All, I will try to answer all the questions as much as I can. For blocks involved, the program initiatives have been sent to most of the blocks. Already 1000 villages have registered interest in starting the library. I will send a more detailed list of district and blocks by next week. However I dont think that should keep us from voting on the program. The second part of it about monitoring is: If chapters interacting in the arogya iyakkam want to continue their interaction at this program level, that is good. But I think AID Austin must have the interaction with the state coordinator. And I think at the beginnning this can be our first level of interaction. The second level of interaction at block level can be more at a less regular level. 2. I am hoping that our chapter will be interested in writing stories. If other chapters want to do it, then thats good. From our part, I would like our chapter to commit certain no. of stories every 2 months. If a core team can organize around that, that would be good. If we can do more, thats no problem. 3. I have got the story pamphlets already. Initially they were printed black and white which was not good. Now they are being printed in 2 color which makes them look good. I took some with me on my recent trip to Tanjavore and had some adults and children read the story. They were very interested. They even asked me to leave the stories with them. But I didnt have enough story pamphlets to give to all children. For the adults, the stories need to be more complext in content, though language is simplistic. The stories were real life stories on Madurai Leelavathi(People who saw Aparna Sindhoor's dance must remember her) as well as Pudukottai Kannamma. When I gave these stories, I got into an interesting conversation with the woman in the village. She read the story and told me that the stones were not availablle in the village otherwise they can also organize to do some thing like quarry work. Then I started asking her about the SHG groups etc. On the whole, it was interesting to see how you can start a nice discussion around these stories and also find out what sparks their interest. I will try to scan these pamphlets if possible and send them. We can definitely do a workshop on writing. We can do them in English and the tamil experts like yours truly can translate them to Tamil. We can definitely get these stories from English and other languages and write them in Tamil. The challenge will be in creating a message in 2 pages. Lets not worry much about the copyright issue. Website is a nice idea but I would nt want our focus to be diluted by them. So lets just commit what we can do rather than getting all chapters get involved. Hopefully more chapters will join once we get them started:) There have been several attempts in starting village libraries but have not been altogether successful due to the cost factor.   Age group for stories is both adults and children. Adult stories need to be more complex in content compared to children stories. I hope we can discuss the financial angle of the program this CSH. Let me know if you need more materials. I will try to send a scanned version of the library materials by CSH. Chandrika --- Kavita Dilip Karandikar wrote: Hi Chandrika, Madhu has covered almost everything that we discussed in the CSH. Ppl did not have too many questions about the idea itself. Some of the questions: 1. Which blocks of HBP are involved? 2. Can we traslate stories from some books here and send? Are there any copyright issues involved? 3. What kind of stories are we looking for? What age groups? 4. Have the libraries already started in some villages and the activity is not spread in the rest of villages for lack of money? Kavita On Mon, 26 Jan 2004 Manikutty, Gayathri wrote : Hi Chandrika, Hope you had a great time at WSF...Regarding phamplets, what people here are interested to see is the story phamplets. If TNSF has created a few, do bring them when you come. Regarding educational phamplets, we have couple of them that Madhu and Meera brought. I have scanned the educational phamplets and placed them at http://www.aidaustin.org/projects/HBP_nonmonetary/HBP.html and they give a fair idea of what's required. Since stories are a new concept, it would be good to have some more focussed directives on what kind of stories etc. Take care Gayathri -----Original Message----- From: Madhulika [mailto:madhulika@mail.utexas.edu] Sent: Monday, January 26, 2004 10:33 AM To: Chandrika Ramanujam Cc: Manikutty, Gayathri; kavitakarandikar@rediffmail.com Subject: TNSF Library Hi Chandrika,  Last CSH, we discussed the TNSF libraries proposal, not so much like a review. We discussed the idea to see the responses. Overall, people seemed to be enthusiastic about low cost libraries and more about story writing. The details of the project we shall discuss soon. There were many suggestions on story writing. 1. This could be one thing where chapters could contribute in a non monetary way hugely. 2. We could have a website where people can contribute their short stories. 3. We should have clear guidelines on how to write stories for children. I suggested we could have a workshop after you come back, since u were the one who had done it at the conference. 4. There was a suggestion that each chapter take up the responsibility for their block.   I said the lag in review could vary from chapter to chapter. This might hinder starting the project together in various block. Also, we do not know which blocks are selected, which only TNSF can be based on the feasibility. You could probably read the details in the minutes and add anything we missed. Just wanted to tell you that the response was good. Have any other chapters come forward to do it. Regards, Madhu. --- Madhulika wrote: Hi Chandrika, Kavita has volunteered to coordinate this proposal. Also, Gayathri said she could support the volunteer coordinating this project, since it is an effort with TNSF. Other than this email and the earlier one asking for chapters interested in the propsal we do not have any information yet. We could still have the intial presentation, but it would be good if we have some more details. Also, at the conference Balaji was talking to Dinesh Prasadji and suggesting that this should be done in Bihar as well. Dineshji said he could start the program in 1000 villages. Would the proopsal be including that as well. It might be good if it can. Please let us  know. Regards, Madhu.