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My Turn by Felicia Tripp Folsom

From The Asian Reporter, V17, #44 (October 30, 2007), page 6.

I take a keen interest in international development work, inspired by a friend who spent several years working in South America with the Peace Corps. More specifically, my interest is in alleviating all aspects of injustice and poverty. And, as a writer, raising awareness is one way to make a meaningful difference in a community.

Last month I discovered a nonprofit based in Portland that provides orphans in India a second chance at life. Hands to Hearts International (HHI) trains women in developing countries to improve childcare for orphans and other vulnerable children in their most critical years of development. As part of the training, women learn how to promote the language, social, cognitive, and physical skills necessary for healthy early childhood development and the vital importance of attachment and bonding. Part of the training also includes teaching the practice of baby massage.

Through the attachment to a loving caregiver that HHI promotes, the children also learn the bonding skills they need to become emotionally healthy adults — ones who have the capability to love and be loved.

Founded by Portlander Laura Peterson, HHI launched ground operations in India in February 2006 and has since worked extensively in three Indian states — Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Orrisa. It has provided a total of 45 childcare trainings to 580 women, who are bettering the care they provide to 4,065 orphaned and vulnerable children. Through a partnership announced in June with the world’s largest childhood development program — Integrated Child Development Services — HHI will reach thousands more children in the coming year.

Peterson, who spends months each year in India for her work with HHI, returned to the country earlier this month to host the organization’s first annual Trainer’s Conference.

HHI’s success is not measured only in the number of children directly served. The organization has seen unpredictable, yet astounding successes, as illustrated by the following stories from India:

Sathya, six years old, lived in an orphanage where HHI was holding a training. Sathya had been acting as a caregiver for a three-day-old baby, holding and feeding her without support. While she may have enjoyed acting as a big sister, she wasn’t having her own childhood.

During the HHI training, Laura invited Sathya to come and get her very own "baby massage." She was initially reluctant, but she was too curious to pass up the chance. Very soon, she was lying down, playing with a bumpy pink ball and soaking up the loving touch of her caregiver.

After the first session, both Sathya and her caregiver were beaming with joy and connection. When the caregiver asked Sathya if she wanted to come in each day to the HHI training to be her massage partner, her answer was pure and clear when Sathya threw her arms around her and kissed her on the cheek.

Vijaya Lakshmi, an HHI trainee since February 2006, called Laura one day bubbling with pride to tell her about a miracle she had recently caused. Vijaya’s friend’s elderly mother was very sick and had been in the hospital with an unidentifiable neurological condition. The woman was in a great deal of pain, had partial paralysis of her arms and legs, and after weeks in the hospital was showing no improvement.

Vijaya contacted the doctors at the hospital and proudly told them that she was trained in healing massage, which she learned from HHI. She offered to give massage to this woman daily — for free. Everyone agreed to the arrangement and within a few weeks the woman showed radical healing and walked right out of the hospital, astounding and inspiring the hospital staff.

To see pictures of Sathya and Vijaya, and to learn more about HHI’s work as told from the ground, visit Peterson’s blog at <www.handstohearts.blogspot.com>.

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Founded: 2004

Headquarters: Portland, Oregon

Leadership: Laura Peterson, executive director and founder

Impact: Following an HHI training, infants and children are healthier, recover quicker when they are sick (thereby needing fewer medicines), show increased weight gain, and are easier to soothe. Caregivers are more nurturing and responsive to the babies, show greater confidence and pride, and create improved hygiene and general working conditions at the orphanages.

Partners: Journeys of the Heart, Portland State University, St. Jude’s Charitable Trust, and Viswa Yuva Kendra

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