Heights and Minds' Highlights of 2021

We wish you all a very happy, healthy, successful, and fun 2022!!!

Despite Covid measures Heights and Minds is very pleased to report considerable progress. Below we've provided an overview of the highlights of 2021.

We look very much forward to an exciting 2022, we wish everyone the very best and above all good health.

The Heights and Minds team

RRC won the Stunting Prevention Innovation Award under the category of Community Empowerment

We were extremely proud that the RRC in Rancaekek won the prestigious Habibie/BKKBN/KemKes Association Stunting Prevention Innovation Award in the category Community Empowerment.

The first Heights and Minds cooking show between Indonesia and Senegal

In 2021, the first virtual Heights and Minds cooking show between the MindUp in Indonesia RRC and the MindUp in Senegal Tawfekh Keur Jaboot took place!

As a start of setting up the Global Network, students from the University of Applied Sciences Amsterdam who followed a minor in Global Health helped us to organize a virtual cooking competition between the MindUp in Indonesia and Senegal. They investigated which ingredients that are suitable for complementary feeding are available in both countries. MindUp Managers (MUMs) in Indonesia and Senegal were then asked to prepare a dish with tomato, carrot, pumpkin, and/or peanuts. They could come up with their own recipes, keeping in mind the right consistency for children 6-24 months old.

We plan to connect and empower all MUMs around the world in a Global Network where they can learn from each other and share experiences.

A new MindUp will be opened in March 2022 in collaboration with our local partner Kawempe Youth Centre (KYC) Uganda

Heights Minds’ Training and Coaching program is ready to be tested with our new partner in Uganda, KYC. Thanks to all of you, we will be opening a new MindUp in Kampala, at the Kawempe Youth Center in March 2022. With huge thanks to all of you for supporting us through the Give the Change, Triodos Foundation Crowdfunding Platform for making this possible.

Global MindUps

Our two MindUps in Senegal and Indonesia have, except for some closures due to interruptions and lockdown, opened and welcomed many mothers, children, teenagers, parents and grandparents who enjoyed our child growth promotion sessions, cooking shows, healthy snacks and innovative recipes and especially in our Indonesia based MindUp new urban gardening techniques.

Our MindUps in Senegal and Indonesia, Tawfekh Keur Jaboot and Ruang Riung Ceria (RRC):

Meet our new partners and sponsors!

We are proud to announce new partnerships that will be developed and signed in 2022 with the AfriCAN network in The Gambia and the Center for Indonesia’s Strategic Development Initiatives in Indonesia. And we are very excited about the plans of the Conseil National du Developpement de la Nutrition (CNDN), our Partner in Senegal to expand to Thiess with a new MindUp to be opened in 2022 in Pout. Moreover, in Indonesia Heights and Minds has started discussions for more MindUps. We will be reporting on all this throughout 2022.

Also, we are very proud to announce two new sponsors: Rotary International Club of Stockholm who will be supporting the RRC in Indonesia in 2022 and 2023 and Triodos Foundation donated resources to support the Training and Coaching program development and testing in 2022.

The Heights and Minds Highway Platform

We are very excited to have introduced the Heights and Minds Highway, the digital platform for registration of our 1,000 days participants and management of the 1,000 days program. The platform continues to be developed and by the end of 2022 we aim to start providing real time data on numbers of participating children. With a huge thanks to our sponsor Service Heroes!

Special thanks to all the amazing students (and teachers) who've supported us in 2021 to improve the MindUp concept!

Together with our Partner Odisee, we won the 2021 Global Minds award for the adaptability of intercultural internships during covid times and sustainable international cooperation. We also were awarded a considerable sum to support the MindUps directly. A very warm thank you from all of us. Also, a huge shout out to all our students who supported Heights and Minds and have now graduated in 2021!

We are very excited to welcome more students from Odisee, InHolland, Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences and Maastricht University and McMaster Global Health programs who will be conducting their internships and writing their Master thesis with Heights and Minds.