Aheli Chowdhury (RTI campaign, New Delhi)

Documents:
http://data.ashanet.org/datastore/data/Focusgroups/Fellowships/Proposals/Appro
ved/AheliChowdhury/

26 April 2007 Asha Fellows Conference Call

Attendees: Vishal(Asha-LA), Srikanth(Asha-Dallas), Vijay(Asha-Bangalore),

Sridhar(Asha-Princeton), Sanjeev(Asha-Bangalore), Sabita(Asha-SV)

Aheli Chowdhury: Vishal (Asha-LA) gave an overview of her work.

Aheli has volunteered with Parivartan in Delhi which has worked with government
schools to improve them through RTI. She and Saurabh have started JOSH (Joint
Operation for Social Help)
http://www.josh4india.org/

Go to colleges and conduct training workshops for the youth and create awareness
about RTI in different states. They are trying to create groups within colleges to use RTI
on different issues. The youth had brought forward the issue of answer sheets not being
able to access their answer sheets, scores and clarity over the examination process.
This led to the launch of the “It’s the question of your answers” campaign. This brought
the youth together in the filing of the RTI and which has been upheld by the Delhi high
court. They are also working with a group in IITD which are going to focus on the use of
RTI for the roads in Delhi.

She is one of the founders of JOSH and wants to use RTI in the education sector. High
court stated that the schools that had got land from the govt should admit children from
the economic backward class. They went into the schools to look into the RTI and put
children into schools and this campaign was supported by asha delhi and munich. She
has been part of other campaigs as well.

Q: It is stated that there will be a study of private schools as well. Is the hope to get more
feedback than the standard things like better student-teacher ratio, children having a lot
of exposure at home as well as educated parents who can help them one on one, etc.
A: The study is to understand budget allocation to different govt school, the selection of
teachers, etc. Other matrix will come from her earlier experience in the education sector.

Q: The work of JOSH does seem to go beyond education. What fraction of work is in
general RTI and what fraction is RTI for education.
A: JOSH works on effective utilization of government funds this could be roads in Delhi
and Orissa, govt school budgets and so on. The mobilize the youth for this. If the Central
Information Commission gives decisions against the people in favor of the bureaucrats
that are considered unfair then they mobilize opinion against the decision. The files of
people were misplaced and asked to come multiple times JOSH had put up a stall
outside the CIC to collect experiences form them and understand if anyone was
harassed.
Once she gets the fellowship will focus on RTI for education she will need to deligate her
other JOSH work.
Q: Asha fellowships are not specifically given for education alone. We want to
understand the larger social issues through the work with our fellows. We should be
supporting what the fellow intends to do rather than dictate what the fellow should do.
Has Aheli and Suarabh been made aware of this and is the choice of what she will be
working on based on this?
A: I was not aware of this. This has not been communicated to the two applicants.

Q: Would the applicants then prefer working on other areas if given the freedom?
A: This is possible.
Action Item: Check with the applicants (Aheli, Saurabh) on their interests and update
the fellowship documents on those counts.

Q: What are we looking for in applicants?

A: Detailed information is available in the fellowship documents
http://data.ashanet.org/datastore/data/Focusgroups/Fellowships/ARC/FellowshipProcess
.doc
http://data.ashanet.org/datastore/data/Focusgroups/Fellowships/Forms/FellowshipEvalu
ator.xls
Generally, people who are doing independent grass root work and have the potential to
create social change. It is better if they are doing exploratory work perhaps independent
of any organization or their organization is in the nacent form and the primary support
the org needs is their fellowship. Ideally, we would like the fellow to ask the important
questions to the society that many charity organizations are unable to.

Q: What are the other NGOS working in Delhi area on RTI issue?
A: NGOs in Delhi in RTI
NCPRI - http://www.righttoinformation.info/
CHRI - http://www.humanrightsinitiative.org/programs/ai/rti/rti.htm
Parivartan - http://www.parivartan.com/rti/
Kabir - http://www.kabir.org.in
Satark Nagrik Sanghtan India - http://www.snsindia.org/
Nyaya Bhoomi - http://www.nyayabhoomi.org/
Josh4India - http://www.josh4india.org/
Burning Brain (Chandigarh) - http://www.burningbrain.org/

Q: Their own area or with the other groups

A: Nyaya Bhoomi, JOSH, Kabir work together in various campaigns.

Q: Will the LA chapter be the steward?

A: Yes.

Q: Comparitive analysis of govt schools with private schools? Will there be equal amount
of time on private schools?
A: Perhaps not. It would only be based on experience and not a similar study on the
same.

Comment: What we get from private sector may not be apply able directly and may be
intangiable? Not to ask her to spend much time on this.
Action Item: Clarify from Aheli what she meant by comparative study between public and
private schools.

Q: How is Asha-Delhi and Asha-Minich working with JOSH?

A: Through Parivartan and with regard to the private schools that had received land from
the govt should admit children from economically backward grades. To implement this
there were people working for this to happen, create a support system for the same and
so on. These people would be supported by the same.

Q: Will the LA chapter fundraise for it?

A: The funds will come from Silicon Valley chapter.

Q: There was an interview mentioned, do we have minutes of the same?

A: Uday had interviewed both of them and he will send the minutes for the same.

Minutes of fellowship call to review new fellowship applications

6 Jun 07, 9:00 PM Central Daylight Time

Attended By:Vishal, Sanjeev, Anita, Meenakshi, Sharan, Gaurav, Srikanth, Sridhar

1) Discussion of Aheli’s fellowship:

Vishal gave an overview of the fellowship proposal which has been discussed in previous
conference calls.

Q. How committed is Aheli to the education focus of RTI?

A. Some people have suggested that she should consider changing her proposal to work on
areas such as civil works, rather than education. But she decided to stick
with it since that is her area of interest.

Q. Is Aheli committed to next 2-3 years

A. Yes. 6-8 months will be spent in collecting information and then the analysis phase will start.

Q. How will funds be routed.

A. Asha-India might be ok with routing the funds. Saurabh had approached some Asha-India
volunteers in this regard

Q. Isnt the point to educate people so they can file petitions instead of the Josh volunteers
themselves filing it?
A: Yes. That is the reason for trying to build awareness among students. They bring awareness
related to things like section 4 which helps people get information suo Moto without having to file
an application.

Q. How are the other volunteers of Josh currently being supported

A: Two volunteers are in immediate need of support and the fellowship applications are with
Asha. AID has been approached for fellowship of another volunteer. (through whose efforts, work
on a road that has stalled has re-started through RTI applications). Two other people don’t have
immediate need of funding. Arving plans to use the money from the Magsaysay award
to create a research and policy center on RTI.

Voting: The fellowship was approved based on the following voting. Opinions expressed by the
volunteers are in parenthesis.

Sridhar: Yes (Asha should continue to be involved in this effort).

Sanjeev: Yes (This is an important area. We should be fully committed to it. . If we have a lot of
people, we should move it to a project mode later)
Gaurav: Yes
Ravi: Yes (After learning about RTI in the different sessions at the conference, feels that we
should be involved in such activities. View this as a pilot).
Srikanth: Yes (The focus of the work should also be on bringing changes to the system through
followup actions, rather than stay confined to research and analysis).
Meenakshi: Abstain
Sharan: Abstain
Vishal: Yes