Meghalaya Workshop
The three-day workshop began in Shillong on December
5, 2002. With the participation 25 local NGOs, the programme
was a major success. While inaugurating the workshop
at Pinewood hotel in Shillong, State Chief Secretary
J. Tayeng gave an encouraging speech and appealed to
the NGOs to come forward to learn about preparing sound
project
reports. The idea was to prepare proposals as per the
Central Government guidelines and submit those at the
right place. Terming this event as ‘unique’, he hoped
that the training-cum-workshop would help the local
NGOs to work in the field and help the needy women and
children.
Joint secretary with the Department of Women and Child
Development, Government of India, V. K. Pipersenia
emphasized that the NGOs should co-operate in implementing
the
available schemes under the Department.
Atul Dev Sarmah, General Secretary, MMGLD, not only chaired
the inaugural meeting, but anchored the entire programme
and made it a big success. A Bhuyan and Sanjeev Kakoty
were our resource persons.
Arunachal Pradesh Workshop
As a part of this series of training programmes, for
NE NGOs for developing project proposals, a two-day-long
workshop
was organized in Itanagar on December 16-17, 2002. Around
30 NGOs from all over the state participated in the workshop.
Resource person Swagata Hazarika trained the NGO personnel
and told them the art of preparing project proposals.
Several core proposals were prepared during the time
of the workshop. Those proposals were later submitted
to the government of Arunachal Pradesh. Romil Senapati
and
Sanjan Das represented MMGLD. Here too, MMGLD had an
informal interactive session with the NGOs and sought
their views on various socio-economic issues of the state.
Mizoram Workshop
Organised at the Synod campus in Mizoram capital City,
on 4-5 February 2003, the workshop was an eye-opener for
many
NGOs in the state, as those didn’t get any formal training
for preparing project proposals earlier. As many as 35
NGOs took part in it and learnt the method of preparing
projects. Government officials present there were overwhelmed
by the process and many core proposals were produced during
the training programme itself. Some of them were later
developed into full-fledged projects and were submitted
to the concerned Departments of the state Government.
Like in other workshops, MMGLD took the opportunity
to have a detailed informal meet with the NGOs. Whereas
the NGOs provided details about the burning issues of the
state, the representatives of this organization gave them
the basic guidelines about various avenues with the Central
government and other non-governmental funding bodies.
Gangtok meet
A workshop on preparing sound project proposals was organised
at Police Headquarters, Gangtok, on March 14-15, 2003.
Around 50 NGOs participated the programme. It was quite
a big success, as several top officials of the Government
of India and Government of Sikkim, came to encourage
the participating NGOs. Among the dignitaries present
included O.T. Lepcha, Minister of Social Welfare, Government
of Sikkim and S.W. Tenzing, State Chief Secretary. From
the Government of India side, V.K. Pipersenia, Joint
Secretary, Ministry of Human Resources Development (MHRD),
Government
of India, Ms. U. Hazarika, Deputy Secretary, MHRD, and
Ms. Anjali Goel, Director Finance, WCD were present.
MMGLD president M.C. Gupta monitored the entire programme.
Here too, several sound project proposals came out, which
were later submitted to the state government.
Section 3
Regular interactions
The Governing Body of the organization meets at least once
in a month and takes all crucial decisions collectively.
The GB constantly monitors the progress of the implementing
projects; decides on potential areas of expansion and
collaboration with other organizations and agencies and
finally prepares the blueprint for future agenda.
Very often, special guests are also invited for attending
the GB proceedings. While guests are allowed to get a
feel of what is being undertaken by the organization,
the organisation
too gets valuable suggestions from them.
MMGLD is a part of WANGO
MMGLD is now a part of the World Association of Non-Governmental
Organisations (WANGO). The WANGO is an international
membership organization uniting the NGOs worldwide, in
the cause of advancing peace and global well-being. Being
a member of the WANGO, this organisation is in the global
network of NGOs. General secretary Atul Dev Sarmah will
represent this organization in the WANGO-convened world
meet of the NGOs in Bangkok in September 2003.
Public
Utility of Private Schools
It is a project to study and analyse the functioning of
a select group of private schools in the country and
evaluate their role in public utility. Funded by the
Department of Secondary and Higher Education of the HRD
Ministry, Government of India, the study will finally
suggest the ways of adhering the desirability that 25
to 30% of all students in private schools should be from
the neighborhood and preferably from disadvantaged sections.
Outcome of our study is expected to evaluate the efficacy
of our tax policy towards charitable and educational
institutes.
The study is limited to 100 private schools in Delhi, Mumbai,
Kolkata, Chennai and Guwahati. It is trying to find out
whether those private schools were adhering to the basic
objectives of the National Policy on Education such as
preference to Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other
Backward Classes in admission, free education, and in terms
of books, uniform etc.
Finally, the study aims at developing an “Index of Social
Utility” for schools, which may be computed by a cost,
benefit analysis of various parameters. Index is being
computed by working out the welfare costs of the benefits
by taking aggregation of all costs incurred by the Government
as a numerator and aggregation of the measure of the measure
of benefits as denominator.
The project will continue in the following year as well.
