ANNUAL UPDATE FOR Project Stewards – Kesava Viswanathan & Latha Madaiah Project Coordinator – Vijay Kanagala 6 th May 2015 Neel Bagh Trust - Sumavanam

Mission Sumavanam provides alternative education in an environment of co-operation, and self and peer supported learning, along with vocational training for children from poor villages

History School started in 1974 by David and Nicholas Horsburg, eminent educators located in Madanapalle, Chittoor District, Andhra Pradesh Mr T M Narasimhan is the present managing trustee of this school He and his wife took over from 1980 and are largely responsible for turning an arid landscape into a green school campus that exists today They provide vocational training to 40 children currently from nearby villages Asha Cleveland started funding this project from 1997

48 children age group ( 3.5 – 9.5 years )supported by 3 teachers and 1 assistant Children are provided a mid day snack – fruit/ eggs, etc, currently unable to provide snack / milk due to lack of funding Children take part regularly in cleaning the classroom & garden, attend classes Math, English, learn Telegu poems followed by handicrafts, the younger kids spend time playing Local community is very supportive of the school, and helped with registration of the school recognition until 5 th standard and are encouraging Mr Narasimhan to register upto the 7 th grade Local community got together and painted the school premises without any fee seeing the good work being done by the school and the positive influence on the children in the village Activities

Extract from latest report – May 2015

Activities

Finance – Historical payouts

Asha, Seattle Budget ItemAmount Current Fiscal Year (Rs) Amount Previous Fiscal Year (Rs) Salaries (Mr and Mrs Narasimhan) 1,92, Salaries (3 other teachers + Chinna) 1,92, Electricity10, Newspaper Food (NEW)20, Maintenance20, Stationary10, Books10, Total4,56, ,36, Asha, Seattle is the only source of funding for Sumavanam (similar to project Vikasana, Bangalore from 2014, hence increased funding requested from October We need to provide 100% funding, else they may not be able to sustain, currently they are running on personal finances $ (at 60Rs/1$) for each of the above periods versus last disbursement of $ in Nov The difference is that Asha is now being asked to provide all funding, since other funding source (UNIS, USA) has stopped

General Partner Updates PROVIDED IN ATTACHED WORD DOCUMENT

Site Visit Report (Valid for 2 years since Rural project) Volunteer: Giri Kolanupaka (Date: May 2013) While visiting Timbaktu Collective in Anantapur and on the way back, along with Purnachander Rao of NICE (Needy Illiterate Children Education), we visited Sumavanam. This is located in a remote village, near Madanapalli and very close to borders of AP and Karnataka. There was no good mobile phone signals, some times it was under roaming and sometimes it was local if it gets connected.

Site Visit (continued) We met Mr. Narsimhan and his wife. They are the ones who run the school there in about 1 to 2 acres land that they own. The school is a separate thatched roof house with a big hall that can accommodate about 35 to 40 students. In fact the time we went there were already few children in their class. I did ask them few questions and they seem to be very responsive compared to the children from normal and formal school. This school is based on informal education and children learn to explore on their own and they will be asked to do several tasks like painting, making toys etc and as part of that they learn.

Site visit (continued) There was an issue locally with government and this school as the school syllabus was different they were not considering this school as a recognized one (I do not remember if this is exactly the issue), but they were trying to get this resolved by talks with government and others there. The parents since are also not literates, they are not keen on getting their children educated. It is very tough for these couple to get children’s parents to convince to make them come to school. The children are all from local tribe community.

Site Visit (continued) Overall I felt that the site visit was a good one and this school is very good in terms of the kind of education provided and the efforts, the organizers are putting in, are definitely commendable. Some of the pics are: /albums/ ?banner=pwa (the first 10 pics except the first one). Go over the latest site visit report.

Audit Report Audit Report for available

Process Checks ItemStatus Approved BudgetRs. 4,56, Approval TypeRecurring with Annual approval Amount(s) disbursed last fiscal yearLast disbursement Nov 2013 from Seattle chapter for $ Amount Utilized by the project last fiscal year All funds to NeelBagh trust were sent to Vikasana Last Site VisitMay 2013 Current Primary StewardLatha Madaiah, Kesava(Vish) Viswanathan Current Secondary StewardsLatha Madaiah, Kesava (Vish) Viswanathan Status of the web pageDocuments to be uploaded