REPORT OF ASHA SEMI-ANNUAL MEETING HARDOI RURAL AREA, JUNE 3 TO 6, 2005 For the first time in Asha's history common people - almost a thousand villagers from rural areas of Hardoi Dist. of U.P. - participated in the four day semi-annual conference. This time instead of discussing project management issues, the issues concerning people's lives were discussed and the conference was organized as a training programme for its volunteers as well as the common people associated with the larger organization - Asha Parivar. Also, most remarkably, when the expenditure of organizing Asha meetings had shot up to 6 digits, this time it was organized in a frugal manner with total expenditure incurred only Rs. 14,010, half of which was raised from local villagers. June 3, 2005. The meeting was inaugurated at the Asha Ashram in Village Lalpur and the opening session was on the 'Adverse impact of new economic policy' with reference to the anti-coca cola movement going on in Varanasi. The meeting was inaugurated by 90 years old freedom fighter Surya Prakash Srivastava, popularly known as Babaji and credited with starting all the High Schools and Intermediate Colleges in the area. He recounted his experience from the freedom struggle and warned people about the dangers of new economic policy. He said he was quite disturbed by the modern trends which were in contrast to the values espoused by the freedom struggle. The Station Officer of the local Police Station at Atrauli was also invited. He too extended his support to the struggle. After the meeting the gatherning headed for Atrauli market where a public meeting was held. Since it was declared in advance that bottles of Coke and Pepsi would be upturned at the end of the public meeting, all the shopkeepers decided to remove bottles of soft drinks from their counters in Atrauli as well as nearby Bharawan markets that day. June 4, 2005. The meeting on the second day was organized in Natpurwa Village. The first session was on Education. The direction of general education policy was discussed and efforts to being about improvement in the government schools were narrated. Volunteers from Chennai Laxmi and Uma and Mahesh Barnwal from Haryana shared their experiences. The post lunch session was on Gender. A play was performed by a street theatre group from Vanagana, Chitrakoot followed by discussion on the issues raised during the play. Professor Ramakant from the Medical University in Lucknow conducted a session on anti-tobacco campaign at the end. June 5, 2005. The meeting on the third day was organized in Village Jamunipur. The first session was on Communalism. Vibhuti Narain Rai, Additional Director General of Police from Allahabad made a brief presentation followed by a question and answer session. Before his presentation there was an experience sharing by some of the marchers from the recently concluded Delhi to Multan India Pakistan Peace March. Strategies were discussed for future work. The second session, also the most well attended session of the conference, was on right to information. District Magistrate of Hardoi as well as that of neighbouring district Sitapur, Abhishek Singh and Amod Kumar respectively, came to observe this session. People narrated instances of embezzlement of funds meant for development work in villages with collusion of elected representatives and government officials. Both DMs spoke at the end with Amod Kumar encouraging people to openly protest against any corruption. He said it was only the people, organized and empowered, who could check corruption and no law would be sufficient. At the end both DMs and ADG Police, who had stayed back to observe the RTI session, met the outstation participants briefly. June 6, 2005. The last day of the meeting at Bharawan was relatively smaller with discussion focusing on functioning on Asha. It was decided to strengthen Asha at the grassroots. A membership based organization with Rupee One as monthly membership fees has started functioning in Hardoi district. It was felt that Asha Trust would have to take steps to become more independent of the Asha for Education so that its functioning is not entirely dependent on the latter. Change in Secretary was proposed. Nandlal's name was approved to replace Mahesh, however Nandlal is not yet ready to accept this responsibility. If Nandlal does not accept the responsibility Vallabh would take over from Mahesh. To strengthen women and dalit voice in the Board of Trustees names of Arundhati Dhuru and Ram Sagar Verma 'Guddu', respectively were proposed. However, it was decided that all decisions will be finalized only by the Hyderabad meeting. Conferences Expenses. A massive drive to raise funds and food items was launched to meet the meeting expenses, as far as possible, locally. A total of Rs. 7348 mostly in the form of small donations was raised from local population. 8 quintals of wheat and rice, 80 kgs of vegetables and 16 kgs of milk were also collected. A total of 950 people attended the conference at Lalpur, Natpurwa, Jamunipur and Bharawan. Total expenditure of the meeting was Rs. 14, 010. A portion of the deficit was offset by visitng outstation volunteers and some of it still remains to be covered. Prepared by Sandeep with inputs from Keshav, Neelkamal, Guddu and Baijnath.