Name of Project: SAADOW – Social Awarness and Dev. Org for Women

Contact Information: P.Sonaimuthu, Saadow, 119 – D/6, behind Central Cinema, Natham, Dindigul – 624401. Ph:-

Getting there: Take a train to Dindigul, rickshaw to the bus stand there and ask for any bus to Natham. Get off at natham and walk to Central Cinema, ask for the address there/ else just call Sonaimuthu

Previous Asha Volunteer visit: Rohini Muthuswami

Associated Chapter(s): Colorado, $1460 in 2002 and $ 1126 for 6 months in 2003

FCRA Clearance: Yes

School visit dates: 6 and 7 Nov 2003

Surprise Visit?: Yes – exact date not announced

Time spent: 2 days

Report written on: 8 Nov 2003

Introduction : Got there on a cold morning, lovely crisp air, and I was in good spirits after a pleasant journey on a very clean Pandian Express-train. One sees plenty of Christian cemeteries enroute to natham by bus, - small temple like structures with a cross on top – a sign of synthesizing religion into the existing culture. A Christian here is more Tamil than he is Christian. Had a 3 rupee breakfast of Idli’s early in the morning, saw the owner of the hotel paying obeisance to his God aided by the strong aroma of ‘sambrani’ – hindi:’dhoop’ burning all around from a brass plate. His world was a lot more tidy and perfect than mine was, what with a God who claimed to have convenient answers for everything that was unknown or imperfect.

Sonaimuthu seemed surprised and unpleased when I called him from Natham (I hadn’t contacted him before that). I waited in front of Central cinema for 10 minutes with a urinating buffalo and a defecating man for company before Sonaimuthu turned up. We went to his office cum home which was adorned with pictures of Gandhi and Nehru kept alive with a dried flower garland each and sandalwood paste on their foreheads.

project location: Natham lies to the South-West of Dindigul dist. There are 7 taluka’s out of which Natham is one, there are 225 villages in Natham and about 2500 in Dindigul dist. Asha aids schools in 10 of them. The town is surrounded by hills on 3 sides, which seemed dense green thanks to the rains.

surroundings, cleanliness: The tuition centers are quite clean. The setting is rural, so no problem with any garbage. Some have lovely locations, and there is a dense carpet of green all around.

serves which community: Serves the local community. Consists of SC, BC, OBC, few Muslims, and some Christians. No upper castes around here. Agriculture is the primary occupation, locals have small lands grow groundnuts, and rice when there is water. Earn Rs 20 @ day in the village and Rs 40 @ day in Natham doing labour. On avg. families have 3 children. About 15 % would have 5 children or more. Few kids have a TV at home.

racial mix of people in Comm/living conditions. Rural, place is some distance from any of the larger towns, people live by farming, selling custard apples, mangoes, custard apple, pineapples, tamarind, imli, etc.

• particular schools or particular classes (is the balwadi or the primary school or class 5-10? etc) . Supplementary education. Tuition centers for classes 1- 10.
• scope of activity for funding (only basic education or vocational or health education etc) . Full funding for the tuition centers , includes teachers and supervisor salary and misc. costs.

• How things are expected to improve for the people over a longer period of time?

• Any other efforts in that area in the past? If there are other efforts and schools, then why is this needed? If there was an effort that failed, why did that fail and why is this effort expected to work ---- what is being done differently?

About NGO:

Started in 1990 by Sonaimuthu (earlier with RCH – reproductive child health), with population foundation India, built a street children home with aid from tata trust, first finding was from the state govt. then from helpage india (8 % loan, fully payable ), and from RSWL- USA – Right sharing of world resources. Natham is listed as a backward region and hence NGO’s flourish here. The same congress candidate has been the MLA for 30 yrs, the latest one is from the ADMK (madam jayalalitha: think ‘shoes’) and has a new house, a petrol bunk and 4 new buses to show for his tenure so far. Sonaimuthu candidly stated that he did the MSW after a Bsc in Zoology since there were ‘career options’ in it. – and that there was no one to ‘guide’ him then. Family is in agriculture, grow coconuts, and rice. Brother is a labourer in Singapore – it costs 2 lakhs to ‘get there’ – has a son and a daughter both studying at the same private school in natham. His classmates from the MSW course work in NGO;s and in pvt firms as labour officers. 2-3 started out on their own. – you realise that NGO’s are often the only source of income in rural areas and are employment generators in their own right. There are ~ 400 NGO’s in dindigul.

Long term tangible goals (Self Reliance, Outreach, how do they want to grow and stabilise?/employing ppl. in the future ?) : Economic empowerment of women, reducing superstition, and blind beliefs, health improvement, and reduce dropouts. This is SAADOW’s first project related to education.

Exhort women to educate their children, AID’s awareness, SHG’s.

Decision Making Structure (Involvement of Women, Local community) : Yearly meet of the 11 members of the general body, teachers are 90% women, plenty of women SHG’s admin body meets once in 3 months, there are 7 members, all women.  

Assets (land, buildings, vehicles, etc) . 1.72 acres of land, houses tailoring classes (set up with help from AID), 1 - 4 wheeler Mahindra mAxx jeep with AC and pioneer music system (sent by Sonaimuthu’s brother from Singapore) . Jeep was bought with aid from MIVA, holland (http://www.oneman.nl) . Has his own house, 2 floors, SAADOW is on the ground floor.

Sonaimuthu is the brain behind SAADOW and he is the main overseer. My guess is if he goes, there will be no SAADOW – since the money will stop and he gets the money. The women SHG’s may continue on the strength of their own collections though.

other activities of NGO?/ Main activity has been setting up the womens SHG’s – which from what I saw I saw seem to be functioning well. There are 120 SHG’s in 65 villages, have credit management, savings accounts, total savings is Rs 12 lakh, involves 2000 families. Work on health issues, - reproductive disorders and complications, adolescent health and HIV, safe motherhood each SHG has 12- 20 members. They also have a home for street children.

tie up with govt, schools etc? :- Conducted workshops on nature conservation, AID’s awarness and medicinal plants in few schools – this would have been Govt. sponsored programs. Read further.

follow up on kids after passing out ? . Too early to comment.

funding request, if any?/ Next instalment of $ 1126 ?

total amount of funding needed per year?/ $ 2252?

Have a CA in Madurai who audits them as also some check by the Probation officer, dept. of social defence, madurai.

How do they approach different agencies? Through contacts on the web and friends in other NGO's.

/clean record of past funding and spending? Has Colorado received a copy of the CA’a audit report ? There is not much left once the teachers salaries have been paid, but still.

individuals in NGO, their responsibilities, pay, etc comparisons/. Sonaimuthu oversee’s the operations and gets the funding . there are 6 field workers for the SHG’s and 1 supervisor for the tuition centers.

School Building: Cement, mud, roof, etc/fans, lighting, water, kitchen, land, since when?/ what else do they need/lab, comps/ recreation for kids

Cement in 3 out of 10 centers only – where the govt structure is being used. Rest are thatched structures with mud walls about 4 ft high – which suit the local weather well.

Children :

   Freedom of Emotional Expression . Very enthusiastic, quite outspoken, ten ding to the brat-tish at times in some cases – which explains the s tick/ruler in each center. The teachers at the tuition however don’t seem to use them ‘effectively’ judging by the kids responses.

Some figures:

Pudupatti: class5: 5M, 15F, Class4: 1M, 9F, Class 3: 6M, 6F, Class2: 4M, 3F, class1: 2M, 4F.Kaypevarum: total: 12M, 8F.

Chinnayapuram:. Total: 14M, 6F. Merkupatti: Class5: 0M, 5F, Class4: 0M, 1F, class3: 0M, 3F, class2: 2M,3F,class1: 2M,3F . Muskampatti: total: 15M,15F

Kaythapatti: total: 8M,10F .Chinnamalayur: class 4: 2M,2F, class3: 6M,2F,class2: 1M, 3F, class1:3M, 4F

Ability and Willingness to Communicate. Very good within the classroom. As is normal, you only have to step out of the classroom before they are all over you and passing smart comments.

Self-confidence and Attentiveness . High on self confidence, and pretty attentive. As is in anywhere else in a rural school, some children respond with a spontaneity and clear headedness (2 virtues seemingly lost on grown ups) that can be disarming. The kids have enough food to eat, but it may not very nourishing. None of the kids in the 10 centers had any milk. – no cows at home and normally don’t/can’t afford milk in a village.

Curiosity to learn or explore the Environment . Average. Attendance, could be erratic however. If I don’t feel like coming to the tuition center, I don’t come. Some just dislike it and stay away. There are cases where the parents scold the kids if they don;’t attend and make sure that their children come there.

Academic issues, Knowledge and General Talents . 3 of the schools had prepared small dances to welcome me. (they got word of it since sonaimuthu sent out a boy to let the schools know I would be coming). In some places there were some floral decorations. General talents are quite okay, GK increases with and increase in grades.

Extra-curricular activities. Playing around, watching the community TV (remember jayalalitha’s colour TV scam ? some still work. Scam or no scam, they can have a huge impact in connecting these people to the outside world).

Extrinsic Rewards and Punishment System. Most classrooms have a small stick or a scale which the teachers reportedly use only to threaten, since as I realised some the kids can be a quite difficult at times.

ages/ composition/ 6- 12 years.

sex ratio. 3 males for every 2 females.

dressing/cleanliness/ . varies from very poor to very good. Depends on parents nature and the financial situation at home. Some were in tatters, other had shoes, socks, uniform, hair ribbon and bag – all in the same colour.

classes, no of kids per class . Each center has an avg 30 kids.

/what do majority of students want to be ?/ . Doctors and teachers – in that order.

what do kids after school? / , Come to the SAADOW tuition centers. See conclusions below.

what after education at this NGO, training, jobs ?/ . Would turn to farming, odd govt jobs on contract, casual labour – building houses, digging roads, laying cables, rarely – teachers at NGO’s.

attendance, discrepancy?/ . NA

Have previous results been sent to Colorado ? If so, these should have been made available to me prior to the visit

how are maths/science taught? Nothing much to write about.

• Number of students who can read sentences: 90 % from classes 2-5
• Number of students who can do simple math : 55% from classes 4- 6
• Number of students who can write a post card : 30 %
• Number of child marriages or average age for marriage of girls.. about 19 –20. Rarely around 16 – 18. Dowry is not much of a problem. There are some implicit agreements within the villages – a give and take policy – makes things easier for everyone.

Do the teachers beat you?. Not at the tuition centers. Rarely a friendly pat or a yell. Lots of yelling in fact in some places. In some none at all.

Special complication/challenges kid has to go through to attend ?/ How much student has to travel to attend school?. Varies from 1-2 kms to 4-5 kms to attend primary school –by walk. For secondary and higher, its about 10 kms by bus.

Yes. Most kids say they prefer the tuition to playing. Now why no earth would they feel like that ? its almost abnormal.

Nothing Asha can do if some kids want to play after school and not come for tuition.

Student-teacher ratio?/ . 30 : 1

Typical Day : Leave home at 8: 15 am. Walk 40 min. to school. Sit in school from 9: 15 – 4: 00 pm. Trudge back 40 mins to the tuition centers. Sit here from 4:30 to 6: 30 pm and finish homework, ask doubts. Go home at 7:00 pm after 11 hrs of studying and preparing yourself to face a silly world. Watch Sehwag and tendulkar batting on the community TV else watch a Vijaykant film and some latest songs. Have boiled rice with sambar for dinner. Sleep peacefully with nothing to worry.

Workers/Teachers: Chitra is the supervisor – female has a BBA from Madurai kamaraj univ. by correspondence, rest of teachers are from class 8 – 12 pass. One is pursuing a BA in tamil.

General Enthusiasm/motivation for teaching. Good. 7 teachers are female and they were very bold and forthcoming. Reflects the superior status of women in the TN – Kerala belt, and the underlying social transformation as compared to other parts in India. There is a perceptible energy in women here that’s missing elsewhere. Some of the ladies were wearing some pretty gold chains and earrings – another south indian obsession. Shows off nicely on dark pigmented skin. Overall teachers are doing a good job.

education/ from where ? local ?/ Their training and development . Studied at the local schools. Have attended a total of 10 days of training, 7 by some other NGO, the rest by the govt.

Full-time workers, part time volunteers, number and ratio . 9 women and 1 man in SAADOW admin team (not counting teachers).

will teachers leave given a chance?/ . No. 8 of the teachers are local women, also members of local SHG’s. Even if they worked elsewhere, they would earn 20 @ day. That’s close to what they are getting paid now. I find it difficult to imagine, however, how any of these teachers would do casual labour. They looked far too educated to seem to be able to do casual labour.

Salary asha pays/actual salary/ . 500 @ month for the teachers and 1000 @ month for the supervisor chitra. This is sufficient for this region and commensurate with the work done.

what other activities do teachers do?/ . Besides homework, teach the kids songs, few dances, hold monthly? Parent-teacher meetings, discuss individual case problems with respective parents.

Methodology of teaching – Rote learning, innovative methods, introduction of new modules, etc. Project claims different ‘play-way’ methods are being used. I would like to be skeptical about this. The teachers have had days training in all.

motivation commitments, salaries, how well, etc. Motivation varies from average to some who are really enthusiastic. As mentioned earlier, this is good job to have in your village.

How many total Teachers/ involved? : - 10

etc). . Age: 20 – 30. 8 female, 2 males.

Where do they live, and how much they travel ? Teachers live in the same village as the tuition center, usually within 1 km from the place.

On par with salaries paid at other ngo’s in the area.

Are they satisfied with their salaries?. Somewhat. Wouldn’t mind more though. Current salary levels can be maintained for another year without any problem.

How many teachers/volunteer have left institute/Project in last one year? Why?. None

Name: Murugan

Age: 9

No of people in family: 5

Fathers occupation: farmer

Aspiration: doctor

Favorite game: ‘Kirket’

Favorite sportsman: ‘Suhwag’

Favorite Food: Brinjal Sambar and cauliflower subzi, Wada.

If you had to ask your favourite God for one thing what would it be? Give me a TV for my house. Go to bombay once and see Sachin Tendulkar (asks me: What kind of place is bombay ?. I told him its big, crowded, dirty and stinks)

Do you like coming here/ Since when have you? Yes, we do like coming here. Most kids have been coming here since 1 yr or so. We can count them as the ‘regulars’.

What do you learn? The teachers help us with our homework

You like the teachers/treatment?. – referring to the govt schools – we don’t want any home work and the teacher should stop beating us in case we don’t do the homework.

How does family feel about coming here ? Very good. Parents like it that we come here.

Do you have any questions for me ? Are you married ? How come you are so fair ? (tamil: Nunna chekke chevel-ne irukkinga ?) – I have a wheatish complexion.

People here are very forthcoming and aware. Even in cases where the individual is illiterate there is sometimes an ‘educated’ way about him (for the hawks, ok: education and literacy are different, hope you get the idea). Most people know their rights and are invariably associated with a political party. (TN is all about politics, rice, gold and silk sarees – in that order). Locals want their kids to be educated and complain that the govt. school teacher doesn’t come regularly and that will take him to task –soon. Locals are appreciative of SAADOW’s SHG’s and hence welcome the tuition center program. Esp. the women.

What will you make your child ?. A teacher or doctor, but that depends on how he fares and how much money I can manage. He should atleast become ‘decent’. (There is a surprisingly large no of english words that have proliferated everyday Tamil usage)

What is socio-political environment of community? . Dalits. Most have affiliations with various political parties. Political activity is very strong.

How much of water/electricity/ sanitation, any diseases ?. All villages have electricity, and do not face any power shortage. Almost all have drinking water supply from a tank and use the common taps installed at regular intervals. There is a road that bisects the area and obviously has a mushrooming of different shops along it. There is not much of malarial problem, but jaundice occurs often.

How many read the newspaper ? Which one ?. Most read a newspaper – ususally the ‘Dina Thanthi’ – or ‘Daily news’

I] This entire project is about the homework saga. The premise is that children drop out of school fearing beating by the teacher for not doing homework. This problem can be solved 2 ways a) Get the teachers to stop giving any homework. b) Make sure they don’t beat up the kids for non compliance. b) seems like a more workable solution.

II] The SAADOW centers were started purportedly to solve this problem by getting the kids to do the homework at the tuition centers and ‘help with doubts’. I don’t see any direct relationship between the existence of the tuition centers and a reduction in drop outs:

Classes are given in columns. The first figure is the no of students a yr ago and the one next to it shows the current figure. Egs 6/7 means there were 6 students a yr ago and there are 7 now. In some cases we have figures. Viz 21/21/23 - for 3 time zones

As seen above, figures have no stability.- increase in some cases and have reduced in some cases. The basic premise is shaken here : a) that tuition centers will reduce drop outs – Only 50 % of the kids in the village attend the centers. Out of the ones that attend about 50 % would be consistent. So there is an ‘irregularity of benefits’, so to speak. I spoke to some kids that don’t attend the centers. They said they prefer to play after school and do homework at home later on. Makes sense.

In view of the above point, the following is pertinent. The teachers and headmasters in the schools have indicated that there has been marked improvement in some children attending the tuition centers. Therefore it is safe to say that for the children attending the centers, learning levels and academic performance has improved. But that still doesn’t solve the problem of dropouts. If only 50% of the kids from a given village are attending the center, do the rest 50% get beaten /drop out?

III] We also need to look into the meaning of the term ‘child labour’ here – used by Sonaimuthu in the proposal. These children work at home – helping around with the chores – and this does not prevent them going to school in any way and cannot be considered as child labour. So this statement in the SAADOW proposal is erroneous and misleading. I also found Sonaimuthu to be a good ‘word-thrower’ the kinds that you would be taught in an MSW course. ‘Vagrant’, ‘emancipation’, ‘empowerment’, ‘uplifting poor and needy’, etc. Not to reflect on any personal aspect of him, just something I observed. Some are used without any meaning. I don’t see how you can be a ‘trash collector’ in an Indian village. No village has a beggar. Beggary as a profession and a way of life is restricted to the towns and cities. Sonaimuthu is veru good at his PR, judging by the way in which I was treated.

* To date, about 15 kids have been recommended by SAADOW to people around and these youth are now employed as motor-mechanics, etc.

I] The tuition centers should be made redundant. This can be achieved by working actively with the teachers in the target area. These are small schools in rural settings. It shouldn’t be too difficult to work with the principal/teachers and take them into confidence to reduce and eliminate beatings. SAADOW should evolve a program to make the current system more effective convince teachers to stop ht beatings rather than try to bypass it using the tuition centers. We could even work out some kind of incentives for the teachers and I am sure that they would be all for a program in which they are made to feel important and involved in something interesting and simulating. SAADOW’s abilities in this area are something I am not sure of, the tuition centers being their first project. The Chapter should work constructively with SAADOW on this preferably with a local contact from Asha Chennai.

II] I feel once point I is achieved, we could then provide some kind of minimal supplementary support (say on weekends). It is too much for the kids to sit for 7 hrs in a classroom, walk 2 hrs then sit another 2 hrs here. I wouldn’t want to, if I were there. That said, some kids really did seem to like attending the centers (The centers do run, there is no problem with that.). So some kind of personal attention does help. On an average, every kid misses tuition about once a week. That does mean he gets beaten once a week ? Or does he complete it at home ?

IIA] The immediate solution would be to : Talk to the teachers and shift the tuition classes to a weekend mode. 5 hrs on Saturday and 2.5 hrs on Sunday. (7.5 contact hrs per week from the current 10 hrs.)

Since it’s a single day, you can ensure more attendance. Advantages are : the kids are fresh, since they haven’t been to school + they don’t have to walk all they way to school. Since the tuition centers are located close by, we might have more attendance. Also, there should be some alternative things being done as well, besides just ensuring homework. One way would be: Get the children into a habit of doing daily homework at home. Give a weekly check (say on saturday). Then, solve their difficulties. Rest of the time and Sunday, discuss various topics, have games, dumb charades, current affairs, GK, some fun science, drawing, making small toys with locally available material etc.

IIB] I also feel some sports equipment should be bought. Egs a bat and ball with stumps – simple rubber ball and associated bats would do. Also, get 10 plastic chairs for the teachers. Rohini had mentioned that we should avoid this. I feel this is a small cost and we should play along with the teachers sentiments here. They are villagers.

III] Beyond just the numbers, an invisible effect of this project would be the underlining of the importance of education within the locals. But this should be achieved by strengthening the existing Govt. school system as mentioned above.

IV] Teacher beatings and the resulting fear are not myths. I heard lot of evidence for this. Once we have managed to remove the fear factor in 10 villages, spread to the other 125 in which SAADOW has a presence. – We could fund some training camps for the teachers, provide learning material etc. – This way we can use the available resources more effectively for greater impact. This will be slow work. SAADOW should start forming VEC’s – or Village education committees which will make sure the govt schools run properly and that there is no teacher beating. For this, Sonaimuthu needs to be at the villages more often. I don’t think this work can be done by the supervisors alone.The starting point would be initiation of a dialogue with SAADOW and thinking about the ways to achieve the outlined objectives. It is important that in this case there is a single (married would also do ;-) ), capable point of contact from Asha’s side to give this project direction. Asha’s partnership with SAADOW can definitely solve a problem in this region. Only, not the way its being done now. This project could be brought up for discussion after a year after observing SAADOW’s ability to change and deliver.

V] The ‘educational material’ is lying underutilised. I saw some yellow books published by some local Gandhian NGO at Rs 20 @ book. They are on my body, the world, environment, etc. No one uses them at the centers. They were not given last year ?

VI] Teachers should get more training on teaching techniques and other new components as mentioned if Colorado decides to make the changes suggested. Funds usage

VII] Strongly recommend that we start collecting Rs 5 @ child @ month for the tuition center. This would ensure parental pressure to attend the center , once enrolled. I discussed this with Sonaimuthu and he feels its fine.

VIII] SAADOW has promised to send a teaching plan for the existing educational material they have bought – Chapter to follow up on this and ensure that that the yellow books get utilised properly.

IX] 6 of the villages from the original proposal have been changed, Is the chapter aware of this ? viz: Sangaranpani, manthaikulathupatti, manakkattoor, vellakuttu, aravanguruchi, k.puthur.

X] SAADOW has sent a proposal to Asha Zurich for a Creche program. The rationale behind this is that since the mothers go to work, there is no one to look after the little ones. And if we have the Balwadi/creche running in the morning and the tuition in the evening, then there will be a ‘complete’ solution – in Sonaimuthu’s words and build a ‘culture of education’. Sounds good. I’m not so sure. Firstly, the tuition center’s shouldn’t be there. Where have women been leaving their children all these years ? And, I feel giving girls incentives to join school rather than get them into the idea of going to some place – so they continue schooling is a better idea. Firstly, running a balwadi with food, etc is the more expensive option. Secondly, I am skeptical about balwadi’s. If I was 3 yrs old, I’d like to stay with my mother, rather than with a nurse – which is what happens. Often, you have these tiny things crying their hearts out because they want to go home, and I have seen instances of nurses abusing and beating the tiny children. – Ofcourse, this is not a general statement for all balwadi’s, just the one’s I’ve come across. -- (Sonaimuthu asked me in as many words to ‘tell Zurich that I have seen the centers and feel that a creche program is very important and that Zurich should consider funding this’. He did this twice. )

XI] Sonaimuthu also seems to try his hand at anything that has money – not to say that he would take that money rather, SAADOW would get something more to do. I was witness to his filling up some forms to conduct some govt. aided workshops on ‘AID’s week’ in schools. Take AID’s for ex. To me, this area- a cluster of villages around a smallish town did not seem like a high risk area. There is no big highway etc passing nearby. I don’t see why there should be so much of emphasis on the AID’s component. If we get figures for HIV cases in this area, we’ll have a better idea. Or maybe I’m just nit picking.

XII] I understand there have been some attempts to take this project on the ‘self sufficiency’ route. Sonaimuthu said they tried selling some medicinal plants by shipping them to Tuticorin for export. The margins were too low and in one case they were cheated completely. I think this entire idea should be dropped. The Chapter should concentrate on getting rid of the beating problem and then go ahead and improve the teaching at the govt. schools.

XIII] Chinnamalayur (on the hill) does not have a govt. school and so there is an NGO that has been running it since the 1980’s. Chitra says there is more need for a tuition center here since the NGO teacher is stricter and the kids are more scared. This is ridiculous. It should be easy to approach another NGO and get them to stop class-beating (if there is some). If I were to get terribly skeptical, I would think improving towards eliminating the tuition centers would actually work against SAADOW’s favour since it deprives them of work – and survival. But that’s just getting terribly skeptical.

XIV] Data collection and maintenance on SAADOW’s part should improve. Colorado should receive regular reports on attendance levels at the centers and the associated performance say, on a bimonthly basis. This is an area the NGO is lacking in clearly. There is no data to show the no. of children out of school, no. in school, % of that in the tuition centers, etc.

1. The teachers are getting paid regularly. They meet once a month when they also get paid. Salary levels can be kept the same for another year.
2. The head under Room rent and electricity mentioned every month as Rs 100 ? per center should be removed. This should be a flat Rs 150/- per month for all 10 centers. – This is what it would cost, since only 2 of the rooms are rented.
3. Educational material of Rs 100@ month @ center is also not justified. – Unless the material is put to good use. – Rs 100 @month would mean every center can get a set of 30 books at Rs 20 @ book in about 6 months.
4. Ask for break down of costs of the 8000 @ year contingency cost for PTA meeting, TA stationary, postage, etc. My guess is this won’t come to more than 4000 @ year.
5. One of the teachers said she has been some money towards light and rent for the center. If Asha is paying 100 @ center @ month why is this so ?
6. Each center had about 30 books @ 20 @ book which means that is Rs 600. There were no books supplied last year. Colorado to do the equations and see if there is something missing.

There are some suggestions for the Creche program funding if Zurich decides to go ahead with it. I can give these if required.

I] Creche proposal as submitted to Zurich

II] A corpus fund for the Women’s SHG’s. This would fetch 12 % interest and this can used to run the tuition centers. This has the added benefit of increasing income within the family stabilising it, reducing drop outs – since the family is less likely to keep kids at home for work and away from school.

III] Support for the tailoring center. I visited the center – it was working, and there were about 15 adolescent girls learning there. This was set with help from AID and has since been running with help from SAADOW. The plan is/was to make some goods and seel them in the market. This area has a large concentration of small scale readymade garment units – there are about 100 in natham alone. These girls find it quite easy to find employment at around Rs 30 @ day. I saw some pretty good shirts – packed selling for Rs 40 @ piece !

Need in the area Vs viability of NGO to deliver/ . As outlined above, this something that should be looked into. The causes and effects are not clearly established. Colorado should start a dialogue with SAADOW on this on the lines of the recommendations above.

Social Support base in the area from locals ?/ . Very good, thanks to the presence of SHG’s which are functioning well.

What is the administrative structure of the organization and how democratic is its functioning? . Sonaimuthu is the one who makes the rules. He is a soft spoken man, but can get pretty authoritative at times.

How is the relationship between the main volunteers of the organization (or people who run the organization) and the grassroots level volunteers? any women in NGO? . Relationship is largely informal. Since most of the people are women, the relationship accordingly established.

Are the volunteers local or from outside? Do the main volunteers perform only administrative duties or actually spend time at the grassroots? . It was clear that Sonaimuthu hadn’t been out in the field for a while. Chitra and another supervisor do this work. At times, Sonaimuthu didn’t know the way to certain places. That said, the supervisors seem competent.

Replicability of NGO’s efforts/. It is important to get the govt schools to change and slowly work towards spreading this improvement.

Do the teachers co-ordinate, do the better ones help the not so good ones ? . I am not sure how well this is working. Or whether it exists at all.

Can it be instrumental to socio-economic change of community? If yes than how?. The women’s SHG programs seem largely successful. The women have some money to call their own and this gives them a sense of independence and freedom. It is also hoped that women handling women would translate into better education and nutrition for the kids – more judicious use of finances. Some problems can be solved by simple savings schemes – the success of Myrada micro-credit programs in AP and Grameen bank Bangladesh are examples for this. This is one way to bring in ‘self sufficiency’. The way Sonaimuthu see’s this is, I feel some kind of all encompassing service – take care of the kids, the mothers, babies, etc. Comments on this can be found above.

In cases where integrated development is pursued, other activities will be studied, with special emphasis on how they bear on the Asha project: The womens SHG’s being run here can prove to be very important, their results being visible only after a while. More money in the house could mean better nutrition during and after childbirth and more emphasis on education and cleanliness. Better child nutrition could translate into well fed and healthier kids who would not have stunted capacity for learning. But this in itself can be in doubt since the advantages of nutrition could often be skewed in the minds of villagers. Viz. Some women believe that it is better to have less food during pregnancy so the kids would be smaller – leading to an easier ‘delivery’. The notion is that the kid could be fed and ‘fattened’ up after birth. Also, in some cases breast-feeding mau be continued till even 24 months – denying the child any solid food until then. These causes are extraneous to what any development agency could hope to intervene in.

A project like SAADOW is a good example where the NGO can benefit from inputs and qualitative support from Asha. For this, there should be a single point(s) of contact who will work constructively with the NGO over a period of time. I believe this is usually done in the ‘Asha Star’s’ projects. Even in cases where the project is not an Asha star, there should be greater involvement with the project. In such cases, Asha’s decentralized set up can also be a shortcoming, since efficacy of a site visit is dependant on the volunteer and in any case a new person would go along the next time around. There should be a standard template followed with items that should be filled in and then also allow felixibility to add new points if needed in a site report. A new site visitor can then take off from where the earlier one left , rather than mine data out of old reports and then make sense of them.

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Sonaimuthu’s son, age 5 yrs initially took a liking for me and then started stalking me. First he tried to bolt me inside the loo, thankfully I spotted him through a crack in the door and shooed him away. Then he sneaked in while I was sleeping, scribbled all over my notes, took some objects and decorated them all over me. He then rummaged through my bags looking for sweets and I came back to find my things strewn all over. He was a quiet, unassuming guy and went about his duties in a most efficient fashion. I had to keep the room locked at all times after that.

I wore a white dhoti during the visit – so the kids would be more comfortable with my presence and I didn’t seem too much like an outsider. This worked well, I could easily get the kids talking. There was a flipside though. I wore a Dhoti during the 2 hrs walk up the hill to the Chinnamalayur center and much to Chitra’s amusement I was left clutching my Dhoti to prevent it fro slipping away and tying and re-tying it most of the while during the climb. I explained to her I wasn;t used wearing a dhoti.

With amma Jayalalitha at the helm, one see’s a lot of women in various professions – manning railway paltforms, running petrol stations, post offices etc. Even in small towns and villages. The overall administration in the state is also much better.

Natham is a smallish town and also has an Aptech training center. As the previous volunteer mentioned, the town is overflowing with garbage, plastic, pigs and open drains. The locals seem rather comfortable in all that, so we are no one to be complaining.

The villages here are also fine examples of what the ‘back to village’ propagandists will have in mind. A newly laid road that will probably last 5 yrs connects most villages. The area is lush green with a seemingly high bio-diversity. The locals seem to have kept large swathes of the forest intact – the presence of the forest dept. now-withstanding. Most are well equipped with water, school, electricity and some have a telephone. A few have Cable TV and Colour TV’s. There is a good distribution of medical and consumer goods shops. Drinking pepsi and having ruffles wafers is what the locals like to do when they feel rich. The locals are confident about the local medicinal cures for most ailments. Sonaimuthu himself says there is a herb that will save you from any snake bite.

There is no problem of water shortages in the villages even during summers. Natham town however runs into a water crisis every summer and water has to be then bought from tankers at Rs 2 a bucket. If you go there, eat at the small hotel just at the foothills of Chinnamalayur. Serves great food. The people in this belt are different from the ones in and around Madras, they have a very different accent. They also seem relatively more ‘decent’ than others from about 3 districts in and around Chennai. And yes, you also get tea for Re 1 at some places.