Background

What you can do

FAQ

Project partners

Appendix I

Appendix II

Appendix III

Asha Seattle

What you can do?

We are actively looking for volunteers to be a part of Asha Seattle. There are various ways in which you can help us. Do not worry if you feel that you might not be able to meet the time commitment that these tasks ask for. It must be stressed that the "line" between the coordination team and other volunteers is blurred at best, and anyone with a desire to help out with a coordination task can help out depending on your aptitude and time availability. Asha as an organization tries to promote a volunteer spirit based on participation and not fixed roles. Every new volunteer is free to take on, define and participate in his/her role within Asha. You can pick a task which you feel you can do justice to and well, let's rock!

Project Stewardship: Each project of Asha Seattle has one (or more) project steward who is an Asha volunteer responsible for working closely with the project partner in India. On an average, you'd have to work 5-6 hours a month for this work. In addition to keeping in touch regularly over email, phone or regular mail with the project contacts in India and donors, these are some of the responsibilities of the project steward:

• Make sure that checks are sent twice a year (if applicable)
• Arrange for at least one site visit every year - it is ideal (though not necessary) if the project steward himself/herself is able to visit whenever they go to India
• Get an annual survey completed by the project partner and present this at a meeting along with any other updates that we have on the project
• Upload proposals, site visit reports, surveys and photos to the Asha web site and keep the web site up to date

Focus Groups: It is a team of volunteers that focuses in specific areas like children at risk, health, policy changes etc. There are few focus groups which are spanned across chapters and there are few chapter specifc focus groups. Asha Seattle has few such focus groups:

• Textbook Reviews: In this current project a group of volunteers are systematically reviewing various text books taught in schools in India. At present the effort is limited to social studies text books. This effort include systematic content evaluation to look for comprehensiveness and coherence, presence of communal aspects, biases, stereotypes and factual inaccuracies and any other inappropriate elements in the text books. Volunteering for this typically requires three to three and a half hours volunteer time a week, including a two and a half hour weekly meeting.
• Learning Aids: We make learning aids & games from throw away things like empty cardboard boxes, paper rolls, one sided print outs (sp. on colored papers). These aids & games are easy to reproduce but stretch the thinking of the children. Till now, we have made flashcards, a game of cards, number rods, red stairs, place value cards, card counter, and fraction cards & distributed these to children in Asha-supported schools in India. A new volunteer can initiate new ideas for aids & games and take part in actually making these. We typically meet on Saturdays for a few hours.
• Advocacy Group: The Advocacy group at Asha-Seattle was initiated by a group of volunteers with the intention of utilising Asha's influence to lobby for policy-level changes in the educational system of India. It began by analyzing the NCERT curriculum framework for middle schools and have emerged to look into areas like gender-based issues, Mumbai slum evictions etc. Check out thier blog for most recent information

Interactive Discussion Groups: As part of the learning process, Asha Seattle organizes talks and other events for all of its volunteers. For example, we hosted Dr. Balaji Sampath and Mr. P. Chennaiah at Seattle this year. In addition, we have an open forum in the form of Asha-Seattle yahoogroup where we discuss various issues ranging from education and health to microcredit. We also plan to organize more public events, including film screenings, to broaden the base of Asha’s activities and increase the awareness for issues confronting us.

Finance Team: We have a finance team that looks after all the financial aspects of the chapter. The primary responsibilities of the finance team are entering every check/cash/online donation in the database, depositing checks in the bank, sending thank you notes and receipts to the donors, reconciling the database against the bank statements, mailing company matching forms, adding donor addresses to the address database, preparing the annual finance report for tax filing, budgeting, issuing checks to various projects. Depending on the number of volunteers in the team, finance work typically requires a couple of hours of volunteer time per month.

Fundraising and Events: Asha Seattle organizes several fund-raiser events which include Asha marathon, the Microsoft Give campaign, Work An Hour, popular music programs like "O Podu" and "AllGoRhythms" and children's programs like Chhoti si Asha. Asha Seattle's biggest fundraiser is our participation in the annual Give Campaigns run by various companies in the area. We raise a bulk of our funds through this event which usually runs from early September to late October every year. In addition to this, we hold a number of annual signature events to showcase local talent. We always encourage new ideas if somebody wants to propose a new fundraiser for Asha and help coordinate it (examples from the past include Golf tournament, Diwali party). The basic duties include coordinating with the web designer and designing flyers/posters, updating information on the website, taking care of reservations, ticketing and related paper-work, interfacing with performers, coordinating with event volunteers on the day of the event, etc. Depending on the event in question, the volunteer time varies, but with ample of support from all other volunteers, is an enjoyable experience.

New Volunteer Team: Being a new volunteer, you can appreciate how important it is to have a new volunteer team, especially having a buddy who can guide you through the initial stages of confusion. For this, you have to have an open mind, an awareness of what Asha stands for and a belief in Asha's ideologies. You have to interact with new (as well as old!) volunteers and gather their feed back, be a buddy to new volunteers and make them feel welcome to Asha.

Webpage Maintenance: This is perfect for someone with a flair for the computers. Day to day activities involve updating meeting information (locations, schedules and minutes), setting up pages for events and online ticketing interfaces, uploading newsletters and any other maintenance as and when required. In addition, you might have to do some webpage enhancements, like setting up recurring donation interfaces for special events.

Design work: If you are the one with design skills (especially if you are comfortable with Adobe illustrator, Macromedia Freehand etc.), then this is for you. Asha Seattle takes out quarterly newsletters and frequent flyers to publicize events. We need volunteers who can design such documents and handle the responsibilities involved, which typically involve about 2-3 hours every month. Any skills - painting, drawing, illustrations, crafts, rangoli designing, henna designing etc. combined with designs for posters/fliers will definitely help us make better posters.

Safeway Cards: Asha sells Safeway cards in different denominations. Safeway offers Asha different percentages of commissions (4-5%) on the total amount of groceries bought with these cards. The basic duties of a volunteer would be to buy and distribute these prepaid Safeway grocery cards and maintain an inventory of the transactions.

Merchandise: Asha merchandise includes calendars, mugs and hand-crafted stationery items made by children supported through Asha-funded projects. The basic duties of a volunteer is to inventory these items, coordinate setting up of stalls at various events for selling these merchandise items and maintaining the accounts for the same. The total time commitment depends on the number of events per year, and is usually a couple of hours in a month.

Asha Tea: As you already know, Asha Seattle is a "zero-overhead" organization. Asha tea is one way we try to get money for covering the organizational and overhead costs. Basically, we set up and sell tea at different public events in and around Seattle. You should be willing to sacrifice an occasional Saturday or a Friday evening for this. As a starter, you’ll also need to get a food handler's license from the city of Seattle.

New Ideas: Finally, you can bring a new idea to Asha Seattle, get it approved at a meeting and run with it. This is how the chapter has evolved over the years.