Link: http://www.roccobasile.net
This week in Denver Colorado is the annual Council on Foundations, where speakers like Author Chip Heath urged foundation officials to turn their burgeoning interest in measuring outcomes and effectiveness toward “finding the bright spots.” He co-authored with his brother Dan, a book called Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard. I was reasearching the latest news on the council in order to add new reference infomation to my website www.roccobasile.net.
In his breakfast keynote speech, Heath cited the new book which focused on malnourished children in Vietnam. A man named Jerry Sternin, working for Save the Children in 1990, knew the conventional explanations for malnutrition: poor sanitation, nearly universal poverty, lack of clean water. Instead, he went to a village and found children who were taller and healthier than others, looking for things they were doing differently than the ones tagged as malnourshed. He found out the mothers of the healthy kids were mixing in sweet-potato greens and brine shrimp into their rice -- providing important vitamins and protein. He brought families together in groups of 10 so that the parents of healthy children could share their meal-preparation techniques with others. The program ultimately improved nutrition for 2.2 million children in Vietnam.
I love working with my charity Children of the City, and as I read the above story, it dawned on me that this is exactly the model that Children of the City uses in ther program entitled Stong Minds, Strong Homes.Strong Homes (SMASH) is a volunteer-based effort that meets children and families in Sunset Park and connects them with services they might not otherwise seek out on their own. The goals of the Strong Minds & Strong Homes include:
Building a healthy community by increasing connections between community members and service providers;
Children of the City has always believed mobilizing community members to work together for the good of the neighborhood is the most effective tool for transforming a community;
Empowering parents to meet basic physical needs of their children by connecting them to food pantries, clothing providers, employment services, and other social services;
Equipping parents to raise healthy children by training and support them in using healthy developmental strategies to raise their children, which subsequently reduces incidences of abuse and neglect; and
Increasing educational opportunities for children by advocating at local schools and connecting them with supplemental academic programs.
