Jeevan Gnanodaya Conference Call Meeting Minutes
Wednesday May 11th @ 9:30pm CST
Attendees: Shankar (UIUC), Ram (UIUC), Vishwas (Aus), Sriram (Aus), Rahul (Aus), Charanya (Aus), Mr Devarajan (Mr D)
General Updates:
· Asha Atlanta will no longer be able to support JG due to financial reasons.
· UIUC will have a new steward Ankur who Shankar will introduce to Mr D separately. Shankar will be stepping down as the UIUC steward for JG.
Q: What has happened in JG in the last 3 months?
· 14 10th standard students completed their exams. Results due shortly.
· 1-9th standard exams done as well and results have been announced.
· ITI exams are in July. They have been given a 10-day study break since the weather is too hot.
· School students are also now on a break.
· Mr D has been doing a survey of neighboring villages to find potential students for the new year – he is targeting adding ~10 new students.
· Typically for new admissions, some parents approach the school on their own and some parents are approached proactively by Mr D. Final decisions are typically made in the June timeframe.
· Mr D plans to start 11th standard this coming year, to accommodate the requests of students who want to study more in preference to entering ITI or dropping out after 10th std. This group especially consists of female students, whose parents prefer to get them married off rather than attend ITI and find a job in a factory.
· To accommodate 11th standard, Mr D will need to find funding for 2 extra teachers who will solely focus on 11th and then eventually 12th standard as well. He is currently searching for funding and potential teachers simultaneously. Commerce stream is the one that will be offered. Other streams will have more requirements. 2 students currently confirmed. Others might consider once program is in place.
· In terms of teachers, 4 new specially trained teachers are going to join, ITI is currently in need for 1 additional teacher, and 2 new teachers needed for 11th standard.
· The opportunity to enter ITI is offered to all students – but only a few tend to take it – either because they are not interested or they would rather start earning some money sooner. Preference into the ITI program is given to JG students. For external students who express interest in ITI, Mr G gauges their background and gives them additional tests/training before they are admitted. Generally this number is small.
· Mr D has proactively been looking for jobs for currently graduating ITI students in the Chennai and Hosur area. Out of 9 students, 8 have currently found jobs.
o 3 students in Vadapazhani (Mircro Tooling and Hindustan Co.)
o 4 students in Nagarkovil (didn’t get company name)
o 2 students in Pallavaram (didn’t get company name)
· Mr D has been requested to send a breakdown of the # of children in each standard this past year.
Q: What is the update on Sign Language (SL) instruction in the school?
· School is still lagging behind on SL instruction. Mr D mentioned that some students still prefer speech due to the perception that speech is considered more useful in the working world. For the students interested in SL, they are not able to manage both the regular curriculum and SL learning. The curriculum at JG is the same as those of other government schools and no additional buffer is given because the children have a disability. The top priority of the teachers is still to ensure that the children get good grades in their exams. Everything else is secondary.
· Teachers are also not very well trained in SL themselves. Trained teachers go through a 2-yr course, where oral language instruction is predominantly focused on. Only ~30% of the curriculum is focused on SL. SL-proficient teachers are also pretty expensive to hire.
· When asked if Mr D himself saw the merits in SL instruction, he mentioned that he’s still not fully convinced it’s a good tool, but he has also not been able to focus enough attention on it due to other issues taking precedence. Asha volunteers emphasized that Mr D need not force himself to focus on SL just for Asha’s sake, but to only pursue it if he, as the headmaster, personally sees benefits in it.
· Mr D is considering maybe starting to implement it more starting with 6th grade students - and then add on new standards each year.
Q: Has the financial situation of the school improved?
· Yes, the situation has improved somewhat in the past 3 months. The “regular” kindergarten/primary school run by JG has now started enforcing fees as now mandated by the government. Initially, he was not very strict with fee payments, which used to be ~1500 Rs/annum per student. Now this amount has increased to ~3500 Rs/annum per student as specified by the guidelines. With ~225 students, this fee payment adds up.
· Some of the initial payments for the Kalyana Mandap as well as labor expenses have also now been paid for. So only a few mandap-related expenses are pending. ~4 lakhs of wedding hall-related work is left. Mr G is currently working with an auditor to track all expenses related to the wedding hall and will provide this report to us in July once it is completed.
· Mr G still has not been able to successfully convince the donors who backed out due to the wedding hall project to consider supporting the school again since he hasn’t had the bandwidth to approach each of them individually. He has asked the JG board to help. Mrs Savithri has mentioned that she will start helping ou with this effort soon. The school will still need some external support for another year or two depending on how the wedding hall project takes off.
· The school is also in the process of applying for a tax-exempt status called ATG. This is equivalent to the US’s 501(c)(3) status – and will hopefully attract more donors. The interview round is over. Previously, each approval of this status lasted for 3 years, now a one-time approval gives the non-profit a lifetime status.
Q: What chapters will be involved with JG in the 2011-12 years and what is their tentative support for?
· In 2010-2011, ATL supported 50% of the food expenses, UIUC supported salaries for Trained Teachers, Seattle supported salaries for regular teachers and other help staff and Austin supported Educational Materials.
· In 2011-2012, proposals for Food has been given to Austin since ATL has backed out of the project, UIUC and Seattle will tentatively support the same areas they did last year.
· In 2010, Austin had been given the proposal for medical expenses, which they were not able to approve. No medical checkups were given to students last year. This proposal along with educational materials proposal will now need to find funding elsewhere.
· Mr D needs to send the final list of teachers by June 1st week for the proposal consideration.
· Questions asked by Austin regarding food proposal:
o How many children is the budget targeting?: 120 children
o Is it possible to come up with a per child expense breakdown for food?: 6,20,700 Rs/yr = 5172.50 Rs/child/yr = 431 Rs/child/month ~$9.53 USD.child/month
o Is JG expecting a one-time support for food expenses or long-term?: Expectation is currently only for the upcoming year.
o How long has ATL been supporting food expenses?: ATL has been supporting since 2009.