Asha for Education™
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Table of Contents
1. Foreword ………3
2. Projects ………4
2.1. Activities
Projects in 2002
2.2. Spotlight – Sarada Kalyan Bhandar
2.3. Future Issues
3. Fundraising ………8
3.1. Activities
3.2. Spotlight – Harbingers of Hope
3.3. Future Issues
4. Web ………11
4.1. Activities
4.2. Spotlight – Carroms Tournament
4.3. Future Issues
5. General Activities ………13
5.1. Special Initiatives – Support a Child
5.2. Volunteer Experiences - Indiventure
6. Financial Summary ………16
1. Foreword
“How do you solve a complicated problem?”, asked Achilles.
“Break it down into smaller problems,” said the Tortoise. “Assign one person to each smaller problem and slowly the bigger problem will move to a solution.”
“But the smaller problems all depend on each other,” said Achilles. “How can I solve the smaller problem without knowing how they all connect?”
“Don’t worry about it,” said the Tortoise. “Just do what you can do, keep at it and after a while the connections will appear. You’ll be able to solve the bigger problems.”
“So Tortoise, what is the problem?”
“That Achilles, is something that you need to find for yourself…”
Many of us start with the need to do something, without knowing exactly what we need to do. We have two resources at our disposal: time and money. We find a cause that appeals to our hearts and makes us feel good about the resources we’re investing. Slowly some of us dive a little deeper into the problem and realize the different levels of the problem. At each level people stop to decide whether they want to stay and go no further or whether they should plough even deeper. At Asha, we are all fortunate that we have the freedom to operate at multiple levels and contribute what we can. Our basic mission is simple and powerful: catalyze socio-economic change in India through the education of underprivileged children.
This has been an eventful year for us on several fronts, and we’ve seen a lot of dips and highs. Asha in the US and India has navigated through some turbulent times in its eleventh year and has, in the process, grown and matured. A number of issues were thrown at it, obstacles from several quarters were faced and we still managed to achieve our goals and stay focused. Our chapter for its part did its share in its eighth year, dealt with our own set of issues and managed to have one of its more successful years.
We have had several new faces join us this year, bringing in fresh energy and enthusiasm at a critical junction. One of these faces is Akshay Reddy, who will be coordinating the projects activities at the chapter. Several other people have taken the initiative to lead the chapter on various fronts and, as always, NYC/NJ has a bright future.
Going forward, we need to continue the good work that we have been doing. Project custodians have started working more closely with our projects. Our fundraising is at an all time high and our web group is constantly making what we do easier to do. We need to find ways to become more time-efficient, obtain more corporate sponsors for our events, and to increase coordination between our various activities. As we grow larger, we need to make sure that we are always transparent; that there are constant checks and balances, and every volunteer leading an effort is accountable to the chapter.
We all have the extreme good fortune of working with the most amazing and committed set of people, and with everyone’s support here, I am sure we will carry on as strong as ever.
Shyam Raghunandan
Asha-NYC/NJ
2. Projects
Contact: Akshay Reddy
Focus Group:
Website: www.ashanet.org/nycnj/projects.html
2.1. Activities
One of the most important things we did was to layout the project review, acceptance, and approval process. We also laid out how and when we would send money to a project. Before this, we had documented the functions of a project custodian. This is important so that, when some of us move on, the next set of people don’t need to reinvent the wheel. To summarize the discussion: A project is to be reviewed by the chapter in a discussion session that typically lasts 45 minutes, and is to be accepted or rejected solely on merit. An accepted project will be ‘approved’ provided there are available funds and an available custodian. Note that the funds could come from the custodian, the chapter, as well as other chapters. However, the presence of a custodian at the chapter is required. Each existing project is to be reviewed at least once a year. The funds will be sent in 2 installments – once after the review and again after 6 months. Guidelines for the custodian include keeping in touch with the project, periodically calling, making sure that all conversations and updates are posted on the website and keeping the group informed on its status.
This system helped us when we suddenly found that we had extra funds. We were able to cleanly take care of our existing projects and smoothly take up new projects that are still under review. There were at least 5 people at each review meeting who knew what the decision path was. This is important so that more people know how the system works. We are already running into a situation where there are 14 projects and there is not enough time to review all of them. The only way out of this is to have a constant pool of people who know how to review a project, what questions to ask, how to accept a project and how to approve it. This will allow us to parallel-process the whole project review system.
We decided not to buffer money for the future. Whatever money our chapter has will be used up as soon as possible in one of the following ways:
1. Review and approve new projects within our chapter
2. Further goals of an existing project (such as the SKB building)
3. See if another chapter needs help and lend it to them
The rational for that was to not have any money sitting idle. Buffering would be done only in the case where none of the above happened.
We also had the good fortune of listening to talks by eminent people from India who were in the NYC Metro area. This included people such as Dr. RR from IOI, Elango Ramaswamy who is an award winning village leader, P. Sainath, who is an award-winning journalist and many more. This was crucial in providing new perspective and to learn more about what the projects actually go through. One of the primary reasons that people stay on to volunteer at Asha is the exposure that they gain and the amount that they learn. The decision made by the chapter to actively invite people for talks will take us a long way. We should be very clear that these speakers are only there to provide perspective and we don’t necessarily subscribe to or support their views.
2.2. 2.2 Spotlight – Sarada Kalyan Bhandar
This is a project that began with Asha-LA (which was the second Asha chapter, after Berkeley), and has stayed with us since then. Our chapter has devoted over $25,000 to it over the last 3 years with visits by several of our volunteers. The current custodian, Shouri Chatterjee () is leading a drive to build a school/health center for the project, appropriately called ‘Building Hope’. The goal of this effort is to raise $50,000 in 9 months. We have raised $19,000 in 2 months.
Education: Most of the children belong to land less farmers, daily laborers, coolies, and brickfield workers. While there are schools around the area, they are mostly government schools where there is scarcity in teachers and real lack of motivation among students to attend school. This organization has started an after hours school program where the students are motivated to work on their class preparation and attend schools regularly. Through sustained work over a decade the pass percentages in classes have increased dramatically from 30% to over 95% in recent years. The students are also provided for with uniforms, which give them a distinct sense of identity and pride. The students are also provided with bread and cookie everyday and milk is provided for on 4 out of 7 days.
Rural health care mission: Providing for primary health coverage to the villagers. Enhances health and nutritional status and information of rural masses, especially women and children for their survival (for instance, there are a lot of child deaths in the area due to diarrhea and lack of awareness among the tribals about simply feeding water to the affected child). Making people aware of various common diseases and their prevention. Providing First Aid training to young villagers to counter threats from snakebite, shock, burn, wounds, drowning, etc, and arranging regular immunization and organizing eye-care camps.
Women self-independence promoting scheme: Provide women from underdeveloped villages around Midnapore the financial support in the form of food, lodging, education fees and other bare necessities while continuing with their higher education. Historically many deserving women candidates would not have able to pursue their dreams because of poverty and other social and cultural issues, which made families, divert their education resources towards the male child than the female child. This is the first year that this policy is being implemented. They also have focused on education of girls (due to social ostracization of educated girls for marriage, many girls drop out due to parental pressure, while the boys are encouraged to get education)
Asha-NYC/NJ has made a commitment to support all three areas of the projects work. We are providing $900 towards their education program, $1000 for their medical awareness program for immunization and basic education about nutrition, $1500 for their women's self-independence program ($300 per girl).
Project Details: http://www.ashanet.org/nycnj/projects/skb.html
2.3. Future Issues
1. An Excess of Project Reviews
We had 8 at NYC/NJ, 15 with WAH (Work an Hour) at multiple phases, and 15 with General Funds this year. We might need a more efficient internal system for reviewing projects. One idea would be to have a case-study booklet of several project types (based on Jayashree’s classification, www.ashanet.org/projects/html#types), so that people can read them, understand the Q&A’s that were asked and reach a point where they can review a project on their own.
2. Project Custodians
At one point we had 8 projects and about 4 custodians. We don’t know what is going on at some of our projects. This is something that we need new people to come forward and accept, and for that the system and required time involvement should be clear.
3. Opinions
On what should be done, on what is a problem, on what is right and wrong and where we should be going. People need to use the projects-mailing list a little more for that. It’s usually a couple of people expressing theirs, no-one else replies and life goes on. We need to utilize this resource a bit more.
3. Fundraising
Contact: Sudarshan Setlur
Focus Group:
Website: www.ashanet.org/nycnj/events.html
3.1. Activities
The most important thing we did was to get the core fundraising group together and meet face to face to layout a plan that everyone agreed on. From here we went to plan Mira Nair, Natraj and HoH. We also added in Sangam at the end of the year. One of the things that has been happening quietly in the background is grant writing. It’s surprising, but we have submitted 4 grant applications this year thanks to the sheer persistence of our volunteers. The MHV chapter helped out our coffers by coming in with 20K from the IBM ECC program alone. These are only the pure non-project related fundraisers.
Somehow this was the most successful year in the amount of money that we were able to raise. There are a lot of successes that are summarized below:
a) It takes a year to set up a large concert type event. There are a lot of people that need to come on board, and we should avoid doing a concert with short lead-time.
b) A big-name artist does not necessarily draw a larger crowd than a small-name artist, given the same levels of publicity in NYC. We need to identify what NYC considers popular. We need to identify who at NYC is going to come to our events. For volume, the most sizable population is the college student crowd. We need events that will draw them in. The Indian working professional in Manhattan lives in Hoboken, Jersey City and Pavonia/Newport for the most part. If we want to reel them in, we need to do an event there! Mira Nair sold out to an age group average of about 26. Amjad Ali Khan did not. Ravi Kiran & Vishwa Mohan Bhatt did not. Natraj did not. The average age at these events was closer to 30-35 (Natraj might have been lower). We need to get artists who can draw the student crowd in.
c) Five people organized the HoH Marathon, and raised over $10,000. This will go down as the most efficient NYC/NJ fundraiser.
d) We made about $17,000 from the IBM ECC program, and we had one booth at the ECC event manned by 3 people. Our satellite chapter at the Mid-Hudson Valley accomplished this.
e) We made about $21,000 from United Way in 2002, with minimal effort. Sarkar is the point of contact for the UW program for our chapter.
The primary reason to hold a concert should be to raise awareness and involvement. We should reach a stage where the money comes in from donations. Concerts and events should just draw people together and allow us to have the pure fun of arranging something like that.