First Meeting of the Year

Empower UNSW had its first meeting of the year yesterday. The meeting was attended by Shanil, Leesa, Wallace, Gong, Johnson, Jessica and Annie. The team welcomed its new member Haaris Ali, who officially joined as journalist of the project after a long delay. The other project members were unable to attend the meeting due to their various personal commitments.

During the meeting, the issues related to financing, a trip to Sri-Lanka and allocation of tasks were discussed. The local partners of the project in Sri-Lanka are University of Moratuwa (UOM) and Energy Forum who would be identifying a village for setting up of the project. So far, UOM has suggested a village called Kurunegla which is three hours drive from capital, Colombo. The team is also contemplating on who should be managing the project i.e. either UOM or Energy Forum. The decision in that regard would be made within a week.

Team Having a Chat after the meeting

While back in Australia, the project team members assigned to identify and follow up with prospective sponsors is in contact with various companies and University of New South Wales as well. The University would be informing the team hopefully by this week or next week while other sources are yet to reply. So far, Five Hundred Australian Dollars have been managed by one of our project members through her personal efforts. It was also decided in the meeting to stop working in teams as it hasn’t turned out to be really effective. From now on, each member would be responsible for an individual task. The details of the each member’s tasks are as follows

Haaris : Will be our Journalist. Responsible for uploading the blog with pictures, videos and articles.

Olivia: Photography and video.Will pass the material to Haaris.

Dev, Pattiya and Johnson: Work on survey and develop specific questions individually and then coordinate with the team.

Jessica, Annie and Wallace: E-mail and follow up calls to prospective sponsors individually and then inform the team.

Shanil: Leading the project and coordinate with all the stakeholders.

Gong: To look at alternative rural finance organiztions.

Leesa: Send draft contact letter to Jessica, Wallace and Johnson. Follow up ASB and look into partnering with another part of the University. Collect everyone's availabilities for meetings next session.

Pooling Some Talent together; Wallace & Gong