Ms. Jayashree Janardhan and June 15, 2002

Mr. Amit Mookherjee

Asha-Seattle,WA. USA

Dear Jayashree and Amit,

Sub: Proposal of SPS to Asha groups (Stanford and Seattle) for funding of educational component of A Sustainable Program with focus on human development (viz., health, education and income) :: Rs. 2.5 lakhs per year for 5 years (2002-03 to 2006-07)

I am very happy to inform you both that my visits to LA,Chicago and Madison,WI have been very good and I thank you for for having introduced to Asha groups and AID volunteers at various places. As you may know from copies of some communications, meetings are being scheduled in Washington DC and Boston areas later this month and early next month. I appreciate very much for your having taken out time for the same and I have really enjoyed the interactions with Asha groups and AID volunteers in addition to our friends and colleagues from the 1970s who are continuing to support our work in India. I am trying to bring them closer wherever possible like in LA and Chicago areas.

At the outset, I am very thankful to you both for the wonderful support including warm hospitality and excellent interactions with your colleagues and you both in Seattle and also your timely contacts with Asha friends elsewhere esp in Asha-Stanford and Asha-LA.*

We are enclosing a brief outline of a proposal for the educational component of the five year program as complimentary to the proposal to the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust (SDTT), submitted last October, a copy of which has been already given to you both (the executive summary as well as the detailed program proposal for 5 years, 2002-03 to 2006-07). We have also given a copy of the grant letter of SDTT dated February 28, 2002.

Since I met you (Jayashree)at Shimoga Srinath's house on June 7^th and a long tel conversation that night (with Amit), I have been meaning to send you both the enclosed outline of the SPS proposal to Asha groups (mainly at Seattle and Stanford with possible help from others, if necessary) regarding the education component of our five-year proposal (2002-2003 to 2006-2007) for 'A Sustainable Program with focus on human development, viz., health, education and income' from the grassroot (26 villages in two districts of Karnataka) to policy level (people-centered right-based policies, legislations and programmes like Joint Firest Management-JFM) including helping to groups in Baster and Kashipur areas in Chattisgarh and Orrissa States through legal , studies and networking support. As I have emphasised in our discussions, we are dealing with education in the broader sense of the term including awareness building through rights based approach. However, formal education esp primary education for the children of our target groups- landless, marginal and small farmers - would be an important and integral part of this education process. As you will please notice this in the enclosed proposal, this is based on our experiences during last two decades, both with people's movements for community control over natural resources and establishment of constitutionally mandated self governments (Gram Sabha at the village level and strengthening of present Panchayati Raj Institutions - PRIs, namely, Gram, Taluk and Jilla Panchayats). We are integrating these aspects including Kashipur efforts, as part of our proposal.

I am very hopeful that as I understand your key points made during our discussions about the education component as your colleagues understand today , we are very hopeful that they, in due course of time, (with some help from you both), will understand the education component of our program within the broader meaning of establishing people's rights over natural resources so central to their survival and human development.

I look forward to your comments or questions regarding the proposal including any additions if any. However I would request you both to make these necessary changes, as a valuable help to me so that I can just go through your revised draft, and convey my concurrence with brief comments, if necessary. This help from your end would be of great support for me as I have limited computer and typing capabilities.

From the wonderful interactions with you both, I am sure that this will be the beginning of a long and wonderful association including a good learning process for both sides.

With Best Regards to all other friends in Asha, Seattle and Stanford and you both.

Yours Sincerely,

SR

(S.R. Hiremath,

Samaj Parivartana Samudaya - SPS,

Ashadeep, Jayanagar Cross,

Saptapur,

Dharwad - 580001)

* P.S. : In addition to arranging a good meeting at UCLA with Asha, L.A. members and AID volunteers, I was very happy that Murali Mani also accompanied me for the meeting (on Sunday, June 9^th) with our earlier supporters in the L.A. area. As a positive outcome of this, one of our supporters, Ami Mehta, called me today and pledged to send $1,000 to SPS towards the corpus fund of Rs.15 lakhs that we are raising. She has agreed to send this amount to Asha, L.A. who are also interested to supplement this effort through their contributions towards the corpus fund of SPS. We could similarly bring together our earlier supporters and Asha Chicago.

Budget: Rs. 2.5 lakhs per year for five years (2002-03 to 2006-07).

Introduction:This supplementary proposal for the educational component is an integral part of the five year program of SPS (2002-03 to 2006-07) that was submitted to the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust (SDTT), Mumbai, India in October 2001 for a corpus grant. The same was sanctioned by the SDTT through their grant letter of February 28, 2002. Copies of both the detailed proposal of SPS to SDTT along with the Executive Summary and grant letter have been provided to Asha-Seattle.

This proposal is based on the discussions with the members of Asha-Stanford (Caesar Sengupta and Suraj Jacob) on May 31, 2002 and Asha-Seattle (Jayashree Janardhan and Amit Mookherjee) during June 3-7, 2002.

The Meaning and Scope of Education Component: In this proposal, education is taken in the broader sense, meaning both improving the present formal schools (esp primary education) through active involvement of community and linking the same to the community control over natural resources like Jal, Jungle, Jameen, and Khaneej ( water, forest, land, and minerals) and strengthening of the self government units like gram sabha and gram panchayat to the rights-based advocacy at the policy and legislative level.

This also includes an innovative program started by SPS in April 2001, namely, Community Learning Movement (CLM) which is described under item iii ("Strategy", page 2 of Executive Summary of the proposal) as follows:

However, the objectives, approach, strategy, and the remaining items as described on pages 1-4 of the Executive Summary of the proposal remain the same. It is important to emphasize that the strategy would be organization centered (not family centered) as indicated under "Strategy."

The key elements of the education component are:

1. Improving Formal Schooling System through active involvement of the community esp. through the organizations of the target groups (landless, marginal and small farmers with priority for women and SC and ST) like Self Help Groups (SHGs), Krishi Karmikar Sanghas (KKSs --landless people associations), and Village Forest Committees (VFCs) as delineated in the proposal. The purpose is both to ensure regular attendance and active involvement of teachers and the students. The institution of Gram Sabha meetings will be utilized to bring any problems relating to the teachers to the attention of the higher authorities.

2. Linking School with Management of Natural Resources: Students and teachers will be involved in seed collection, especially before the onset of Monsoon. With the arrival of Monsoon, a seed dribbling program involving the students, teachers and village organizations such as SHGs, KKSs, and VFCs will be arranged. The students would also be involved in the identification of medicinal and other plants along with the teachers. The key elements of natural regeneration of common lands including social fencing, soil and water conservation measures (contour bunding, Nala bands, etc.), voluntary ward and watch for the trees and grass on the common lands and making fire lines will be discussed with students and teachers in informal sessions in the school and also in the meetings of the village level organizations (SHGs, KKSs, and VFCs). This is part of the strategy of developing a sense of ownership of the natural resources by the community and leading to the proper management of common lands, collection of forest produce, etc.

3. Improving the Environment of the School by planting trees in the school compound and informal discussions on developing a healthy relationship between the community, culture, and nature.

4. Exposure Visits to other Groups to learn from their experiences and improve education and relate it to life including formal and informal curriculum and joyful learning.

5. Community Learning Movement (CLM) will perhaps be the most important element of the education component through which an enlightened and effective leadership among a team of hundred persons (two women and two men from each of the 25 villages) who will be the engine for social change. As discussed earlier, systematic training programs spread over 18 months will be undertaken. Further, such teams developed through CLM will be federated in due course of time.

6. Peoples Planning Campaign and Education. The ground work already done in Kumarnahalli (Davanagere Dst.) - which the team from Kerala Shastra Sahitya Parishad (KSSP) helped initiate - will help spread this systematically to other villages especially in developing comprehensive watershed programmes for each village. The teachers and the students will be actively involved in this process along with Panchayat and village sangha members. Through the Grama Ganarajya Vedike (GGV), a state level forum on gram swaraj, peoples planning campaign will be taken on a broader scale paving the way democratic decentralization.

7. Peoples Movements and Education. The involvement of SPS with peoples movements for protection of common lands in Karnataka and tribal movement in Kashipur area in terms of assertion of peoples rights over natural resources will be made informal topics of discussions with teachers and students. This will help in involving them in building greater awareness among the poorer sections of the population through camps and padayatras (foot marches) during holidays.

8.Training of Teachers: During holidays camps will be conducted to train the teachers for equipping them well for the above-referred tasks.

9. Advocacy Work for meaningful implementation of the recent constitutional amendment making education a fundamental right. We will also try to link it with the mid-day meal aspect of the ongoing land mark case in the Supreme Court of India (PUCL vs. Union of India and others) relating to right to work and right to food security. We will also link this with our advocacy work on natural resource legislation and programs .

This draft prepared by S.R.Hiremath and Guha Balasubramaniam with a request to Jayashree and Amit to suggest any further changes based on our discussions.