Over the last several months Sujatha, HHI’s Master Trainer in India, has been working with a local non-profit whose mission it is to prevent female infanticide. Female infanticide is an unfortunate reality in India, particularly in rural and deeply impoverished areas, it is the intentional killing of baby girls due to a variety of reasons, but it mostly boils down to girls are still often seen as a financial burden and of little value to their families. Sujatha has joined forces with the female infanticide prevention program by invitation, with everyone recognizing the power of educating mothers and building the bonds of love between mother and child, knowing that the benefits will ripple far beyond that woman and baby.

Last week Sujatha conducted trainings in the remote tribal areas of Kathirvelpuram and Periyakulam. Here she led two trainings with mothers and grandmothers from the gypsy community. And, it was interesting and heartening that the fathers and grandfathers also attended, but they sat outside of the women’s group and did not wish to have their pictures taken – a beautiful first step! In this community of 150 gypsys, the mothers are all very young, few have had any access to formal education, but they obviously love their children. To attend an HHI training, they are all willing to fore go two days of wages they earn in the fields, instead they choose to learn. HHI’s training teaches them how important the earliest years are for child development and how they can improve their own baby’s brain development – this is how happy they to participate!

I am particularly humbled to see these mothers and grandmothers. It is clear that their training site may only a dirt patch, they do not have any fancy toys, books or almost any other resource but their own intelligence, thirst for new knowledge and their love! (And the beauty of HHI is that this is all that is required.) They are eager learners and they are proud to be given a training that is just for them, this is something they consider a huge privilege, regardless of the training facilities, and it causes tremendous pride.

Sujatha (wearing the blue top in this picture) is now known throughout this entire region. She travels on the local buses throughout the area to give these trainings and she has now trained 100′s of village mommies in the importance of early childhood development via HHI. It seems that she has become something of a local celebrity, all the pregnant women and the young mothers, and even the grandmothers find her on the buses and want to sit with her, talk with her, tell her their stories of how they are using their knowledge and how their babies are learning so quickly. The women are so proud and they are eager to share and to learn more. The power of education at its finest!

I just traveled to celebrate Thanksgiving with my family and for me that was something to be thankful for. But, when I see the beauty of what Sujatha, HHI and these women are creating in the most remote and deprived areas of India, I somehow feel that I move beyond thankful, I have the experience of being deeply, profoundly humbled.

See all the pictures – click here.

Also, this training for the gypsy community was so significant, as it is so unusual for such a resource to be available to this community, that the local Tamil Newspaper came to cover the story.

On Friday Soroptimist International of the NW Americas honored me at their annual conference with their “Making a Difference for Women Award”. Soroptimist is an international organization for business and professional women who work to improve the lives of women and girls, in local communities and throughout the world. Almost 95,000 Soroptimists in about 120 countries and territories contribute time and financial support to community–based and international projects that benefit women and girls.

It was an absolute honor to be given this level of recognition from SI, they are a massive group of powerful women who are up to creating a better world for women and girls. Much of my time is spent in my small office, hunched over a laptop planning, designing and making good things happen in the world. I can sometimes lose sight of how amazing my life has become – what I have begun and what HHI has accomplished in only the last few years for thousands of children and women!

I spoke to the 400+ Soroptimist women and shared my story, which is now interwoven with Hands to Hearts’ story. I was given an award, a generous contribution to support HHI and I was showered in appreciation with a 3 minute standing ovation that left me teary eyed and humbled to the core. I really hit my stride talking and the women enjoyed it so much that when there was some free time at the end of the lunch, I was asked to speak again. I told them to be careful what they asked for, but I did speak again, sharing a more personal side of my journey and HHI’s fragile times. They had time to ask questions, offer ideas and again they overwhelmed me with cheers and applause. I had such fun! I feel like a little kid when I say – “I wanna to do it again!”

I just received a very sweet report from Sujatha, one of HHI’s local trainers in India. Last week she was leading an HHI Training for caretakers at an orphanage. Sujatha reported that, “The children in the orphanage were watching me explaining the massage they all came with their dolls to do the massage. They asked me to stop teaching the trainees and they wanted me to teach for them.”

I can just envision all the children bringing their dolls in and practicing giving the baby massage to care for them. I am sure they had fun, building confidence, empathy and nurturing. Just another small act for greater peace in our world.

HHI’s recent collaboration with Christine Chaille and Frank Mahler of Portland State University to create a culturally neutral and globally applicable training for parents/caregivers and teachers in the importance of early childhood development is almost complete - and it is revolutionary! First, it is designed to empower parents, teachers and other care-givers in how their direct actions can better their child’s development. All other early child development training tools focus mostly on listing developmental milestones and do not empower adults on the difference they can make in their day-to-day nurturing, care and interactions. Secondly, the curriculum was consciously created to be culturally neutral. This means that the language, activities and examples were all very carefully chosen with the support of HHI’s experts to be applicable anywhere in the world! It empowers people to act, regardless of specific toys or resources. This curriculum will be translated into over 20 languages, to be used in profoundly impoverished areas, and it will be infused local language, games, songs, dance, and stories to be true to the culture.

PSU’s partnership with HHI will ultimately affect the lives of hundreds-of-thousands of children in developing countries. They are providing the tools that will help overturn the status quo in how orphaned and vulnerable children worldwide are cared for. International aid organizations are already contacting HHI to discuss how they can use HHI’s training model and materials to train the caregivers in their early child health programs. They have visions of using it in a wide range of areas, including: orphanages, refugee camps, resettlement communities, in conflict zones, with HIV/AIDS affected children, and in severely impoverished communities.

I have just returned from three weeks in India where HHI hosted its first Trainer’s Conference. It was an exciting opportunity for all of our Trainers, from three states in India (Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Orissa) to work and learn together. It was also our first test run for HHI’s new early childhood development curriculum.

Our new curriculum was written by Christine Chaille, PhD and Frank Mahler, MS. Chaille is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at Portland State University. Both Christine and Frank came to Chennai in October 2007 to spend a week with HHI’s Trainers. They learned from HHI’s local experts on the ground and got their feedback on how to best improve the first draft of the new curriculum, and they also were an excellent resource for further professional development for our HHI Trainers.

Christine, Indhu, Sujatha holding Palak, Tapaswini, Delsini, Frank & Laura

After this time of knowledge sharing, the new curriculum is in the final stages of design. By the end of 2007, HHI anticipates having the new Trainee’s Booklet, our first Trainer’s Manual and a short instructional film on baby massage (shot during this trip). The written materials will be translated into Tamil, Malayalam, Oriya and Hindi, while the DVD will have dotSUB technology to allow it to be subtitled in 200+ languages. HHI’s complete curriculum includes the following educational components: explanation of the four domains of development; connections across the domains; variations in development; early brain development; the importance of observation; bonding and attachment; baby cues; the role of play; health and hygiene; baby massage; and then detailed descriptions of the physical cognitive, language and affective development from birth to age five. Our curriculum molds to different cultures easily, using local songs, dance, games and stories. HHI also employs a standardized pre and post test of knowledge, as well as a follow up survey to continue to monitor and evaluate our impact.

Initial interest in applying HHI’s training tools and expertise is extremely high! I have had initial meetings with the India branches of World Vision, CARE, UNICEF, USAID, Catholic Relief Services, and Family Health International. We have also been approached by groups from Kenya, Cameroon, Uganda, Bangladesh, Russia and Haiti. By as soon as this spring HHI may begin working with one+ of these groups to help them apply our tools in orphanages, refugee programs, resettlement camps and other arenas where children are in serious risk. The goodness is growing to greatness!