Duvva -
April
1, 2001
Past
Project Discussion
Melli
A.
Duvva
High School in West Godavari district caters to 10 villages nearby with about
400 students from classes 6 to 10. The project was referred by Dr. K.V.Rao of
the India Network Foundation who visited this school and was impressed with the
work and co-operation of the villagers in the development of the school.
Funding
from Asha-MIT in 1997 was used to purchase benches in the classrooms which were
essential for the school. Children now have a proper place to keep their books
and take exams.
This
project was brought to the attention of ASHA by Mr. K.V. Rao, president of the
Indian Network Foundation. He was
impressed by the project, and realized the need for some infrastructure, thus asked
funding from ASHA-MIT. Amount requested
was Rs. 55000 for benches.
There
was no site visit prior to funding Duvva.
Mr. K.V. Rao is a dependable person, and his report was considered as a
site report. Villagers were asked to
help the school in kind, thus infrastructure construction of walls &
toilets was done by the villagers.
$1500
was spent on 30 benches, i.e. $50 per bench, i.e. ~Rs. 2100 per bench. The original proposal quoted a part of the
Rs. 55000 towards benches, the rest for the construction. As the construction effort was provided by
the villagers, maybe they bought more desks, or spent part of the money
elsewhere. Rs. 2000 per bench does
sound a bit expensive.
Mr. Rao
had billed ASHA for the travel expenses, ~$100, despite having informed him
that ASHA does not support administrative costs.
The
benches allowed the children to sit, i.e. these were not desks for sitting and
keeping books on. Further, the benches
had the name of India Network Foundation on them as the donating
organization.
Mr.
Subba Rao is the headmaster of the school.
His brother had some control of the donations, and Melli mentioned he
may not be a very trustworthy person.
Mr.
Subba Rao has been upset with ASHA also, as ASHA did not fund the additional
Rs. 10,000 Duvva had asked for. They
were somewhat short on the money for desks, and thus asked for some more
funding. ASHA did not provide that
amount.
Mr.
K.V. Rao was the middle man in getting this project to ASHA. ASHA did not know Mr. Rao, but trusted him
nevertheless. Some administration
problems had an impact on this funding.
We
(ASHA-Boston) do not know how the money was invested, as no report was received
from Duvva.
Can
benches be considered as a significant value add?
If a
proposal singularly requests funding for infrastructure, would ASHA-Boston fund
them?
What
can we learn from this experience? What
do we want to find out?
Prashanth's
family may be in the area, and may be able to find out a bit more about the school. If this is a government school, controlled
by the local community, it would be good to get some detailed information about
its functioning / performance etc. If it is just another government school, we
may not be able to learn anything new from them.
Melli /
Anu will contact Prashanth.