Folks,

I spoke to Siddamma just now. She is certainly an ebullient lady !! Details later. Quick takes:

o I requested that she send us a prelim report asap so that we could distribute that to Asha. She agreed. A full audited report will be sent in April.

o The education idea that I raised has already been implemented by Siddamma and is in use today.

o She wanted us to approve the use of funds for the vehicle purchase as soon as we can. I said that Ski would send the official approval via email in the next couple of days. The money being utilized for this is coming from savings that she has accumulated. A big part of the savings comes from the fact that the labor cost for raising the centers was cheaper due to more participation from the tribe itself.

o 8 motivational centers are operational today, one more to go operational soon. The reason for the 9th is because in one of the places, there was to be one center to serve two villages, but was finally split into two; one for each of the villages.

o She finds the monthly conversations very useful.

o Local leaders (within Irula community) are very interested in the idea of a resource center. She wants us to spend some energy in that direction.

Dinesh.