SHARE -

April 22nd, 2001

Old Project Discussion

Ranjni Reddy

Self Help Association for Rural Education and Employment, Tamil Nadu.

SHARE, a registered NGO has been around since 1970s, producing village handicrafts in 27 villages, employing 800 women. In combination of its income generation schemes, foreign funds, it offers services, e.g. balwadis, scholarships etc.

The project proposal received by ASHA Boston was for the education of the poor school children in the village community, in five villages outside of Vellore, TN. The project is an after school tutorial program for poor children in five villages. It is designed to improve their performance in school, encourage them to participate in village improvement, improve self confidence, discourage dropouts, improve awareness on sanitation and environment, encourage extracurricular activities, motivate children to keep up with current affairs, educate parents in social economic and health; and cultivate a spirit of national integration. This caters to both boys and girls.

Secular project (Hindu/Muslim), SC/ST participation. Project had begun with the cooperation of CMC Vellore, but is now independent. Project coordinator seems to have an essentially Gandian orientation (trained at Gandhigram).

23 staff members, who are craftswomen themselves.

Funding requested received Dec. '96. Funding began end of Jan. '97

Amanda Bickel and Premi have visited this site, and were quite impressed - "effectively managed and well conceived"

Funding requested in original proposal

Year 1 Rs. 28,500 (SHARE pays Rs. 5,700; Community 3,800)

Year 2 19,000 (SHARE pays Rs. 9,500; Community 9,500)

Year 3 9,500 (Share pays Rs. 9,500; Community 19,000)

Year 4 none (Share pays Rs. 9,500; Community 28,500)

Year 5 none (Community bears entire expense)

A desirable quality of this project is that it aims at slowly phasing out the foreign funding required and replaces it with funding generated from within the community. Thus, although the project is 5 year long, Asha funds were required for only 3 years and amounts progressively decreased. Asha funds have been used to partially pay for the rent, the study material and the salary of the supervisor.

First three years funding provided as shown above, No ASHA funding provided in Year 4 & 5, as SHARE had become self-sustaining beyond that.

Not much more information was readily available, as there was no contact was kept after funding completed. Ranjini will get in touch with SHARE to learn more about their educational program, current organization status, and request for receipts for funding provided by ASHA Boston.

This seemed to be an impressive project, one that ASHA Boston can consider a good (successful) project to have funded.

Ranjini will update us after receiving any further info / receipts.