Nandan and I talk about Sanjeevani Booti continuously. This is the name for the HIV NGO which we are founding. The website is up. Nandan did not know what AIDS was before, and now he knows the basics. He has probed the community for similar organizations and we know what exists. He has talked with a lawyer about getting paperwork to make the organization exist legally.
My priorities are as follows:
- getting licensed as an NGO in India
- creating three pamphlets in Hindi
- creating a short survey – I want the organization to be a research center also, so I want to start collecting information
- getting Nandan better versed in disease theory
- distributing pamphlets and collecting surveys
- hosting monthly lectures through Nandan, whereby other locals can be recruited to educate themselves
- getting two people to Nandan’s level of understanding
having those people spend two hours a week working for the organization - poising the organization to be friendly to foreign tourist visitors
- creating video PSAs
- expansion within the Varanasi unit
- connecting to similar established centers in Uttar Pradesh and New Delhi
Our first major goal is being legally extant and having some work to show for before Seattle Gay Pride on June 29. I want to get a booth at the Seattle Center and promote the organization there.
Licensing requires at least seven members and four of those must be on the organization’s board – president, vice-president, treasurer, and secretary. I want to be a member, but I do not think it would be best for me to be one of the seven required because I do not want to probe the law about whether or not foreign members can be a part. Nandan has told me of his plans to recruit others. We have known and talked about this for a couple of months now, but we are almost ready to act.
After we have the members, there must be three meetings with minutes recorded. Nandan says, “I have to do some formalities like showing a NGO register about 3 meeting of the members. The first meeting should be about the Name and work of NGO. Second meeting about all the members of NGO and third one about Secretary and other posts voted by the members. I need identity proof of all the members and I have to show the map of the house where I will run my office.” This seems reasonable enough and nothing I have not done before. I already have templates for these things.
Nandan got a referral from Nandlal, he of the Coca-Cola Mehdiganj problem, to a broker who can handle the non-governmental organization registration office. Nandan told me that if he went himself, the bribes necessary may be incessant, but if he hired a broker, then the broker would at least cap the amount of bribery required to a predictable and prearranged sum. Nandan says Rs 5000, which is about $125, and seems entirely reasonable to me if it means getting registered in both Varanasi and the state capital.
A friend from work had been telling me to visit
Traveler’s Tea Shop for some time. It is just down the street from Gay City, so when I went there last week I went to Traveler’s and met the proprietor, Alan. He was busy but he told me that I could meet him Wednesday Feb 13. I intend to ask him his opinion of the concept of Sanjeevani Booti.
I have a job interview today with the trainer at Free and Clear, a tobacco-cessation for-profit counseling program funded by insurance companies. It is my third and last interview with those people. Also tonight I am supposed to meet the HIV CAB at a special community meeting. I am looking forward to all of this.
I need to request an additional recommendation for graduate school from one of my professors. It is kind of awkward, because so much is done through TAs and in chemistry especially there is little opportunity for personal interaction with the professors. Good work is by the book, not necessarily creative, and I have not particularly distinguished myself. I am sure they are accustomed to this, and I sure know how to write requests. I will do that now.