Hello All,
WDA has just finished up a great year, but that doesn’t mean we’re done with work. The successful Sadhana Clean Water Project is coming to a close, but Tim, Jessie, and Daniel are still working diligently at compiling the final report, an endeavor that will probably continue all summer. We also held an amazing WDA retreat on the first Saturday of May where we recapped WDA’s past and answered, or at least considered, a myriad of questions about the future. It was a more productive and meaningful day than any of us expected. At the end of the it, I think it’s fair to say that the group broke up feeling enthusiastic about the future, inspired, and full from all the good food.

We’ve had a few meetings since then, mainly dealing with structural issues and picking a project for next year. The board of advisors, comprised of faculty members, WDA is currently forming is one change we are super-excited about. We believe having a diverse group of mentors is going to be extremely beneficial for everyone involved and future projects alike. Tentative positions for people within the group have also been set. They are to ensure that “the ball is never dropped,” not to limit people to one or two certain jobs. Everyone is expected and expecting to play major roles in the actual project itself, as well as helping out with the dirty job of fundraising. The positions are as follows:

• WDA Co-Coordinators: Tim and Jessie
• PR/Technology Coordinator: John
• Grant Writing: Alisha and Melissa
• Budget Coordinator: Dave
• Faculty Communications Coordinator: Gauri
• External Relations: Aisha
• Fundraising Coordinator: Rotating Position
• Project Head: TBD

It should be noted that several members were unable to attend the meeting these roles were assigned.

Perhaps the biggest news to report is that WDA has tentatively decided on its latest project. I am not going to give too much information, mainly because of the uncertain nature of the project at this point in time (it doesn’t even really have a title yet), but we plan to conduct research among the Latino immigrant population in Eastern Washington about their relationships with the communities they come from in Mexico and what they believe would help fight economic stagnation there, with the ultimate goal of implementing a project to that end in a home community in Mexico. Once again, this is a very basic and preliminary project outline, but we’re all eager to immerse ourselves in this venture. Work for the summer has already been set out. Goal number one: Learn Spanish!

Before I go, I would like to mention that we have three seniors leaving us who graduated today, Jyotsna, Yukta, and Joseph. No words I could write have the ability to describe how absolutely wonderful these three are in every single way. So instead of trying, I will only say that they touched every single person in WDA’s life in so many ways and that their contributions to WDA, Whitman, and the human community will live on long after they leave this place. On behalf of the group, congratulations. You will be missed.

Peace and Love to all,
John

Hi everyone,

This is just a little update for those who couldn’t make it to the meeting yesterday. We discussed our project ideas a little further, but, obviously, came to no conclusions.

The Ashraya proposal is still on the table. We’re thinking if we pursue it, we will probably take an adult literacy/education program approach or a YDI-style approach, either targeting youth or adults within the slum, or both in the slum and in the city of Pune. See the Google Doc on our conversation with Daniel (our contact with Ashraya) for more details. If attempt to integrate city-dwellers into our program, we anticipate caste-conflict issues. This is something we thought we might look at more closely this week.

We talked a bit about the Northern Uganda Microfinance Initiative, and John said he will be learning more about safety hazards and possible looking for a new location this week.

Tim introduced a few new ideas, and plans to make them a little more concrete by the end of this week. They involve immigration issues and may incorporate a domestic research component and abroad implementation.

We spoke about grants and thought we should get the ball rolling on that since there are some grants available that don’t require us to have nailed down a project. I plan to contact the Grants and Fellowships office before I leave and get some helpful materials.

Finally, we had some thoughts on activism. The following questions were brought up:

• Does WDA want to provide basic needs (like food, water, shelter), or are we open to secondary needs like literacy?
• Is literacy/education a secondary need?
• What systemic factors contibute to an environment in which basic needs (like food, water, shelter) are not being met?
• Is meaningful activism about attacking the largest problems, or is it about using your resources in the most appropriate way possible?

At the end of the meeting we though each member should think about these questions, think about, based on his/her idea of meaningful activism, which project is most enticing. We hoped we could regroup this Friday for further discussion and perhaps some more direction for the summer.

Hope you’re all enjoying the last day of finals!
Melissa

From an article dated 30 April:

After hundreds of hours of volunteer work, WDA members Jessie Conrad, Tim Shadix, Jyotsna Shivanandan, Yukta Kumar, Daniel Bachhuber and Dr. Raechelle Mascarenhas utilized these funds to travel to India and work directly with the community members and NGOs their project aims to help.