Agape Meeting Follow-Up

Hello team!

Des and I met with Mark from Agape yesterday. We now have a better understanding of what they do and how we can collaborate with them.

What They Do
First of all, Agape is primarily a consulting company, focusing on giving counseling training to future counselors. They do have people going to their office to get some counseling about their problems but their main job is to refer different organizations that could help the victims that approaches them. For example, if they get someone that has a domestic violence issue, they will refer the victim to us. They don't want to have an overflow of customers. They act more as a placement agency for counselors, giving them clients.

Their counselors
So they don't really have their own counselors. They give them training. They do have a few that they keep a good relationship with and that often go work at their office to meet clients. Giving training, they have a big database of counselors that they can call and refer to a victim. The counselors may charge their own price, depending on their experience.

Our Collaboration
This being said, the only way we will collaborate with Agape is this way:

Training for Counselors
Agape will develop a training program that is specifically targeted to help victims of domestic violence. This training will be given to experienced counselors that have already been through their "Wonderful Counselor" training.

They have an extensive list of counselors that could take that training. Those counselors will be hired by Peace for Humanity to be part of our Staff. For the training, they need a minimum of 8 counselors and a maximum of 16.

Training info:
Cost: 2,700 rmb per person
10 classes of 2.5 hours each
5 supervised sessions of 1.5 hours each
2 classes a month to give time for the counselor to put what he learned into practice.
12.5 hours of supervision (this I'm not quite sure what he means...)

So it would cost us 21,600 rmb to train counselors. We might only have 2 "in-house" and the other ones working in different parts of Beijing. They can meet anywhere with the victim.

Salary for Counselor
For a case of domestic violence, we are looking at an average of 200-300rmb/session (a session is typically 1 hour). As an NGO, we might have a session last 1.5 hours for the same price. So for our calculation, we have to see how many victims we'd like to help and for how long. For example, if for half a year we want to help 5 victims and provide them with 15 hours of counseling, at 300/1.5, we would have to spend 22,500 rmb in total. FOr a year, 45,000 rmb.

So far, in total, the amount we would need to raise is 66,600 rmb!! So we have a lot of fundraising to do! Let's look at this deeper later.

Since the Domestic Violence Training is not written yet, it could be ready only in September 2012. So the training would start at that time and could be over at the end of 2012. In 2013, we can start receiving victims and provide them with counseling.

Note: If Agape develops the training for Peace for Humanity, we'll have to pay for it. The training would be our own training so we'd have the rights for it. If it stays with Agape, we don't have to pay.

Their Victims
The way that victims go to them is solely through word to mouth. They don't do any advertisement or publicity.

We should meet soon to discuss about this. I might add more info later but now I have to run! Des, let us know if I forgot to ad something.

Thank you!