Attendees : Gagan, Anita, Jayashree, Supriya, Swati, Swetha, Gaurav, Srishti, Satish, Anita’s Mom, Shankar.

Anita : Digantar , short description followed by a call to Ajay from the Yale chapter who visted Digantar for a day. Digantar also worked with Lok Jumbish and the Madhya Pradesh DPEP programs. Gave a brief description about their association with these programs. Would find more info about it.

Call to Ajay:

-> Motivation to see Digantar; -> What was your experience and highlights ? Not too much variation in age in each grp.
Children move from one grp to another every year.
Also talked about their teacher training methods and teaching learning methods.
->How different is from regular schools other than the fact that there are no exams? No time frame to finish a particular ‘portion’ More continuous than other schools -> Subjects taught? 5 subjects What will happen if the children are at different levels in different subjects? Need to ask Rohit about this Teachers training programme 4 months observation of students helping out a teacher in the class not too much of learning minimum qualifications for a becoming teacher?-Not very rigid and high/advanced.

Post call:
Jayashree : Gave a brief description about various other schools like Sumavanam, Vikaasana, Anugriha, Suvidhya, Avehi which work on alternative education methodologies and teaching /learning materials. David Horsbrough’s approach to teaching – Digantar, Vikasana in Karnataka, Primrose series of textbooks · Challenged the regular exam oriented system of teaching · Child centered system · Rishi Valley – series of cards, which they have to finish, no exams, just finish the cards. Detail about Rishi Valley · Anugraha – picture oriented teaching

Question of adjustment of these children with the mainstream? How do they feel moving from a school like this to a govt school? No single answer to this. E.g. Anugraha kids are topping their classes effortlessly Example from Rohit: children not caring about their grades.

How scalable is this? Rohit mentions in one of his documents about scalability problems, like time frames, lack of resources and complete freedom from the govt.
Auroville’s success- 30 govt schools Should involve government schools because that’s where most people go

Whats Digantar seeking funding for? HRD funding stops 2002. Seattle supporting them
40,000$ for 2002-2003 for the 3 schools. The other expenses are being funded by ICICI.

Swetha : Teacher motivation vs. Student Motivation Jay: Anugraha – motivation is more after teachers started working and they liked it and continued.

Swati – SSUP in Bengal. How much money we are sending ? Based on the amts of funding thru Stanford, SV , this installment give the same amt 3075$ and next installment onwards mention, we wud prefer if NY or other chapters can raise the remaining amount.

We decided we would fund the non-educational expenses.
Swati will work on it. People interested in this project can join asha-ssup@yahoogroups.com

Gagan : Bhoomiheen Seva Samiti, in Aao village. Govt help has come thru for some portions of the education programmes. Need for increasing the recurring funding from 6200$ to 7500$. Send Gagan and Swetha info about schoolnet.com . Everyone voted for increasing the recurring costs.

Jayashree : Spactics outreach school center for children with disability from 1996. In Agrahara and Yelahanka. 300$ additional to the 3000$. So that they can buy a wheelchair for each of these centers.
Everyone approved.

Asha-Wide Elections : Decided to vote for all the people standing for elections.

Slaves : Siva Bala Narayanan and friends will be performing in a play for Asha called "Slaves" and would like to dedicate the proceeds to Asha.
The play will be held sometime in July or august.
Anita/Jayashree will be coordinating the play effort from Asha's side.