Aviram, Jharkhand

Sept. 7^th, 2003

Ajit Bharti.

Asha Boston has provided support to the Aviram project
since last year, 2002. Six Non Formal Education
Centres are supported in 5 villages. The organization
began in 1992 to work on multiple dimensions including
fisheries, water harvesting, breeding, biogas, soil
erosion and primary school.

Currently, the 6 NFEs have 300 students and 8
teachers. Funding was provided for teachers
honorarium, training, teaching material, some
infrastructure etc.

Ajit Bharti, one of the founders of Aviram joined us
to update us regarding the progress of this project,
and for some discussion on the same topic.

The village areas are typical triabl areas, with a
formal school and high school in the neighborhood of
the villages. These villages are located in the
foothills, and till recently had no road connecting
the villages or the neighbouring cities to the
villages. The lack of infrastructure did decrease
communication of the villagers with the outside world.


Each village has about 75-80 families, tribal families
are usually small nuclear families. All over India
the tribal population is decreasing, and the same is
true in this area. Economic reasons and education can
be suggested as causes for this.

Most of the children in this neighbourhood had not
been going to formal schools, but instead working in
the fields. The importance of education, nevertheless
has been percolating through the media. Recently
there have been the road connections and the
infrastructure leading to better communication with
outside of the villages. People have been also
getting jobs in Ranchi with is 40 kms away from Kuru,
one of the villages. There is also one college which
is 25 kms away.

The people here are not landless laborers, but are
owning small pieces of land. During off-season, they
tend to migrant labour as construction workers. The
focus is on one’s land, as opposed to considering
better opportunities elsewhere. There are some
entrepreneurs in some villages who are better off.
People are realizing that it is not appropriate to be
satisfied without any education. Realization that
schooling leads to employment is settling in.

Vegetables are the cash crop of the area.
Nevertheless, they get bitten by middlemen. Selling
the crops to them cheap, and the middle men take the
crops to Ranchi, 30 kms away and sell the same for
4-5x costlier.

In another village, Pitralli (not one of the 5), the
farmers are organized and sell there crops to Calcutta
and Orissa, making better profits. Some villages
dominated by Muslims are also doing well. Other cash
crop / industry needs to be found in these neighboring
villages.

In October, National Education ministers will be
visiting Jharkhand to provide funds to improve the
infrastructure.

Lohardaga district, where the villages are located, is
the smallest district of Jharkhand and old Bihar.
There are ~600 people per village here. Tribal
language is a dialect of hindi.

Badhri: Does Aviram also work for land rights?
Ajit : The villagers own a small piece of land, thus
no pressure in this area for land. On the other hand
in the suburbs of Ranchi the story is different.
There are pressures to sell off one’s land.

Because of the topography, there is limited
irrigation, but good rainfall in the season.
A hydral project got cancelled due to the catholic
community movement in the 80s.

There is no electricity in these villages, these are
reserved constituencies, there are neighboring govt.
schools, but don’t run too well. The Block
Development Office takes care of the infrastructure of
the school, which is decent. There are no
neighbouring medical facilities. Kuru does have a
small dispensary, but no medication is available
there. Malaria deaths are common in the
neighbourhood.

Aviram does not have any association with the govt.
schools. They have found it difficult to work with
the governments in this area. Aviram does try to
involve the parents in the programs by having
informational sessions. The subjects taught are on
the primary level, including hindi, English, maths,
basic sciences etc.

Other funding sources—Aviram has received funds from
the govt. though not on a consistent basis. Depending
on the helpfulness of the DM, funds were provided,
else none were provided.

Aviram hopes to bring 100% literacy in these villages
over the next few years. Literacy was defined by him
more than just simply being able to read/write. It is
the knowledge of having opportunities, and being able
to act upon them.


Some questions were asked which Ajit will find out and
let us know

More details regarding the teachers training programs.
When did it take place? Where? Who taught? And what
has been the teachers reactions to these programs?

How many children actually go to the govt. schools
now?

Should Aviram try working with the govt. school
program, trying to improve the functioning there?

Could you send us a copy of the audit and receipts for
the expenses?

A site visit needs to be conducted before the next
years installment


The second installment for the first years funds were
due in March 2003. These have yet not been sent. The
second years funding will be due in Sept. 2003. The
second year funding can only happen after a site visit
report, audited accounts, and expense receipts.

Other Notes:
----- -----

Kuru block, Lohdarga Dt., Jharkhand. Relatively
isolated area, communication barriers.Aviram runs
evening school centers. Aviram's basic message
'education'. No electricity.

Jamri school - villagers run the center, NFE

Things are improving, because of better connectivity,
state status to Jharkhand helps. Aviram emphasizes
that there are job opportunities in the future, and
going to school helps.

Most of the people are small landholders. Good & bad.
Good because they have something, bad because they are
tied to it and can't leave.

Tribal mindset is different from 'mainstream'.
Relatively complacent.

Jamri - serves as a role model

Reference to IIT village in Gaya.

Cash crop - vegetables. Middlemen eat the proceeds.

Patratu - Kurmi village, backward, but they directly
export stuff to Calcutta, Orissa and get 5 times more.
They formed a cooperative, run their own school.

There is a search for cash crops/industry.

Ultimate aim: Everyone under 30 is fully educated.

Land issues - negligible
MCC issues - currently not much
Catholic missions exist

Status of Asha project

* Reports, financials needed
* Details of teacher training
* Site visit needed

Aviram gets other funding as well.

Voting for sending the second installment for the first years funding

took place on a conference call followed by the mailing list.

It was voted to send the second installment.

AVIRAM

March 17^th, 2002

Vijay Mokashi

Ajit Bharti gave an introduction to Aviram (he is one of the founders and works at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston).

Vijay -

Aviram - 18 full time employees

Undertaken about 25 projects since 1992. Projects in the areas of literacy, fisheries, social forestry (bamboo), water harvesting, Pig breeding, biogas, and checking soil erosion. Majority of the projects appear to be related to fisheries. Their work in this region seems to have got good press coverage in both the vernacular and English language newspapers.

Aviram has a governing body of 7 people (volunteers).

They have an office building, own 1-acre of land and lease 5 acres.

They have 3 fishery training centres in (Lohardaga, Palamau and Gumla districts)

Earlier they had started 4 NFE centres in four villages. Besides this they had 4 primary schools in Kuru block; with Aviram contributing 50% of the money and the villagers contributing 50%. The centres were closed in 1994 for lack of funds.

Right now they run "Aviram literacy mission school" in Maradih village since last 6 years.

Number of students in this school - 300

Number of teachers - 8

40% of finances come from student fees and 60% from community contribution and Aviram resources.

The school is run in a govt. building.

Population of Lohardaga 2,88886

Proposal - 12 NFE centres in 5 villages (40 boys and girls in each centre)

Objective - Universal primary education the selected 5 villages.

Decisions regarding operation of NFE activities will be based on the village education committee which will be formed in every NFE centre village.

Some of these centres are already operational since Apr-May 2001 ,Ajit was not sure how many though.

Demography of the 5 villages:

Total Population	No. of children in 5-14 age group	No. of Non school going children	Caste/Group of non school going children			Non school going
			ST	SC	Other	Boys	Girls
6223	1122	616	466	105	45	248	368

58.13% of the population of Kuru block is ST and 24.46% is SC. There are 76 villages in the block, there are 12 primary , 8 middle and 3 high schools.

Budget

Item	Year 1		Year 2		Total
	Rate (p.m)	Amount	Rate (p.m)	Amount
A)RECURRING EXPENSES
Honorarium to Instructors (12centres x 12months)	400	57600	500	72000	129600
Honorarium to supervisor	1200	14400	1300	15600	30000
Honorarium to project coord.	2000	24000	2200	26400	50400
Lighting fuel (12x12)	500	72000	500	72000	144000
Teaching material(150x12x12)	150	21600	150	21600	43200
Students books and copies (Rs100x40studentsx12centres)	-	48000	-	48000	96000
Training of instructors (800x12)	-	9600	-	9600	19200
Rent (100x12x12)	100	14400	100	1400	28800
Contingencies		5000		5000	10000
Account and audit fees		4000		4000	8000
Fuel,petrol and lubricants	400	4800	400	4800	9600
	Total Recurring	2,75,400		2,93,400	5,68,800
B)NON RECURRING
Equipment (500x12)		6000		6000	12000
Lantern/Petromax (800x12)		9600			9600
Bicycle (2000x2)		4000			4000
	Total Non Recurring	19,600		6,000	25,600
GRAND TOTAL(RECURRING+NON RECURRING)		2,95,000		2,99,499	5,94,400

Questions Asha had about this project:

1)How many physical centres do they have (During the discussion we came to understand that even though funding was for 12 NFE centres physically there would be lesser than 12 structures, so this would affect some of the expense heads).

2) What are the roles of the supervisor/project coord ?

3)What exactly is the teaching material?

4) Since the organization already exists and is being audited ,why have they included the audit fees in this budget?