A growing trend in international development is to invest in women and girls. This is a smart strategy and reaps impressive rewards for women, families and entire communities as those women invest in those they care for. More and more girls and women are being supported in receiving education, micro-finance, family planning and other services. All of these are great, we are in full support! The international development field uses measures like delayed marriage and birth and fewer children and these are powerful indicators for the success this woman will have – again we are in full support. However, how about empowering women in one of their most important roles in their lives, that of being mothers?

Being a mother is an almost certain role a woman will have and being a mother in most societies earns a woman a new level of respect, praise and status, it is a role most communities celebrate. So, it can be limited when a woman in a remote village in Bangladesh is celebrated by her community for becoming a mother, while the international development community groans a collective sigh of defeat. Isn’t it possible to empower women in their role as mothers?

Hands to Hearts embraces a full circle of women’s empowerment. Education, marriage, childbirth, and parenthood mark a natural course of life. HHI believes motherhood can and should be celebrated. We recognize and are now working to fill the gap in women’s empowerment, and the gap that goes with this in the healthy development of children. HHI provides mothers with practical and applicable education about early childhood development (ECD) and we let women know their own power in creating their child’s lifetime foundation for health, learning and societal participation. According to a 2006 UNFPA study, one-quarter to one-half of the world’s girls will become mothers before reaching the age of 18 – who supports them as they cross the threshold of motherhood? New, holistic approaches of addressing motherhood are needed.

If parenting workshops were a standardized within development agendas, women’s empowerment would progress in full circle by targeting women at every stage of life. The role and responsibility of motherhood should not be disregarded in the exploration of female entrepreneurship, innovation, and empowerment. In fact, commemoration of this powerful capacity of motherhood could further magnify the acknowledgement of women’s potential in the economic, social, and domestic sphere.

Former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan most aptly stated, “There is no tool for development more effective than the empowerment of women. No other policy is as likely to raise economic productivity, lower infant and maternal mortality, or improve nutrition and promote health, including the prevention of HIV/AIDS. When women are fully involved, the benefits can be seen immediately: families are healthier; they are better fed; their income, savings and reinvestment go up. And what is true of families is true of communities and eventually, whole countries.”

To embrace an encompassing empowerment model, Hands to Hearts International is striving to supplement international projects surrounding health, education and micro-finance programs with early childhood development workshops for the communities of caregivers and mothers. The mothers and the babies are eager and enthusiastic recipients of HHI’s education. The outcomes are empowered mothers, who are then able to better their children’s health, development and relationships for a lifetime. HHI believes these benefits ripple to us all.

I have returned to Uganda and I have had the pleasure of meeting up with more than 40 of Hands to Hearts’ graduates. I am always eager to conduct follow up interviews with those who have participated in HHI’s training on early childhood development. What have they remembered? And what difference has this had in their lives and the lives of their children?

When asked, “Since the HHI training, is there a difference in how you spend your time with your children? If yes, could you please describe/explain how?” The women and the men described with great enthusiasm and pride that they now make more time, all through the day, to spend with their children. There was the overwhelming response of decreased physical discipline (“not beating my child anymore”), increased awareness and understanding of the child’s communication. The parents are feeling much more confident in how to respond to their child, and they are more at ease in caring for them. Again and again, it was reported that they feel they have developed a more loving bond with their child and their children are responding positively.

The children of HHI’s graduates are more likely to seek out the company of their parents and feel safer with them. The parents are now consciously trying to create loving bonds with their children, they give baby massage, play games, tell stories and spend time singing to their children. One mother reported that because she learned that her baby was learning language before he could speak, she spent more time talking and singing to her baby. The outcome she noticed is that her child now has a larger vocabulary than other children his age.

We also ask HHI graduates if they have made changes in health practices. This is surprisingly one of the most popular sections of HHI’s training. Parents report significant improvements in nutrition, hygiene and sanitation practices and they quickly notice that their children are sick less often and gain more weight.

When asked if anyone else has noticed changes in actions of our HHI graduates, again we hear very noticeable and positive outcomes. They report that both their children and their neighbors have noticed. The children are found to be discussing these changes amongst themselves and they now seek out and enjoy spending more time with their parents. The neighbors have observed that the HHI graduates are calmer, more gentle and nurturing with their own children and the children in the community, so much so that some of the neighbors now call them “Grand” (like Grandparent) as a term of respect and in recognition of their loving manner with all of the children. Many of these neighbors have approached the HHI graduates, asking them what they are doing and why. Now HHI is overwhelmed with requests for more and more training.

Let the love flow!

Special thanks to Christine Chaille, Frank Mahler who created HHI’s brilliant training materials with the input of our fabulous India team, led by Sujatha Balaje. You have touched the lives of tens-of-thousands of babies with more love.

The universe has a way of directing us, and our directions were loud and clear while we were in Uganda! Prior to leaving the US, I had contacted an orphanage in Kampala, but though they were very interested in having an HHI Training for their staff, we just didn’t get it together to happen during our visit. But, as it happened this orphanage was directly below the guest house where we were staying, and every morning and every evening, we would look out from our windows and see the babies and the caregivers of this orphanage. So, although it seemed we didn’t have a single spare moment, we decided that we had to make something happen!

Sujatha, Lydia, Mary and myself all walked down the hill one afternoon and led a brief, but enthusiastically received, baby massage training. Over 20 caregivers gathered, women who are caring for an average of 50 babies, all of whom have been either orphaned or abandoned and in need of love and nurturing. As the women gathered around and looked on, these tiny, beautiful little babes, were the eager and very receptive recipients of an HHI training on baby massage, several of the babies volunteered, “assuming the “oh-I’d love a massage!” position, relaxing on a table, and Sujatha began the magic.

Then the women took turns practicing the new moves, with the babies soaking up the love and snuggles! While we were only able to make a brief appearance here on this visit, our local HHI team will soon return to deliver the entire HHI training for all the caregivers and all the babies of this home.

A few weeks ago I introduced you to the amazing women of Locan Rebe, in Kampala, Uganda (see 2 entries down, Uganda ~ Courage, Survival & Inspiration ). Their history would give them labels such as “victims” and then “survivors” – of war, of refugee camps, of rape, terror and poverty, or they could have the labels of “slum dwellers” or “HIV+”… but I now feel I know them and these are not the words that come to my mind to describe any of them. (And just as a side note, I do not think I have ever seen anyone “dwell” in a slum, I have seen them work tirelessly, struggle, overcome unthinkable daily obstacles, unite, battle, collapse and rise again, and yes, I see them “survive”, but never have I seen them “dwell”).

Last week, HHI led our trainings about early childhood development in Kampala, teaching the mothers of Locan Rebe about how every day they can and do make a dramatic difference in their child’s health, nutrition and development. As usual the women reveled in the opportunity to learn, to listen, talk and interact. They soaked up the information and engaged deeply in learning how to observe and understand what the babies were communicating.

It was fascinating to see that some of the mothers, and the grandmothers, who have raised over 10 children, initially were not able to identify the different body language of a happy/snugly baby, versus the slightly annoyed, upset baby. Many of us think these signs would be obvious. In the US we are flooded with baby books, baby DVDs and shows, and most US parents are hyper-attentive, potentially even obsessive, to every nose scrunch and wiggle, but this is not the case in many places of the world. Consider an environment where there are no book stores, let alone bookstores with entire baby sections. Environments where schooling is a privilege that is hard to come by, hours of everyday are consumed by a long walk to a community water pump where you stand in line under the scorching sun, to then turn back around and haul this precious, though extremely heavy treasure back to your home. These are places where hunger is a daily issue and being able to serve your children one meal a day is a triumph, while at night you wrap your children’s group bed with a mosquito net (if you have one), which make the night even more hot and stifling, but keeps them alive. By now you might have a slightly better understanding of why theses mothers may not have spent their time taking careful notes about their baby’s moods and communication.

It turns out that the component Hands to Hearts’ teaches about understanding a baby’s communication is one of our most popular and life altering. It gives mothers a whole new insight into what their baby wants and needs and it then allows them to better meet these needs, thus improving their ability to care, soothe and nurture their children – the bonds of trust and love grow stronger, in both directions. As one mother from this training group put it, “this has reminded us of what we have forgotten as being the best of mothers to our children.” Another reported in her training evaluation, “this has changed my life, I will never be the same.”

This returns me to how I now describe these women. The words that come to mind are “inspiring”, “loving”, “committed”, “tenacious” and overwhelmingly “generous”. They left HHI’s trainings with powerful new insights into themselves and their babies, and they left me humbled, inspired and more determined than ever to bring Hands to Hearts to mothers and caregivers around the world!

And, lastly, I will echo the same sentiments, “this experience changed me, I will never the be the same”.

See all the pictures from these trainings on our FaceBook page – click

In the last few weeks Sujatha led a record number of HHI parenting classes, all of these were in small and very remote villages in southern India. However what made me these particular trainings amazing — beyond the usual witnessing of young mothers discover their own power in building their baby’s brain development, and all the loving-goodness — was that these trainings were held in the middle of a street. Yes, a street.

When Sujatha arrived to lead the trainings, the local organizers led her to a small community room, which must have been really, really small, as she reported that the room would have held about 6-8 women. Gathering behind Sujatha, as she walked to and then viewed this tiny space were the mothers, lots of mothers! In total 28 mothers, all with babies and children in tow, were following her to make sure that they would have a space in the Hands to Hearts training, and it seemed they knew space was limited.

Seeing all of the women, and turning back to look at the training space, it was clear that this was not going to work. The women talked and quickly concluded that there was plenty of space outside the tiny room and the women all agreed that they would happily sit in the middle of the street as long as they could participate. The village leaders offered a shady street to be turned into HHI’s classroom. The village vendors, pulling their carts would come upon the street only to see it filled with mothers and children conducting puppet shows, singing songs and dancing, and they would find another way to get to the market. Men, women, grandmas, grandpas and kids all walking, biking or driving through the village came upon the same scene, and often before they would go to find a way around this training, they would sit and become a part of the training themselves.

I have always claimed that HHI Trainings could really happen anywhere in the world, but I had never considered a street.Bravo to these women for not letting anything get in the way of their learning, and kudos to Sujatha for her endless creativity, flexibility and tenacity in giving!