Outreach Meeting Minutes

Spring 2009 Minutes

Chi-Chi Lin:
This week:

contacted Leo, website translator in the Honduras to check on progress (haven't started, wants to work closely with me)
created site map, with personal notes and annotations on what can be fixed
restated goal of wiki with Monroe (site should act like Wikipedia, not a website with just 1 set of links))
emailed Monroe, Nicole, and Scott about:

Min
Last Week

Contact publication people on Brandon's contact list
Got reply from Cornell Daily Sun; they are interested in putting up an article about AguaClara
Contact Ithkid about potential presentation in April (yet to decide date)
Contact Jill from SWE about presentation during candidates weekend.

This Week

Joe
Last Week

Submitted Tech Awards Grant to Trang for submission (this still needs revision)
looked at Unicef and UNHCR for possible grants, did not work out
Looked into Kiva as a Microfinancing group for AguaClara
Emailed Monroe about budget, now we are using the one from the NSF grant recently submitted by Monroe
Emailed Monroe about tax status, he got that info back to me. He and Narayana helped me to understand whom to talk to in order to compile a budget for the Pilot Plant

This Week

Looked over the NSF grant submission as a possible template for future grants, preliminary results of analysis look good
Was explained how the Microfinancing organizations worked, and how we wanted to use them, this caused me to stop looking at Kiva so heavily as a source of funding.
Looked into water bottling companies in the US such as Pepsi, Coke a Cola, and Poland Springs and possible sponsors/funders.
Continue to compile master list of contacts with Brandon
Compiling the Shortlist of Funders. I will email this to Monroe as the rest of AguaClara when it is complete.

Narayana
Last Week

Researched Microfinance in Honduras
Looked at the profiles (I started with BRAC and Grameen. Then found a 2005 report on Microfinance in Central America on Grameen's website which led to another list of Microfinance organizations in Honduras. I googled all the names to see if all the organizations listed are still in business) and the procedures of funding used by these organizations and then compiled them as an excel sheet list. BRAC as it turns out is not involved in Honduras, Grameen only provides technical support to Adelante Foundation (http://www.adelantefoundation.org/)
All the Microfinance orgnanizations in Honduras seem to follow the grameen model for lending pursposes, in this model an organization assigns a number of officers to a community to familirize with the situations on ground and gather loan applications. Once the loan applications are reviewed they decide on potential borrowers (usually the limit is 5 people) and form a group of with all them as members. Then they give money to 2 members of the group (the loan could range from anything between $50 to $5000) and monitor repayments for a two year period. If the two borrowers do return the money on time they extend the loans to everybody else in the group, this dynamics creates a peer pressure among the borrowers to make payments on time
Talked to Monroe about the findings to get clarification on how he perceives to use Microfinance for funding Aguaclara projects efforts

Next Week

Write-up on Microcredit in Central America for the outreach midterm report.

Trang
Last Week

Compiled a list of all members since 2005
Made a list of potential members- Look through Oxfam, Action Aid, Care, US Aid websites to see if they are giving out money
Look for ways to create mass email lists. Talked with Monroe and Outreach team during meeting about this
Worked on TeachAward but there was issue. Sent file back to Joe to have it edit.

This Week

Invite alumni into Google group using their Cornell emails
Create a list-serve for potential members? (not sure which service to use yet CIT, Facebook, etc...?)
Look for more information on Oxfam, Action Aid, Care, US Aid websites
Monroe suggested to contact Sarah Long for more information about Care
If recieve TechAward, will finish it off

Scott

Accomplishments

Set up a table at the Bio-Expo that displayed a AguaClara general poster, the demo plant, and me and Trang talking about AguaClara; made a good student contact named Anushree Ray from Cornell Health International, and she has invited me and Nicole to speak for ASHOKA on Saturday.
I sent a press release to NPR about AguaClara and the four communities' plant and have had no response.
looked into how Monroe's graduate students are funded and where we can obtain information on exactly how much each water plant previously designed by AguaClara cost
attended a AguaClara form; we discussed some ideas on how to organize and fun the Outreach Team, being that is a now thing for us all. I think that I would like to change the way we operate on a weekly basis. I think the entire group will not meet weekly, only Working Groups will meet on a weekly basis separately. Starting next week each person will enter their own meeting minutes on the wiki "child" page for that week by Thursday at noon. We will work out the details at the Tuesday meeting.

Goals

Keep working on determining what the most effective way will be for the Outreach Team to be organized.
Positively encourage teammates to complete tasks to the best of their ability.
Complete the Midterm Wiki Report.