Transcript asha_sandesh_v2n3 - Asha for Education`s Datastore

ASHA SANDESH*
The quarterly newsletter of Asha-Atlanta
EMPOWERING THROUGH EDUCATION
http://www.ashanet.org/atlanta
Asha-Atlanta welcomes our new member
Suneet, and wishes good luck to our
outgoing volunteer Monica Gupta!
If you are planning for a year, sow rice; if
you are planning for a decade, plant trees;
if you are planning for a lifetime, educate
people. - Chinese Proverb.
2003 Financials Summary
Donation:
Datamatics Consultants Inc: $1000.00
Niloy Inc
: $1000.00
Fund-raising Events:
Festival of India
GATS fund-raiser
: $625.00
: $2061.00
Net Income
: $5856.00
Expenses
Rehabilitation Center project grant: $2020.00
Credit card transactions over Asha main site:
$5.10
Net Expenses :$2025.10
Opening Balance
Income
Expenses
Ending balance
: $0.00
: $5856.00
: $2025.10
: $3830.90
Vol. 2, No. 3, July-Sept 2004
Work an Hour
Welcome to Work An Hour 2004, the seventh
edition of Asha's largest worldwide event!
Each year volunteers from around the world
come together in a show of great human
spirit, to help educate underprivileged
children in India. Work An Hour, or WAH, as
it is popularly known, is a simple concept.
We ask you to symbolically contribute one
hour of your time towards the cause of
children's education by donating an hour's
worth of your salary or more. The event
symbolically begins on July 4, the American
Independence Day, reaches an apex on
August 15, the Indian Independence Day,
and finally culminates on September 5,
which is celebrated as Teachers' Day in India.
Asha's project partners chosen for WAH
support, typically require larger sums of
money than what a single Asha chapter can
support, in order to facilitate fixed
expenditure on items such as infrastructure,
construction and other one-time costs. The
projects are chosen based on a set of
guidelines. A WAH projects working group
thoroughly studies the candidates and
narrows the field to about 10 potential
projects. Asha-wide review is sought in
which Asha volunteers everywhere discuss
the candidates and eventually rank them. The
top few projects are selected for WAH
funding.
* `Asha Sandesh’ is a phrase in the Hindi language that translates to `Message from Asha’. The word `Asha’ means hope, while `Sandesh’ means
message. This newsletter brings you the message about the on-going activities of Asha-Atlanta.
Work an Hour (contd.)
Like all Asha projects, they are closely monitored by Asha project coordinators to ensure that the funds are being properly utilized and the
proposed benefits are actually being realised by the children at the
project.
WAH 2004 Projects:
Baikunthapur Tarun Sangha
Juanga, Orissa school
Project Look Ahead
Vanashree
To Reach You
Champa Mahila Society
ASHA-ATLANTA
Vol. 2, No. 3, July-Sept
2004
Coordinator
Udai Tennati
Publicity/Fundraising
Gaurav Bakshi
Ashok Narayan
Sreechand
Ramesh Singh
Pat Srinivas
Suneet
Visit: http://www.ashanet.org/workanhour/ to donate!
Events update:
We had three booths at the Heritage India Festival at the Gwinnet
County Fairgrounds on June 12-13. The event was a success for us thanks to all of you who visited our booths. Despite a scorching 104oF
on Saturday, our volunteers did a very good job of organizing different
events in the booths such as candle making, mehendi, ring-the-coke,
quizzes and painting. We also held a raffle with fun prizes. Arragon the
Magician did some spectacular magic shows, while his wife and
daughter did balloon making and face painting. Candle making and
Mehendi were big hits with the crowd. We had a number of business
who sponsored our banner drive – including Icoachmath, Malani
Jewlers, Global Groceries, Istanbul Café, and Chinese Rasoi.
Freedom Walk/Run As part of the Festival of India (FoI) celebrations,
Asha for Education is conducting a 5k Freedom Walk/Run. The
walk/run is symbolic of not only the culture of India, and its
independence, but also for the cause of helping educate children in
India who cannot afford it. Please participate in this run and help us.
You can also pledge to raise an amount towards the run.
Venue: Student Center, Georgia Tech. The route is in and around the
campus
Date & Time: Sun, August 15, 2004, 7am
Fee: Student - $10 (students get free t-shirt at end of run)
Others - $15
Pledge amounts: $50, $75, $100, $150, or more!
Treasurer
Anup Lakare
Projects
Lavanya S.
Sailaja Tennati
Vani Sarin
Puneet Sarin
Web/Newsletter
Sathyan Subbiah
Reshma Desai
Ramesh Singh
Asha for Education is a nonprofit public benefit
corporation and is not
organized for the private
gain of any person. It is
organized under the
Nonprofit Public Benefit
Corporation Law for
charitable purposes. Our
Federal Employee
Identification number is 770459884. It has been granted
a federal tax-exempt status
under IRS Code Section
501(c).
Projects Update
We will starting to fund a new project soon –
Door Step.
Door Step School is a registered non-profit
organization working in Mumbai and Pune,
India. They conduct non-formal education
classes for out of school and working
children (7 to 18 years of age) residing in
slums, on pavements, docks etc. With the
introduction of the "School on Wheels" bus,
Door Step has come closer to fulfilling one
of its major objectives - making basic
education easily accessible to a larger
number of children. The bus drops off the
children to school and also acts as a
classroom for 5 sessions during the day. It
also runs similar classes for adolescent girls
whose parents are often reluctant to send
them to school and have to work to
supplement the family income. DSS also
runs Balwadis for pre-school children, so that
they are prepared to enroll in school when
they are old enough. Doorstep has also
recognized the need for children enrolled in
school to remain so and to that end runs
study classes for first generation learners
who have little or no support at home.
Purpose / Goals
Door Step School has one fundamental goal:
making education accessible to working
children who may not otherwise have access
to a regular school. This organisation has
been working towards this goal since 1988.
Asha is now at Georgia Tech!
Asha for Education Georgia Tech is now a
chartered student organization. The main
motivation behind founding this organization
was to augment Atlanta Chapter’s activity.
This would also ensure a pool of volunteers
and access to Georgia Tech’s facilities.
There are currently ten volunteers in the
chapter. Asha setup information table at the
new student orientation sessions to interact
with the freshmen. A two-minute commercial
about the objectives and modus operandi of
Asha was displayed during these sessions.
Quite a few freshmen expressed there
inclination to volunteer for Asha. In near
future we hope to see these volunteers
actively participating in Asha’s endeavors.
The Georgia Tech chapter also proposes to
organize fundraising events at Tech once the
interested volunteers are ready commit their
time and energy for Asha activities. Asha
Atlanta
wishes
the
newly formed
organization good luck in all their future
endeavors.
Children’s Corner – Spider man and all
that … (http://www.bbc.co.uk/science)
Why can spiders walk up walls?
Spider-Man can stick to almost any surface.
Many spiders do this by secreting a little bit
of sticky silk onto their feet as they move
across the surface, anchoring their feet in
place.
Others have millions of specially shaped,
microscopic hairs on their legs that slip into
all the nooks and crannies of a ceiling or
window. This helps them to stay secure, like
a climber using the tiny cracks in a rock face
to reach the top of a mountain. This also
explains why you find spiders in the bath they can't get a grip on the smooth surface to
climb out.
Stronger than steel
Anyone who has ever walked into a spider's
web knows that the silk is deceptively strong,
despite its gossamer appearance. Dragline
silk, which spiders use to crawl down from
ceiling to floor, is the strongest of all. Weight
for weight it is actually stronger than steel,
holding over 280,000,000kg per square metre
(400,000 pounds per square inch) without
breaking.
Unfortunately, it's very difficult to farm
spiders for their silk because they tend to eat
each other. So scientists have tried a variety
of different methods to produce the silk
without arachnid help. One of the more
successful relies on stealing the spider's silk
gene and putting it into something more
friendly – like a goat.
Spider-Goats
In an unlikely coupling, genetic engineers
have now bred goats that have spider silk
genes inside them. By doing this, they can
harvest the silk proteins from the goat's milk
(silky milk, anyone?). The silk gene was just
one of 70,000 that make up the DNA
blueprint for building a normal goat. In adult
female goats, the silk gene is activated only
while the animal is producing milk. One goat
can produce about 7g of silk per day.
Spiders in space and surgery
Called 'biosteel', the silk is lighter, yet
tougher than Kevlar, and nearly as elastic as
nylon. It could be used in medical supplies,
space equipment and bullet-proof vests.
So there's a new superhero in town.
Swinging from skyscraper to skyscraper,
fighting crime as it shoots jets of silk from its
udders, it's … Spider-Goat!
WOULD YOU LIKE TO VOLUNTEER? AWESOME! – CONTACT UDAI
utennati @ hotmail.com FOR MORE DETAILS!
Our Corporate Sponsors
DCT SYSTEMS (NILOY INC.)