Project Grace in Nicaragua

We came, we saw, we mixed concrete!

Carole Mahoney and I have been back from Nicaragua for a little over a week and we are still basking in the memories of our 10 day trip to help with the construction of a much needed school in a rural village.  For our 6th Project Grace trip, we teamed up with Seeds of Learning, a Sonoma non-profit that has worked to improve education in Central America for over 13 years.  There were 18 of us – all of whom were honoring the loss of a family member’ — who braved the rain, the mud, the bugs and the latrines to work with a community in Santa Isabella (which is 20 minutes outside of Matagalpa), Nicaragua. 

The work was incredibly fulfilling as we were in a very, very rural and poor community of families who live and work on a coffee finca. As we drove up in our school bus on our first day at the work site we were met by all of the children singing a welcome song.  We were all so touched to know they were excited to have us there.  All of us then began lining up to help pass bricks from one end of the property to the other. Throughout the week we worked side by side with the men, women and children to build their school. We mixed concrete, cut and tied re-bar, and laid bricks. We practiced our Spanish and tried to make it through the mud without falling.  Our kids played with their kids, moms chatted with moms and dads with dads. We spent time baking and chatting with the local women and learned so much about their culture. In the afternoons we enjoyed (really!) our cold showers and free time, before meeting as a group each evening to share our stories of lost loved ones. Over the course of the week we honored Adam, Scott, Clay, Jim and Pat, Pat, Ryan, Adrienne, Evan, Monika and Shevaun. 

Laughter, dirt, colorful juices of mysterious origins and lots and lots of rice got us through the week. On our last day of work the community of Santa Isabella held a big celebration for us, which included live music and folk dancers. A representative from the Ministry of Education and the mayor of the area braved the pouring rain and rivers of mud to  give speeches of gratitude, letting us know that we, and our lost loved ones, would always be a part of their community and school. 

Catherine Stern, Co-Director, Project Grace
July 7, 2010

Exciting results. Measurable impact. Latest on our Children’s Resiliency Program in India.

Copyright Laura Kudritzki Photography. All Rights Reserved. 2010.

As many of you may know, CorStone launched its Children’s Resiliency Program in India last October 2009, with a successful kick-off training for 55 teachers from a dozen schools in 5 cities. What you may not know, is that since that time we’ve been working in partnership with Sangath, an internationally renowned mental health research group based in Goa, India, to objectively evaluate the program on our behalf.

Specifically, Sangath conducted baseline and follow-up mental health assessments with approximately 75 adolescent girls going through our program at The Hope Project school in New Delhi.  The Hope Project is a well-respected local nonprofit that operates a school, medical clinic, job training program, and other services in a 400 year old Muslim village — many of its residents in poor health and living in poverty, with cultural norms that have traditionally frowned upon secular education, particularly for girls.

Beginning in November 2009, 7 of the teachers we trained at the Hope Project began facilitating weekly one-hour support groups (10-12 students per group) with the girls.  Each weekly session consisted of 20 minutes of a specially-designed resiliency curriculum developed by CorStone, followed by open sharing using Restorative Practices (conflict resolution/problem-solving) approaches. Needless to say we’ve been eagerly awaiting word from Sangath on how our program is working!

The primary mental health assessment tool Sangath used is the ‘SDQ’, which is well recognized in the international mental health arena, and has been used successfully in many studies in India and other developing countries. Midway into the weekly one hour program (12 weeks), here’s what they found:

SDQ Completed By Teachers
- Students scoring Normal on SDQ Total increased from 33.0% in pre-test to 60.8% in post-test (after 12 weeks of the intervention);
- Students scoring Borderline increased from 21.6% to 24.7%, and
- Students scoring Abnormal decreased considerably from 45.4% to 6.2% in post-test.

Self Reported SDQ Completed By Student
- Students scoring Normal on SDQ Total increased from 52.6% in pre-test to 66.0% in post-test;
- Students with Borderline and Abnormal scores also decreased after the intervention.    

These results are huge, far better than we anticipated. Typically even a few % points change would already have been considered beneficial.   We will have qualitative (teacher/student interviews) data by end June, as well as a final SDQ assessment in a few weeks at the completion of the program…but preliminary feedback from the teachers, students and school administrators already demonstrates clearly that we’re onto something impactful, sustainable and cost-effective. 

Stay tuned for more! And if you’re interested in working with us on this very pioneering program — as a partner, donor, trainer — please don’t hesitate to contact me at CorStone. Phase II of the program envisions a research effort involving 10 schools, a randomized control design and 1,000 children, with implementation in severe high-need communities of India. We need your support!

- Steve Leventhal, Executive Director

Project Grace in Bucerias, Mexico

Photo by Laura Kudritzki Photography. All Rights Reserved.

I have been home for a few days now – home from our fifth Project Grace trip – and I am still trying to process all that happened, the obvious and the subtle transformations.  Our group consisted of 5 bereaved mothers and a photographer.  We traveled to Bucerias, a small village north of Puerto Vallarta.  While there we worked at Manos de Amor Casa Hogar, the local orphanage.  We cleaned, we cooked, we played with the children, and we joined them in their daily walks to and from school.  We also became quite close with the staff at this orphanage, and learned that the beloved cook was also a bereaved mom.  One very special day was spent at Families at the Dump.  No mystery about what goes on there – close to 300 people, both young and old, live at the Puerto Vallarta landfill.  Families at the Dump program not only distributes food, but helps facilitate job training, and education.  

Our purpose is always the same – to love and to serve.  We do this to honor our children who have died too soon, and we do it to connect with a group unique unto its own.  What happens on these trips is so extraordinary – we cry, we laugh, we support each other.  As one bereaved mom mentioned to us, quote – ” it’s the only option that makes any sense to me now.”    

- Carole Mahoney, Co-Director, Project Grace

Restorative Practices Training in New Delhi

I’m just back from a highly successful 2-day training of 15 school teachers in New Delhi, India.  The training was a follow-up to our kick-off training last October 2009 of 55 teachers implementing our Children’s Resiliency Program in a dozen schools in 5 cities across India. This time around the training focused specifically on ‘Restorative Practices’, a proven easy-to-learn method rapidly gaining use in schools around the world for dealing with interpersonal conflict, problem solving, and building community in an inclusive and non-punitive way.

This was the first time for me personally to teach this training at this level of intensity and I have to say it was really exciting.  The teachers learned the skills easily and before I knew it they were running practice ‘circles’ in which they broke into small groups and used the techniques to support each other to solve their own conflicts with administrators and other teachers, as well as conducting role play to practice using the techniques with their students.

Perhaps most rewarding was witnessing firsthand once again that what unites us as human beings on this planet far outweighs our so-called differences. Despite ‘barriers’ of language, culture and even differences of religion and ‘caste’ within the group, universal values of empathy, forgiveness, and a preference for peaceful resolution of conflict ruled the day.

Steve Leventhal
Executive Director

India – Resiliency Training Part II

Girls in Doorway, Bast Hzt. Nizamuddin, New Delhi, India. Laura Kudritzki, Photographer.

As I write today’s blog I am preparing once again to depart this weekend for New Delhi, India. In October 2009 we launched our Children’s Resiliency Program in New Delhi, providing social-emotional, conflict management, and other life skills training to 55 teachers from 10 schools in 5 cities, serving over 1,000 youth in severely low-income communities. From all across the country teachers joined us for five days to kick-off the program through a vigorous intensive training. A wonderful informative video on the program can be found here. (Thanks to Dan Herz Productions, 24 Frames, and Laura Kudritzki for their great filming and production work!).

This time around, approximately 18 teachers from the first cohort will be joining me for a 2 day follow-up training, focused primarily on the use of Restorative Practices in schools. If you’re not familiar with this wonderful body of work, Restorative Practices is an exciting emerging field of study that enables people to build and repair relationships and community and effectively deal with conflict.  Drawing upon theory, research and practice from the fields of education, counseling, criminal justice, social work and organizational management, Restorative Practices are used to help individuals and organizations build equitable social connections and achieve social discipline and effectiveness through an easy-to-learn participatory learning and decision-making process.

I’ll also be checking in on the status of our pilot research project with 100 schoolgirls at the Hope Project, a local nonprofit that operates in Basti Hzt Nizamuddin, a 400 year-old low-income Muslim community in the heart of New Delhi. Most of these girls, ages 12 to 18, are the first generation in their family to gain a formal education and many of their parents are illiterate. Health indicators in the basti are also very low. Its been an honor to work with such a dedicated group of teachers and students and I’m looking forward to gaining feedback on the program. 

 

CorStone’s Launch of Children’s Resiliency Program in India was a Life-Changing Experience for All

Hope Project students. New Delhi, India. Laura Kudritzki, photographer. All rights reserved.

This October, CorStone launched its Children’s Resiliency Program in New Delhi, India to provide social-emotional, conflict management, and other life skills training to over 1,000 youth in severely low-income communities across the country. Over fifty teachers from ten schools in five cities joined us for five days to kick-off the program through a vigorous intensive training.

Teachers traveled far and wide to attend the training. A priest and two nuns drove for five hours and then stood on an Indian train for eighteen hours for the sole purpose of participating in this project. Four teachers drove for four days directly from the Indian/Pakistani border in Kashmir, where their school consists of a student body in which 150 out of the 450 children have lost a parent to the war or its omnipresent conflict.

The training brought together a diverse group of educators from the Hindu, Christian, Muslim and Buddhist communities, all serving at-risk school children.  All of these teachers have been working in non-profit, alternative schools that serve the most needy, orphans, homeless, and those in the still-existing, lowest level of the Indian caste system—often referred to as ‘untouchables’.

The magnitude of enthusiasm, passion and dedication throughout the training was felt, shared and fueled by all. Each participant emerged from the collective experience more educated, inspired and deeply moved in a way that was life changing for each of us. I was pleased to see that the training was met with more than a substantial amount of commitment by all the teachers to successfully catapult the program into their schools. We will be providing ongoing mentorship to the teachers through monthly Skype calls.

In particular, CorStone will be supporting an in-depth program pilot with 100 schoolgirls at the Hope Project, a local nonprofit that operates in Basti Hzt Nizamuddin, a 400 year-old low-income Muslim community in New Delhi. Most of these girls, ages 12 to 18, are the first generation in their family to gain a formal education.

CorStone has partnered with Sangath, a local mental, behavioral and developmental health organization, to undertake a formal evaluation of the program. Sangath was the winner of the prestigious MacArthur Foundation 2008 International Award for Creative and Effective Institutions.

Lastly, a special thanks to photographer Laura Kudritzki, for her exquisite pics of the event and chronicling of life in Basti Hzt Nizamuddin. Pictures can be found here!

New CorStone program for low-income parents delivers dramatic results.

Measurable results. Remarkable impact.
CorStone’s new Family Resilience Program, builds emotional resiliency in at-risk parents of young children. Resilience helps people function competently, powerfully and peacefully under stress. It allows them to recover from setback, trauma, or adversity, make healthful choices, and solve problems on every scale. 

CorStone’s program seeks to reduce the likelihood of child abuse, domestic violence, parental depression, anxiety, and isolation. The program addresses barriers to effective parenting and healthy communication in the family by increasing parental coping skills and decreasing stress. The program was supported in part by the Bella Vista Foundation and the First 5 Marin Children and Families Commission.

Fresh data indicates that CorStone’s unique approach had a measurable and dramatic impact on improving participants’ outlook, happiness, self-image and family communication skills.

Surveys of 32 mothers of young children in the immigrant-rich, low-income Canal neighborhood of San Rafael, California, showed that before participating in CorStone’s new program, which began in April 2009, only 6% said they were “very optimistic” about their future. After completing the 8 week program, almost 10 times as many—58%—reported being “very optimistic.”

Before the deployment of CorStone’s program, only 41% described themselves as generally happy. 8 weeks later, 81% described themselves as generally happy. When asked about their self-image at the start of the program, a scant 28% said they were happy or very happy with themselves. Within two months, fully 84% said they had become happy or very happy with themselves.

Other results were also very positive and equally impressive as exemplified by a participating mother who reflected, “I can finally parent my children positively and I feel I have all the tools I need”.

During the program’s eight weeks, the number of participants who felt “cut off from others” in their daily lives dropped from 16% to 4%. Those who reported feeling “connected” to their children most or all of the time increased from 38% to 54%. And, most dramatically, those who said they communicated positively with their spouse jumped from 6% to 62%.

A compelling solution for challenging times.
What’s going on here? If this were a medication, nearly everybody would want some. If we sold stock, there would be a stampede of investors ready to buy. But there’s no magic pill or insider investment tip. Just a timely and well-defined program that addresses a significant community-at-risk need, which is delivered by qualified and well-trained facilitators.

And although we are a nonprofit and sell no stock, CorStone is attracting supporters and donors who recognize that our programs, tools and services really can and do develop, support and foster emotional resilience in children, families and communities. The more resilience people acquire, the better they are able to deal with crisis and conflict. And the more peace they find in their daily and often times challenging lives.

It’s all in the details
In the Canal neighborhood of San Rafael, each weekly 90-minute session began with a half hour Spanish language presentation of parenting curriculum, followed by facilitated peer support using the ‘Attitudinal Healing’ support model developed at CorStone over the past 35 years.

A similar CorStone program, this time in English, began in July 2009 with 20 young mothers in the largely African-American community of Marin City. We are also collecting data to measure our impact there.

A future of possibilities
These are exciting times for CorStone as we reach out with new low cost/high impact programs and possibilities to better our world – one that chooses love over fear, compassion over indifference, and forgiveness over blame in the face of crisis.

We encourage you to check back to our website and this blog to see the latest results from all of our initiatives. And as always, we thank you for your continued support and confidence in our efforts.

Please visit us at CorStone to learn more.

Steve Leventhal, Executive Director

Resiliency in Challenging Times

Tough times. A shared crisis hitting us individually and in our communities at a level that most of us have never experienced in our lifetime.

An economic tsunami. Two major wars. Forty million Americans without healthcare…

Fostering Emotional Resiiency

And that’s just in the U.S. Across the world there’s global warming and growing famine. Some 4 billion people – nearly 70% of the world’s population – live on less than $2 per day, with little cause for hope that their plight may end soon.

Our problems involve economics, politics, public health and safety. So do their solutions.

But these problems are also distinctly human. To solve them, each of us must choose not just what we’re going to do, but also who we are going to be.

I’m referring to the attitude we adopt, and the values we hold, in crisis.

At CorStone we focus on “Emotional Resiliency.” We support Emotional Resiliency in children and families, developing innovative low-cost models to provide these services to the most vulnerable, wherever they may be.

Emotional Resiliency refers to the ability within each of us – alone or within communities – to make positive, healthful choices when faced with adversity. It enables us to join together rather than isolate ourselves when times get tough, to communicate peacefully yet effectively as we work together to address our problems.

That process can draw on our sense of persistence, humor, emotional regulation, and a connection with something greater. But underlying it is the role of attitude.

Will our personal attitude be one of peace, kindness and forgiveness? Will each of us make a loving choice to reach out and join others in constructive solutions? Or will fear and anger drive us to withdraw, isolate and blame?

Experts in the field of humanitarian aid talk about striving to “build back better” after a natural disaster. That same notion applies to Emotional Resilience, where we ask, ”How can we respond to today’s crises in ways that build ourselves back better?”

A simple practice that opens us up to this key shift toward a resilient attitude is to carve out a moment for peace in your day.  If you share my wish that the world were more peaceful, and if you care about what kind of planet we will hand to our children, start by creating even a small moment of peace each day in your own head and heart. Share that moment with your family or a friend. And watch it spread. For how else and where else does peace begin?

The responsibility for a better life starts with us. Not just what we do, but who we wish to be in this process. What an amazing time…our choices are key.

Please visit us at CorStone to learn more.

Steve Leventhal, Executive Director