It has been a very full week here in Uganda!  I’ve been working with our partners, Medical Teams International, to evaluate the impact HHI is having on child health in the area. I’ve heard some astounding new stories of love awakening, health flourishing and lives being saved – literally!  Here are just a few highlights.

Around the world, and particularly in Uganda, corporeal punishment is still common and is seen as the way to instill morals and discipline in the children.  Its not all that long ago in my country, the US, where the saying was, “spare the rod, spoil the child”.  But once parents participate in HHI training here in Uganda, one of the number one outcomes I hear is that they “no longer beat the children.”  This is quite the radical change, and I think such change can only be caused by love awakening.  After the parents learn about how children are communicating with them non-verbally, all the time, they begin to see things in a whole new light, from the baby’s perspective. Babies do not cry because they are “bad babies”, but because they are tired, hungry, don’t feel good, etc.  Both parent and child benefit and life gets a little easier, as parents become more successful in responding to their baby’s communication, and their bond grows.

A great story from a father in Lira is that after HHI he began to spend more time with his youngest child and he not only grew to recognize the baby’s needs, but he taught the baby basic signs to communicate even more. Their relationship has blossomed and he is so proud of how bonded his baby is with him. He did not have this relationship with his two older children, who he always turned away and sent to their mother, and who he used to punish with beatings. But, he is not looking back with sadness, rather he is now building new relationships with them as well and he proudly tells of how all of his children now run to greet him and want to spend time with him.   — Way to go Papa!

A few snippets of other success stories from Uganda are these:

• Parents are saying that their younger babies are developing more quickly, talk earlier, walking sooner and are smarter than their older siblings.
• Women used to have been forced to go to the health centers for treatment, they feared the staff and the medical treatments. But since they have now built relationships with the health workers as they learned HHI, they go willingly and are taking their children for immunizations.
• An HHI parent in Ogur learned massage and practiced on her neighbor’s son  who has a disability that kept the knee pulled up to his chest and he couldn’t crawl. By giving and teaching massage, the child can now crawl.  Now the father of child has learned and is continuing the massage.
• “Me and my immediate neighbors now compete in cleanliness of our homes and keeping our children clean.” (parent, Amuca)

And lastly, the story of a life directly saved ~  The story comes from the district of Aromo, where for years thousands of people were confined in refugee camps to escape the savages of war that surrounded their homes.  In the camps, food was scarce, health care even more so, and survival was the daily task.  The majority who survived these camps were left with little dignity, no homes to return to and with HIV.  This is where a young mother was at her wits end with exhaustion and frustration with her baby who had been chronically sick with diarrhea and was not responding to any treatments. She was taking the baby to the river to take drastic action, she was going to throw him in and drown him. At just this time, she came upon Gloria, an HHI Mommy Leader.  Gloria counseled her deeply, listening and offering comfort and hope. After some time, Gloria was able to convince the young mother to take her baby to the Health Center, and she offered to walk her there and stay with her. The outcome is that the baby received treatment and made a full recovery. The veil of the mother’s despair and depression lifted, she returned to her village and now cannot stop talking about how Gloria saved her baby’s life!

Yes, when we say “HHI saves lives”, we are speaking literally.  See Gloria in the red shirt in this picture – Thank you Gloria!

HHI is based on love. By awakening love in some of the world’s most compromised environments, we are weaving a stronger, more compassionate social fabric for our world. The ripple effect of HHI’s work is far greater than the 104,040 women, men and children we’ve directly touched.

Although love and the ability to nurture is inherent in all people, it is a severely underutilized tool. HHI believes that all parents love their babies and want the very best for them. However, few of us know our own power. There is minimal access to information and resources on how to care for children and more specifically, how a young village mother, who has never seen the inside of a school, can build her baby’s brain development and health. Through HHI’s support and training, caregivers learn their own power. They improve their ability to nurture a child’s language, emotional, cognitive and physical development, as well as their nutrition and overall health, all while cultivating attachment and bonding which establishes the base for all future relationships.

After HHI, caregivers tell us that they will be more gentle and loving with their baby, that they will look them in the eyes and sing to them, that they now know that food is not enough, among many more beautiful things. Regardless of literacy or resources, parents and caregivers can immediately improve the lives of their children with love.

One of the most powerful tools to awaken love is to recognize the unconditional love, acceptance and joy that a baby exudes. Babies remind us and provide an easy and safe path to rediscover our own love, acceptance and joy. The babies are HHI’s greatest trainers, and everyone’s greatest teacher.

Today was the private opening of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Visitors Center and in honor of this, they didn’t have the standard ribbon cutting attended by a a pile of beaurocrats, but rather they brought in a small, select group of individual innovators and the donors who fund them. I am very proud to say that I was among this group of about 75 people.

Our day began with a networking breakfast and then launched into an Innovator’s Forum with innovators – bothe local and global, to share with us about their journeys, how they chose their paths, or more often how their path seemed unavoidable for them. I resonated deeply with this.  They also shared about their failures, learnings along the way and the difference their work is making in the world. I was inspired and challenged.  One paradox that struck me was that we are moving more and more to a world of free information, and I am in support of this. And there is a breaking down of the walls, moving away from the guild of “experts”, finding greater power in the democratization of ideas. However, at the same time, how do you get your idea on the world’s radar if you do not present yourself as an “expert” that others will want to listen to, and thus be interested in taking up a solution that I have found?  There was no simple answer, and this resonated deeply with others.

In the midst of our forum, President Jimmy Carter came through to personally greet us and share a few stories!  This was fabulous and it gave me some insider information that I used during the evenings reception to tease Bill Gates Sr about.

The day ended with a private evening reception, this as a sneak peek into the new Bill & Melinda Gates Visitors Center.  The evening was opened by Melinda Gates and shared in by all the foundation staff and those of us who were participants in the day’s Forum.  HHI’s long time board member and advisor, Karol Brown, joined me as we indulged in a night of even more learning, sharing and networking.

Dear Gates Foundation team, Mr. & Mrs. Gates and President Carter – THANK YOU!  You just gave me a day I will never forget!

See a few more pics from the evening – click here.

“I am blessed that I was trained by HHI as I gained more knowledge about care giving for babies. I don’t see this as a work rather I take it as a challenge and a glorious opportunity given to me to bring up a better tomorrow in every child’s life. Feeling proud to be a part of HHI’s global team.

I strongly felt that the reason for HHI programme’s success with small budget are the best co-ordination of grass roots level beneficiaries (i.e. mothers) and HHI’s highly professionalized training modules.”

-Sujatha, HHI’s Master Trainer in Tamil Nadu, India, leads HHI mommy trainings every month. She has also been our lead trainer since day one when HHI began our work at the orphanage run by Madras Social Service Guild (MASOS) in Chennai. Sujatha has also trained all of our other HHI trainers, around India and she worked in Uganda to launch our project there.

Thank you, Sujatha, for your kind words and even more for your love and dedication to HHI and all of the mommies, daddies, caregivers and babies that you help bring HHI’s message to!

This is our first blog from our new office and Laura and I couldn’t be happier. It’s been a labor of love getting settled but it’s coming together very well. Our previous office was a shared space in a renovated industrial building in SE Portland just across the water from Downtown. While it served HHI well, the timing was right for HHI to get our very own office. We’re now the proud new tenants of a 180 square foot office of our own in the Montgomery Park building (the 2nd largest building in Oregon!) in NW Portland.

Yellow walls with beautiful photos from India and Uganda, handmade gifts from HHI participants and our world map make it feel like home. This has been a great way to kick off 2012 and we look forward to giving you all many more updates from our new office!