This week in Tirupati, Andra Pradesh, India, our partnership with Save the Children India launched! We’ve been keeping our lips sealed about this partnership until the contract was signed and we were 100% sure it was going to happen. Its exciting to finally share this big news.

Save the Children has been around since 1919 and works in 120 countries around the world. They work on issues related to children’s rights, survival, protection, development and participation.

Prior to partnering with HHI, Save the Children India didn’t have any birth to three specific programming. Enter HHI! Our local trainers from Odisha traveled to Tirupati to train some of Save’s staff and local childcare workers from India’s Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) and certify them in our curriculum. Now Save the Children’s team will go on to lead HHI trainings for ICDS staff at 264 childcare centers around the region. Within one year, our partnership has the potential to train more than 8,300 caregivers, who in turn will improve the care for nearly 17,000 children!

This partnership is a perfect example of how HHI grows through partnerships with existing organizations to reach the most children at the earliest time possible.

“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!

Fifteen years ago, in the small Indian village of Sanjamura, a baby girl was born into a family that was grieving the recent loss of a son. This baby girl was named Suchitra, but no one called her by her name, her family was mired in grief and did not welcome her with joy or love. So, as Suchitra grew up, she never spoke. She was taken to doctors for examination, but they found no medical reason for her silence, and it was clear that she could hear and that she understood what other’s said… but still she remained silent.

Then something happened. Suchitra’s sister-in-law attended an HHI training. There she heard how important it was to talk to babies, to coo and smile, to make eye contact, and call them by their names. She learned that this is how babies learn to speak. It occurred to her that Suchitra had never been given these simple gifts.

After the HHI training she returned to her home committed to speaking to Suchitra every day – with love! And, she instructed everyone else in the family to do so as well.

After 15 years of silence and loneliness, followed by only 3 months of LOVE and interaction – Suchitra began to speak!

It is never too early, or too late for Love!

HHI trained a group of village mommies in Jagipathur, Orissa, India in March 2011.

We recently returned to check in with them.  They were given HHI Peace Hearts made by children in Portland, OR and they made some to return.  An exchange of love and heart!

See all the photos from the day on our Flickr page – click here.

What began as a caregiver training for a few orphanages in southern India has blossomed into something of a phenomenon.  Now, in less than six years, HHI is tipping the massive milestone of reaching 100,000 people!  We have trained mothers, fathers, health workers, midwives, day care and orphanage workers. They, in turn, are providing better care, more love and improved health for the children they care for.

Yesterday, as the world’s population tipped seven billion people, HHI hosted a training for 14 Integrated Child Development Service (ICDS) workers (similar to US Head Start teachers) in Sanahula village and two additional mommy trainings in the remote area of Orissa, India.

Here’s Laura, HHI’s founder and executive director, with HHI trainers and the ICDS workers, all from different villages in India. Each one of them will be able to take what they’ve learned back to their village and share it with coworkers, families of the children they care for, their own family and friends and the list goes on. This is how HHI’s ripple effect has enabled us to reach far more than the 100,000 people we’ve directly impacted!

Laura was able to celebrate with local mommies, ICDS workers and HHI’s trainers yesterday. She’s also hosting HHI’s annual Trainer’s Conference before heading off to Singapore to present at The Asia-Pacific Regional Conference on Early Childhood Development.

Check out this video from Laura to see HHI in action: