REPORT:

- SAC has a new name now. It is called Lok Sangram Samiti. It will be the front for most of the activism that this group is involved in.  LSS is not registered as yet. Mahendra Singh has registered a trust in Pune with the name "Adhyay"  which will the front for education related activities. Adhyay is a registered organization but does not as yet have FCRA clearance. (It hopes to have that clearance within a year.) Mahendra Singh feels that separation of the education activities (in terms of administration) will help them ensure that the focus on education is not lost or diluted while pushing their activism agenda.  Also funds used for education will be managed more tightly since funds coming under the "Adyay" head will be better audied (since that is a regd trust). We think this may be a good idea from Asha's point of view. LSS has expanded their activities to the Karjat district also which right across the hills.

- Over the last one year, it seems the group has made significant improvements in its style of functioning. They have also taken measures to imbibe and utilize some of the methods which we at Asha-Pune have been trying to familiarize them with (regarding financial mgmt and reporting).  There is also lot more clarity in how the funds are flowing esp. Asha money and the distinction between money allocated for education vs other causes. There is a lot more to do but the progress is there and we were happy to notice that. First and foremost, the group is now not in the red anymore. They have managed to generate new revenue streams which are covering their expenses. They are also exploring other funding options like the UN etc. Roughly their financial flows (calculated by us when we were there -- they are yet to do this exercise on their own) are as follows:

INFLOWS	Rs on activism	Rs on education (Jan-June 2002)	Rs on education (Oct 2002 - March 2003)	Asha Allocation
Annual subscription fees of members of LSS (all villagers who utilize their services), Roughly around 5000 villagers (around 70-80 households from 70-80 villages): Rs 32/ year	1,60,000
Individul donors, friends, family etc (Rs 4500 from TISS everymonth; Rs 2000 from a US donor every month; Rs 1000 from another person every month)	> 90,000
Member contributions for specific events like demonstrations, protests etc    like for ex: protest against declararion of their land within Matheran Ecozone without concern for the locals. (All people who come on protest, dharna etc organized by LSS pay around Rs 20 per event for covering costs of travel etc; there are roughly 5 major events every year; Events can have hundreds to thousands of participants.)	1,00,000
Fees charged for LSS services if person is not LSS member (Rs 2000 for certain services) --- relatively new stream	??
Asha-Boston		1,20,000		1,20,000
OUTFLOWS
Office rent, utilities; travel, fuel, etc + Activists (9 members) honorarium	1,50,000
Expenditure in major events	2,00,000
Teacher's honorarium, allowances or equivalent : 6 teachers X Rs 1500; The teachers employed were: Guruji, Motiram, Pritam, Devka, Bhagwan, Maruti. (A few of these also spend some of their time in LSS activism.)			54,000	1,00,000
Teacher's training and related transport				5,000
Notebooks, slates, chalk, pencils etc - classroom consummables			1,000	5,000
Books, charts etc -- lasting teaching materials			800	5,000
Furniture (for storage of books, recorsd, accounts etc)			1,600	3,000
Contingency/ others  (including medicines for students etc)			1,200	2,000

- Several of the points suggested by us after the Aug 2002 &  Oct 2002 mtg have been taken seriously and used gainfully. Some are: 1) Aug 2002 -- we suggested that the education program be given some longer term goals and the progress of students be tracked. The teachers are now maintaining student records and have roughly decided some goals for the school such as -- a) trying to get the kids through the board exams for 4th, 8th etc via the Open School System or b) being able to write an application letter or c) being able to do simple accounting.  2) Oct 2002 -- we gave some spreadsheets for keeping track of money flow and they have been using this. They say that they are finding it useful for daily accounting. But they have not as yet started using the data for preparing financial plans, flow and balance sheets. One thing good is that they have separated out the accounts for Asha from the rest of the activities. 3) We had suggested that they give regular honorarium to the teachers as opposed to groceries etc --- which they have been doing since October. They think this is lot easier since they do not have to get into the hassle of arranging groceries etc. 4) They have tried to slot their expensitures against the allocations suggested by us. 5) We had suggested (though our allocations)  that investments be made in the school. We saw a lot more investment in school consummables compared to last time.  Overall, it was encouraging to see the organization move in the right direction and to see that the organization is willing to learn and is learning.

- The reporting from LSS has not been good. So we spent some time with them explaining how they could go about it.  They will now submit their reports by May 10, 2003.

- PROGRESS IN EDUCATION: The progress on the education front has been mixed.  In August 2002, SAC was running 4 schools but towards the end of 2002, they had to shut down 2 schools because the kids were not attending the schools (SAC says because in those villages the parents were working in Matheran and the children either went with them or were unattended.) However, progress in Sondewadi has been good and we were happy to see that kids were active and that some of the older girls could write sentences in Marathi correctly.  (1 year back they could not do that to the best of what we could make out). The other schools at Dondewadi is also running but the number of kids there is only 8-10 now. So the summary of the progress on the education front is this:
1)   Currently around 42-50 kids are in school in 2 villages. If it weren't for these schools, these kids would not have gone to school.  There is a roughly 50/50 split of boys/ girls.  The girls clearly seem to be doing better at school.   According to the teacher in Sondewadi, around 75 % of the class attends daily.
2) All the kids in Sondewadi could read the alphabets (all groups) -- many could not 9 months back. All kids could count numbers. Some till 20 , other till 100. The older kids -- around  15 or so could do simple arithmetic  that may be relevant to say buying goods at a shop.  6 students in Sondewadi could read and write Marathi sentences. A few had written application letters in their notebooks (probably dictated by Guruji and written by them).  Overall progress of kids has been good. The teacher has records of the student's performance.
3) Students are learning about other things as well. Attached is a word file with details of what the kides learnt as per groups/ levels they belong too. Students recited a poem for us. They also had studied  the charts that were hanging on the wall.
4) The books etc that they have purchased are kept in one  village from where teachers borrow.  We could not see them this time since they have kept them in Dondewadi.
5) The fact that 6 teachers are employed while the number of benefiting students in  50 is a worry. We spoke to LSS about that too. One of the 6, was helping in coordinating between the other teachers and arranging their weekly meetings. Of the teachers, a couple are probably not as active at this time due to the closure of the other two schools. Aparently, LSS is looking at other villages where there is a need for a school and where the kids would be interested in attending -- so a few of the teachers will go there. Mahendra Singh said that a number of 2 per school is appropriate and they will planning on those lines in the future.

- LSS is clearly an organization that the serving a useful purpose in this region and contributing to the welfare of the local Adivasi community through their activism and other programmes. They are doing a good job.
- The education program (funded by Asha) is still at an early stage ---- the program needs to be planned and defined much better but there has been considerable improvement in both the vision for the program and the student performance in the year.
- Financial management has improved considerable in the organization. However, reporting is yet to be improved.
- There is a definite impact of the education program on the local kids but we feel the impact could be signifantly higher if  the program is planned carefully and schools are run more efficienly.  Asha Pune plans to give suggestions for this when LSS puts together its proposal.
- We will look at future funding after we get a proper proposal from LSS -- which is supposed to arrive by May 10.

- Full-year Report on education  (What was planned? What was achieved? - in terms of number of students trained, progress made etc? Reasons for closure of schools? Reasons why 2 schools survived?  Future plans) -- around 2-3 pages max
- Full-year report of finances for Asha funded project.  (What was proposed? What was given by Asha & how was it allocated? How did you spend the money? Future plans) -- around 2-3 pages max
- Proposal for this year   (including thoughts on why proposed new schools in Karjat are needed? If so, why they think these will not close down? What will be the budget heads with special inputs on ways to improve the schools including introduction more learning tools for kids and more activities for the kids. )

- Pass reports on to Asha-Boston after getting all reqd info
- Visit proposed Karjat villages where new schools are planned.