual donars from ASHA had provided them ~$2050.

TRY has had 29 kids in their care, off which 10 have been returned to their mothers.

Currently TRY is facing a monetary crunch, and need long term monetary solutions. They had a fund raiser in Sept/Oct. and used the money till December. Proposal was received by DP/Sandeep for funding this organization.

An effort taking up by TRY volunteers is to sustain itself in the long term through ink manufacturing / sales. Unemployed youths and mothers would work on manufacturing. Land was donated to them, but they will have to pay registration costs. Their proposal includes costs for starting the ink manufacturing business and cost of registering the land.

They have some contacts with some ink businesses. The non recurring cost is of Rs. 7.35 lakhs. May be able to compete as they will not have to worry about sales tax, and has business contacts willing to buy their product.

Ranjini mentioned that TRY has a committed group of volunteers, well able to communicate and keeping their organization / efforts quite transparent to donors. They are aware of the possible troubles regarding their ink manufacturing venture. Are taking a slow, calm and focused approach to their business.

At this time, ASHA Boston has a proposal on hand from TRY.

A couple other organizations in India were considered, who have a business as part of their self sustainability efforts, eg. Jeevan Gnodya & Nutanhat. These have not been quite successful, as the efforts get diverted between the education aspect of the children and the business venture. Further, when there are dominant players in the market for ink manufacturing, would a small business really have much opportunity? A project had a proposal for brick manufacturing, but could they compete with the likes of Birlas?

TRY has different individuals responsible for the business and education aspect, thus to allow maximum focus.

TRY realizes that it has a challenging and difficult task on hand.

Joydeep mentioned that there are many international foundations, Ford Foundation & other foreign donors, who like to participate in STD related projects. TRY may want to consider approaching some of these foundations for funding.

Deshpande Foundation will also be mentioned about TRY, and the proposal will be passed onto other chapters.

The current land needs used by TRY needs to be vacated by June, thus they are in need of money.