Initial Statement detailing goals and directions of nAmadi project

1. Preamble

Life is full of challenges, ups and downs. Education is what prepares for the battles ahead. Unfortunately, for most people, getting a good education is in itself an uphill battle. As a BartRhari subhAshitam says,

A true fighter will never let any amount of difficulty affect his work. Having gone through the grind ourselves, more than anyone else it is us who can understand the need to improve basic facilities. It is with this noble intention that nAmadi -"Nimmakur Alumni - Making A Difference" project is envisioned. It is particularly fitting, that such a project be taken up this year, as we are nearing the completion of a decade since we first entered Nimmakur.

The first proposal we would like to bring forward is the creation of an 'alumni fund' and an 'alumni project team'. The main objective of instituting an 'alumni fund' is to provide financial support to the college and provide students with most wanted items. The 'alumni project team' will identify, plan and implement specific projects in targeted areas, with the help of the staff, current students and alumni. We need generous contributions from everyone. As the size of ANIMAL increases, the alumni fund will grow too, and will serve significant causes. We have done some initial work and now we seek each and everyone's participation in this project to make it a big success.

2.0 Project coordinators and their responsibilities

Alumni project team : Currently we identified four key teams to lead future alumni projects. We urge you to come forward and be an active member of one or more of these teams. It is totally voluntary and we urge everyone of you to pick a responsibility that you think is the most suitable for you. Again your voluntary participation is most essential. Please e-mail us about the team you wish to be part of.

a) Project Planner's Team : This team is responsible for identifying key projects and presenting the same for consideration to the alumni. The team needs to interact with current students, college principal and staff, to get first hand information about the college. The team will assess the requirements and feasibility, discuss the findings with alumni and college staff, and will subsequently formulate an action plan.

b) Resource Mobilizer's Team : This team is responsible for creating and sustaining the alumni fund. It needs to identify the possible sources of funds (like alumni contributions, sponsorships, any industry support etc.) and pursue the same with vigor. It also needs to identify sources of constant yearly contributions to the fund.

c) Fund Manager's Team: This team shall actively manage the assets of the fund. The activities include devising legal ways to save and build on existing funds, coordinating with Action Planner and Resource Mobilizer Teams to allocate alumni funds in a planned manner, monitoring fund usage, and making sure that the fund goes through proper channels and indeed reaches the intended destination.

d) Implementation Team : This Team will be incharge of project implementation. It will get the input from Action Planner, Resource Mobilizer and Fund Manager Teams, and will execute the accepted projects in a phased manner. It will monitor the improvements in the targeted areas, and suggest new areas to be targeted in future to the Project Planner team.

3.1 Start-up ideas: Listed are a few start-up ideas. We need everyone's input to make them effective and feasible. We may not be able to implement all of them in the first year, but if we can get the ball rolling in few areas, we can certainly keep the tradition in future.

1) Infrastructure improvement: Invest on important infrastructure that is most essential for students. Some of the targeted areas are:

2) Encourage excellence :

3) Buffer fund: This fund will be made available for the principal (on a repayable basis) to tap into, whenever there is paucity of funding. This should only be used for food and/or emergencies. Special lunches for students that are not funded by the govt. may also be funded under this head.

4) Cultural Development : Promote cultural awareness/interest among the students. Provide support for any cultural events.

5) Alumni Network: Improve communication between the current students, alumni ( in India & in US).

3.2 Action Schedule: These are the suggested completion dates for the following activities.

4.0 Ideas for future consideration

1) Try to get some financial support from external non-profit organizations by implementing few projects for them. Organizations like SEEDS, AID, ILP, CRY etc. give financial aid for good project proposals such as adult literacy projects. Usually, we need to fill up an application form and submit to them. They actually demand a lot of ground work before we do the application itself. Chap has done some work on this and he'll continue on this. If anyone has any ideas, we encourage you to bring them forward.

2) Obtain support from companies if possible. One example is to get scholarships from sponsored programs like the ones Motorola has.

3) Any new ideas from alumni, staff and students will be added here. Again we encourage active participation from all of you. Please feel free to come out with ideas and support. This is OUR project. None of it will ever happen without the enthusiastic support of everyone of us.

Seenai

Chap

The initial call given for volunteer participation in various teams of ‘nAmadi’ project evoked very enthusiastic response. Many people have came forward to extend their voluntary participation in the project. Here is the composition of various teams.

Resource Mobilization: Siddhu, Sirisha and Subbu.

Finance Management: Sarat and Kranti.

Planning: Chap and Sreeni.

Implementation: Sreeni, Anjani Madhavi, Kasinath and Shailesh.

Individual’s participation in the teams is purely voluntary, and everyone is free to join these teams at any stage. Though there is a theoretical demarcation between these teams, every member of the team is expected to work in close association with other teams to ensure smooth progress of the project. With the compositions of the teams, the first phase of the ‘nAmadi’ project is completed successfully by the end of May.

The second phase of the project started with active participation and planning form the Resource Mobilization and Finance Management. Before initiating the fund drive, the team felt that it would be wise to set up a bank account in India and US to handle the accounts. To this effect, Sarath had taken active part and opened an account in Bombay. This account is owned jointly by Sarath and R.Sreenivasa Rao. The finance management team looked into the possibility of enrolling our group as a non-profit organization to help us stay clean in the tax records, and also to enable us to investigate into the alternate sources of funding. Both Kranthi and Sarath had done considerable research into this matter. The initial estimate would need about $300 to get the work done. This looked like a good investment for the future, but the team felt that it would be considerable burden on the fund to allocate this amount in the first year itself, especially when the ambitions are high and the contributing members are low in the first year. This led us to postpone the registration process to the next year. We intend to take it up in the next financial year. Once this is done, the resource mobilization team will have extra weapon in their hands to mobilize additional amount form donors outside our alumni network.

The fund drive for the ‘nAmadi’ project started off slowly at the beginning, but pickedup in notime with active participation from the Resource Mobilization team. The initial target was set at a modest amount of $2000. The resource mobilization team has spent many hours talking to people and with many phone calls and with some good efforts from the Subbu and Sirisha (not to forget the helping hand given by Chap, Veeru and Sreeni), the target was reached rather comfortably. All the members who have contributed to the fund were very positive and enthusiastic about the goals of the project. It is now left to the Implementation team to produce the intended results of the project.