Get your tickets now to join us for an evening benefit ~

a benefit evening

Come and enjoy an evening celebrating amazing results!  This past year, HHI has invested greatly in researching the true impact of work in Uganda and India and the results are beyond our wildest dreams!
Hard science and warm hearts agree, love builds healthier brains and bodies!
The evening program will include:-Hors D’oeuvres
-Artisan & craft drinks
-Complementary Chair massages
-Raffle prizesRaffle Sponsors and Event Supporters include:

Bring your friends and family to support HHI and have fun!
We look forward to seeing you.

tickets $25 at the door 

can’t attend?  

Raffle Tickets only $5 for these prizes!

Cupcake Jones: Dozen mini cupcakes. Value: $16.50
One of the city’s favorite indulgences. Specialty flavors change both daily and monthly but there is something to enjoy all the time! www.cupcakejones.net

Yoga Union: 5 class package. Value: $65
A SE Portland yoga studio featuring quality yoga instruction for people of all experience levels. Styles include Alignment Flow, Hot Flow, and Vinyasa.  www.yogaunioncwc.com

Yoga NW: 3, 3 month unlimited package. Value: $320/each
Our goal is to get as many people doing yoga in Portland as possible, so they can take yoga off the mat and into their daily life and effect positive change in themselves, the community, and the world.www.yoganwpdx.com

Bryce Bugby, LMT: 90 minute in-home Thai massage. Value: $100
Thai Massage is performed on a mat on the floor and the client wears light, loose-fitting clothing. The session can last from one hour to three hours or more. The treatment style is slow, deliberate, gentle, non-invasive, and suitable for even the most fragile person.

Willakenzie Estate: Tour & Tasting for up to 6. Value $200
Passion for Pinot with a Sense of Place is what defines WillaKenzie Estate, a family owned boutique winery located in the heart of the Willamette Valley in Oregon. We produce Pinot Noir, Pinot Blanc, Pinot Gris and small amounts of Pinot Meunier, Gamay Noir and Chardonnay. Our wines are made from grapes sustainably grown on the Estate and their Old World style reflect our French heritage. Come visit and taste Oregon terroir at its best! www.willakenzie.com

Domain Serene: Tour and tasting for 4. Value: $200
Go behind the scenes and get to know Domaine Serene from the ground up. Your winery tour traces the path of our award-winning wines from vine to glass.  Journey through our five-level gravity flow winery, learn the intricacies of our winemaking philosophy, and discover our history where it happened.  If you’re feeling adventurous, we’ll take a walk through our Winery Hill Vineyard, enjoying incomparable views and learning about what makes our Dundee Hills so perfect for Pinot Noir. www.domaineserene.com

gDiapers: Newborn Baby Bundle. Value: $150  www.gdiapers.com

Portland Center Stage: 2 Main Stage tickets for 2013/2014 season. Value: $144
Now in its 26th season, Portland Center Stage is the largest producing theater in Portland, Oregon, and is among the top 15 professional regional theaters in America. PCS produces a blend of classical, contemporary and premiere works in addition to its annual summer playwrights festival. www.pcs.org

Andina: Gift certificate. Value $150
Peruvian cuisine and tapas bar with live music. Founded in 2003, Andina has emerged as one of the region’s leading Peruvian restaurants. Andina draws inspirations from the native culinary traditions of Peru as well as from the contemporary cooking of Peru’s leading chefs.  www.andinarestaurant.com

Timberline: Gift Certificate. Value: $50
Choose your own adventure at this historic lodge on the side of Mt. Hood. Gift card can be used at any Timberline outlet including room reservations, gift shops, restaurants or to purchase lift tickets, lessons or rental equipment.  www.timberlinelodge.com

The Joinery: 2 bread boards. Value: $60/each
After 30 years the designers and craftsmen at The Joinery continue to create beautiful, functional furniture.  From incorporating traditional joinery into Modern designs to recreating classics, The Joinery team is constantly working to stay current and innovative. www.thejoinery.com

Skin by Marywynn: 2 Spa Facials by Casey. Value:  $150/each
Customer review: “I have been going to Casey for almost a year and absolutely LOVE her. She is extremely talented and very knowledgeable. I love her attention to detail, and her caring and kind approach. She has thought me so much about my skin and ways to prevent breakouts and aging. I highly recommend her and this anyone else at Skin by Marywynn!” www.skinbymarywynn.com

SPECIAL AUCTION Item!

Pickathon: 2014 Weekend tickets for 2. Value $520+
Pickathon is an innovative music experience happening the first weekend in August at beautiful Pendarvis Farm just outside of Portland. Come join us for a one of a kind weekend of music, food and community.

It’s been an inspiring few weeks. HHI just returned from Clinton Global Initiative’s 2013 Annual Meeting, which convenes global leaders to create and implement innovative solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges. And, just ahead of that was the launch of the Early Childhood Peace Consortium, hosted by UNICEF, Yale University and the Fetzer Institute.

At the Early Childhood Peace Consortium, a dedicated group of professionals from academia, UN agencies, foundations and NGOs gathered to connect the dots between research findings on the neurobiology of the developing brain and its impact on conflict and violence.  It was a fascinating and educational day.  Brain science has made leaps and bounds in the last decade and now it can be shown that both the environment and the caregiving relationship between child and parent in the earliest years actually alters the infant’s neurobiology – brain development – and that this lasts a lifetime, impacting all domains of development, and with particular and predictable behavioral and health outcomes. These include tendencies towards addiction, depression, violence, school failure; as well as diabetes, heart disease, and obesity.  This all means that the implications of a child’s earliest years are more critical than ever imagined and that the number one thing that can be influenced for the better, is the relationship an infant has with their parent/caregiver – the best protective factor against the hardships of poverty, violence, family disease or trauma and an entire host of challenges that can be significantly buffered all by the love and consistent nurturing of a parent (or auntie, or grandpa, someone loving and caring for that baby!).

As you would suspect, this was all completely validating of HHI’s work and left me exhilarated and ready to share it with the world the following week at the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI).

The week at CGI was an ocean of individuals, ideas, compassion and energy, all out to create solutions to some of the world’s biggest challenges.  Speakers included political elites like Presidents Clinton and Obama, celebrities such as Bono, Kate Hudson and Ben Affleck, and global leaders like Bill Gates and Malala, the young Pakistani girl shot by the Taliban who is now an international voice for girls’ education.

This year CGI’s focus was “Mobilizing Impact” and every participant there was required to make a Commitment to Action.  Every Commitment brings together the key people, organizations and resources to create bold new ways to address global challenges.  HHI met some incredible new people and organizations and together we are crafting our Commitment to Action, stay tuned for the announcement of this.

What HHI contributed to the CGI Annual Meeting was knowledge, experience and advocacy for early childhood development.  Coming off the heels of the UNICEF meeting, was perfect timing to offer the latest research and most compelling case for investments in programming and resources for early childhood, as well as our own simple model of how ECD can be integrated into existing models for health, education, women’s empowerment, etc…  New systems do not need to be created from scratch, the investments are minimal, while the outcomes last a lifetime and global economists rate the returns on ECD programs from $4 – $17 for every $1 invested!  This represents the highest rate of return on any project a government could possibly make.

Stay tuned for HHI’s CGI Commitment to Action and our new partnerships.

See more of HHI’s photos from CGI. 

See CGI’s official pics from the Annual Meeting.

I spent the day today with The Bright Kid Foundation and their Edutainers project in the slums outside of Johannesburg. We’ve met via our shared membership in the Clinton Global Initiative and we share core values of serving vulnerable young children.  Bright Kid Foundation is able to place these Edutainers in “informal settlements” where formal building is not allowed, yet there are thousands of children and their families living in these settlements and they need support for early childhood development and learning  if they are ever to break their inter-generational cycles of poverty.

Edutainers provides the infrastructure, and the community takes charge of painting, caring for and running these centers in their communities. Trained and certified teachers lead the children each day through early learning and stimulating play.  These pop-up preschools serve far more than just the children, they become community hubs for work programs, massive community gardens and create a way for the community to be recognized and therefore supported by the government.  It is a fabulous and sustainable program, its a true inspiration!

HHI has been approached because the communities want more, the parents in the communities want to learn about early childhood development, and what they can do at home to better the lives of their children before preschool. Because of HHI’s success in community trainings, in a variety of challenging settings and diversity of cultures, we were invited to visit and brainstorm ways we might partner.

I thoroughly enjoyed my visit today and am looking forward to find ways we can collaborate to serve more children, more families and the community at large.

We are brainstorming ways that we can join forces for the good of all.  H

Here are some photos from the community where this Edutainer is located -

HHI’s proud to team with HealthPhone to provide educational content to mothers of children age zero to three in India. A portion of HHI’s mother training will soon be available to mothers in India via video on mobile phones.

This is great news for millions of new mothers and their babies in some of the most rural and underdeveloped areas of the world.  HealthPhone’s technology allows us to provide life-changing content to millions mothers and in that way better the lives of millions of babies we would otherwise not be able to reach.

HealthPhone content is distributed through microSD card which can be viewed on the majority of the more than 867 million mobile phones currently in use in India.  The project will launch in Maharashtra in the coming weeks and plans to distribute the microSD cards to expectant mothers and those with children under the age of two across that state.  The information can be viewed without a cellular connection and at no cost.   This means that mothers will have their own personal health and nutrition video reference library, in her own language, to look after herself and her children and family. She can use it when she wants, where she wants, without a connection or cost. Amazing!!!

“HealthPhone is excited to have Hands to Hearts International’s instructional video, in 24 languages, added to our library of resources for millions of mothers in India”, said Nand Wadhwani, Founder of HealthPhone and The Mother and Child Health and Education Trust.  “It furthers our joint goal of providing quality health education that is both meaningful and supportive to marginalized mothers.”

HealthPhone makes health and nutrition content created by HHI, UNICEF, WHO, UNESCO, UNFPA, UNDP, UNAIDS, WFP and The World Bank easily viewable on mobile phones, available in up to 60 different languages – all at no cost and without the need for a cellular connection!  They are genius, and we are honored to be a part of their efforts to educate, empower and save lives!  http://www.healthphone.org/

 **See our Press Release

Recently a group of mothers in Namibia gathered with their babies to participate in HHI’s first ever training in their country, all thanks to a young woman who was determined to make it happen.

Geri is from HHI’s hometown of Portland, OR, but she’s been living and working as a Peace Corps volunteer in rural Namibia for the last year plus. She speaks the language, offers support, training and friendship to all of her new community.  And not too long ago, she made reached out to Hands to Hearts and made a bold request, “please bring HHI to the families of my community.”

This is not how HHI normally works. It was outside our box.  HHI’s protocol is that HHI is always led via locals, for locals, in collaboration with a community or national organization.  But… we were intrigued and inspired.  HHI is not meant to be available for a few, no baby comes with an instruction manual, and Geri was living in this community, trusted by this community.  We couldn’t say “no”, so we said “yes!”.

And so begins the story of HHI going to Biro, Namibia.  Geri spent months on Skype calls with HHI’s staff, read all of our materials and worked hard to gain a deep understanding of not only our information, but our way of training.  And last month it all came to life!  The mommies of Biro gathered together outside of the health clinic, they learned from each other and from HHI about early childhood development and all sorts of different ways to better their babies health and brain development.

The moms really liked learning about general health issues and about the behavior and cues that babies make to communicate before they can speak.  Baby cues is a favorite lesson in HHI, it helps caregivers gain a greater insight into what their baby needs and thereby enables them to better respond, making life easier and happier for everyone. During the training the women enjoyed sharing new recipes and in a short time they quickly saw the children had more energy  to get up, play and interact with people. This in-turn led the mothers to interact more with their children as they now felt they understood the reasons behind why the children act a certain way, they felt more confident in getting more involved in what their child was doing.

Geri reported that the moms liked HHI’s training so much that they have now begun a weekly mother’s club to where they can discuss various child health topics and early childhood development.

Bravo Mommas!  And thank you Geri!