Wed. 24 Jan 2007

Dear Dr. Kimudavailli,

Please refer to our teletalk and our selection of Smt. Changunaghai as one of the three women Sarpanches to be honoured under our project Women and Governance at the Grassroot level. You had sent an essay as entry for the National Competition organized by ICCFG, New Delhi recently. Your essay had presented Smt. Changunabhai and her contribution to the village. The Jury Panel which met recently has selected her as one of the three women Sarpanches to be honoured at a function to be held in mid-March in New Delhi.

We would seek your help in contacting Changunabhai of Mhaskal and convey to her that we would like her to come to Delhi for the function. ICCFG would provide her train fare and stay for two days in Delhi. We would also like to invite you for the function in Delhi and we can discuss other ways in which we can take the programme forward and work together. However, we also request that your travel and stay may be met by your organization. Please also send me a detailed profile of Changunabhai for preparing a suitable citation and to include in the booklet we are preparing for release at the function in March.

In the booklet we wish to give a directory of all the women Sarpanches with their profiles and gradually build up a good database. This would also help organize future events like workshops, training, etc. under the project. We therefore request you to send us profiles of all the women Sarpanches available or can be prepared using the Zilla Panchayat records and sent to us in a week or 10 days time. We would acknowledge your support suitable and associate you in future projects. The profile could include name and full details, contribution as Sarpanch, awards won and press coverage, if any and other relevant information. A photo of all the Sarpanches whose data/profiles can be provided for inclusion. When we discussed, you indicated that a lot of info is available and we would appreciate your sharing the same with us for printing in the form of a booklet.

Could you also provide the name and address of the National Institute guest house in the institutional area so that we can contact them and book rooms in advance.

Looking forward to your support and response to above and with regards.

Dr. Vasantha Bharucha

Co-ordinator