Wider Asha stuff...

Radhika:
As well as the wonderful opportunity to share the work with the young people, Steve and I are also spending a bit of time working with our local colleagues, developing the plans for the work of Asha more widely.

Today we have our first ever partners meeeting - we're bringing together the leaders from all the projects we fund, as a step towards further collaboration among them where appropriate, and also to go through some of the practicial stuff about monitoring and communication. Some of our key people do have strong relationships with each other, but it would be good to explore possibilities for further collaboration. Its new territory - Steve and I run meetings regularly in the UK, but I'm not sure how useful all that is in this context.

Another great development has been that we've had two London doctors with us for 2 weeks, David and Mary. David did an amazing job of redecorating the Asha Centre (those tiny rooms) - painted, created notice boards, beautiful displays - utterly transformed the place! Additionally, we asked Mary to do some investigating about healthcare provision and how the families in Athidiya access it. She visited 5 families with Mrs Vellupulai (Sister's excellent colleague), and interviewed them. She also spoke to a local health worker. We are planning to use Mary's learning to help Asha to develop a plan for health interventions - its not something we do much on at the moment. David and Mary also went to the Centre daily with their 3 boys and ran English games, singing and activities with the after-school club. They left yesterday, after a show (of course), speeches and a few tears.

This morning, Steve, Shani and Katherine are going to visit the RCCI centre for children with disabilities. We got them the funding for their Cookery Sessions through See the Difference, and they want to show off their new purchases - no doubt there'll be much messy cooking! Another 6 young people are off to visit Athidya with Sister, and the rest of us are off to the school.

R