Sri Lanka Project (GROW II) Advisory Committee
March 2, 2005 (Wednesday)
10:00 a.m. to Noon
Conference Room, Learning Center
Present: Phyllis Cunningham, Laurel Jeris, Jaya Gajanayake, Murali Krishnamurthi, Jorge Jeria,
Rick Orem, Catherine Raymond, Kay Forest, Lina Ong, Meena Razvi, and Nalika Diyadawa.
Excused: Deb Pierce, Cindy Campbell and Sharon Horward
Minutes of the meeting held on January 26, 2005 was approved by Rick Orem and seconded by Murali
Krishnamurthi.
Minutes of the Meeting:
The meeting started with Jaya explaining the reasons for the delay caused by the Tsunami disaster in
commencing the proposed Diploma Program in Sri Lanka. She mentioned that the program is now
scheduled to commence on March 7. Jaya elaborated the details of the planned inauguration ceremony.
Murali inquired about the recruitment procedures and the preparation of course handbook. It was
mentioned that the participants will be given a course prospectus that includes the subject syllabi prepared
by the Sri Lanka team during their program at NIU and modified several times in consultation with the
teaching faculty. Prospectus also contains messages from the heads of partner organizations, including
NIU and other critical information important for the program participants.
Another course handbook will be prepared at the end of the program to include the handouts supplied by
the resource team throughout the year.
Other information related to the Diploma Program:
 Jaya and Laurel mentioned that during their stay in Sri Lanka in May, will conduct two to
three additional workshops for the Program participants.
 Laurel indicated in spite of the language barriers, the medium of instruction will be English
and the translations will be provided when and where necessary.
 Phyllis Cunningham reiterated the importance of good curricular development, emphasizing
participatory methods and bottom-up approaches.
Murali updated the committee on the current status of the GROW II website.
Meena informed the status of the Tsunami Disaster Relief Fund.
Discussion on the Fund led to reach following decisions:
 As the public would hesitate to donate money to unknown organizations it was decided to
route the funds collected, only through CENWOR and add the CEWOR website details to
GROW website (Cunnigham & Kay)
 Get down a priority list of Tsunami disaster related needs that could be addressed by the
fund and the related costs from Sri Lanka (Cunningham & Catherine).
 Measures to provide a feedback regarding the specifics of donations (Murali)
 Form a sub committee to facilitate further fund raising. Members proposed to the committee
are Catherine Raymond, Kay Forest, Meena Razvi, and Nalika Diyadawa. (Cunningham)
 Jaya circulated a list of proposed measures to strengthen the NGO Coalition (12 NGOs as
members), which remains an issue and requested inputs from the Advisory Committee. After
reviewing the list, the Advisory Committee short-listed the following measures to be carried out
in the coming months.

Organize a three-day workshop for the NGO Coalition leaders with the following
themes as the focus: (recommended to include all 12 NGO’s and Jaya and Laurel to
do this in May )
o Mainstreaming strategies for women’s empowerment into the work of
member NGOs
o How to integrate Tsunami long term rehabilitation work and trauma care
into GROW II activities

Organize a mentoring program – link two NGO’s in the Coalition) to each of the four
major partners

Build a bridge between CAG (Advisory Committee in Sri Lanka) and the NGO
Coalition: Identify ways of doing it.
Jaya briefed the committee about the intension to develop a new proposal for the State Department in
order to share the lessons learnt/best practices of the two GROW projects in two or three countries in
the South Asian region.
Murali explained that already have had preliminary meetings on this and have decided Pakistan and
India to be included as the two countries to focus in the proposal.
Jaya inquired about any possible contact persons in Bangladesh to look into the possibility of
including Bangladesh also in the proposal.
 The next Advisory Committee meeting is scheduled for April 6, 2004. from 10:00 a.m. until
noon at the Learning Center, Conference Room.
 The meeting adjourned at 12:00 noon.
Note: Please note that the minutes of the last meeting (January 26, 2005) should be corrected to include
Murali Krishnamurthi among the members present. Sorry for the oversight.