ANNUAL UPDATE June 2009 – April 2010

Vijay KanagalaBharathi VedulaBindu Pillarisetty

July 7th, 2010

Sumavanam

Mission

• To provide economically deprived rural youth with quality education.

• Empower them to better their lives and their environment.

• Introduce effective new and innovative teaching methods in a rural school

History

• Sumavanam is an alternative education school started in 1982 by Usha and Narasimhan.

• Close to Madanapalle, Chittoor district (approximately 11 kms from the city and very close to the Karnataka-Andhra border).

• Neel Bagh trust in Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh (A.P.) runs Sumavanam village school. This trust was started in 1974 by David and Nicholas Horsburgh, eminent educator who has written text books for grade schools.

• Asha-Seattle has been funding this project since 1997

Organization Structure

• Narasimhan (Ph.D, IIT Kanpur) and Usha (a teacher at Neelbagh trust by David Horsborough) are the founder couple of Sumavanam.

• Mr. T. M. Narasimhan, a former scientist of National Aerospace Laboratory, India, is the present managing trustee of Neel Bagh Trust which supports Sumavanam and Vikasna and is our contact.

• Funds for Sumavanam and Vikasna are managed through the Neel Bagh Trust bank account.

Location

• Sumavanam is located in Madanapalle village in Chittoor district, A.P.

Sumavanam, madanapalle, Chitoor,

A.P (Approximate location)

• Activities for children:• Academics• Handicrafts

• Paper folding• Needle work• Rangoli• Small toys

• Paintings• Field trips for children• Personal hygeine

• Training of teachers in alternative teaching methods

Activities

Finances

o Annual expenditures - $12,000o Annual income - $12,000o Sources of income (Sumavanam and Vikasana) –

o UNIS: $4000.00 (Rs.188000.)o ASHA $3000.00 (Rs.141000.)o U.K.Trust $5000.00 (Rs.235000)

All the donations received go towards expenditure. Savings are minimal.

Asha, Seattle Involvement

All the funds provided by Asha- Seattle are pooled with funds from other sources and used for the maintenance of Vikasana and Sumavanam.

We have to seriously consider increasing our contributions to the project so that they can help more children and employ and retain more teachers.

Excerpt from the report:Note: Due to escalation of costs (Almost 50% increase) of text books, note books, stationary,food items etc. it is difficult to run the schools if the above donations are not forth coming. It is also becoming difficult to find teachers to come and work for the salaries that are being offered . We may have to reduce the number of children in the schools.

Asha, Seattle Budget

See budget document for details.

Updates for Asha, Seattle

• See document for detailed activities from June 2009 – April 2010.

Site Visit Report

• No recent site visits by Asha personnel. • Will do one as soon as possible.

Audit Report

• We have the audit report for Neel Bagh Trust for the fiscal year ending March 31st, 2009.

Survey Results

• Include the results of the annual survey.

Process Checks

Item Status

Approved Budget <Amount>

Approval Type One of Recurring (new), recurring, one-time

Amount(s) disbursed last fiscal year <amount>

Amount Utilized by the project last fiscal year

<Amount>

Last Site Visit <year and date>

Current Primary Steward <name of the steward>

Current Secondary Stewards <names of the secondary steward>

Status of the web page Up to Date / Not updated

Status of the yahoo databases Up to Date / Not up to date

Pictures

• Latest pictures from the project.

Resources

• Links to news paper articles, or other items of interest.

Questions?

FAQs

• Some FAQs at Asha, Seattle meetings.o How many rs are we spending per kid per year?o Does the amount being spent on infrastructure items (building

schools, repairing roofs, etc. ) look reasonable?o Where exactly is the partner located? (especially for remote

projects. Be ready to locate the project area on a map)o What is the graduation rate of the school?o What is the student to teacher ratio in class rooms?o What is the girl to boy ratio in the school?o What are the line items in the budget?o Why is the partner asking for more funding for line item N?

(You will be asked this if there are changes in the budget line items)

o Community opinion of the project. o What went well, what didn’t go as expected, what can be done

differently.