About

Brief Summary
SPIRIT is a global collective between:

  • Johns Hopkins Center for Indigenous Health (JHCIH),
  • First Nations Health Authority in Canada,
  • Te Rōpū Rangahau Hauora a Eru Pōmare (The Eru Pōmare Māori Health) at the University of Otago in Aotearoa (New Zealand), and
  • The Batchelor Institute for Indigenous Tertiary Education in Australia.

Our goal is to create the conditions for Indigenous communities and families to flourish through play, intergenerational learning, and the reclamation of cultural identity.

Project Background
In December, 2022, JHCIH was named a top international winner of the LEGO Foundation Build a World of Play Challenge, a global initiative to fund bold, innovative, and impactful solutions focused on early childhood. The goal of our project, Reclaiming Indigenous Children’s Futures through Home-Visiting and Intergenerational Playspaces, was to expand our Family Spirit early childhood home visiting program as well as create Indigenous-designed community playspaces in 20 new Indigenous sites across the U.S., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.  

To take this work around the globe, JHCIH partnered with three Indigenous-led organizations, including: the First Nations Health Authority in Canada; Te Rōpū Rangahau Hauora a Eru Pōmare (The Eru Pōmare Māori Health) at University of Otago in Aotearoa (New Zealand); and the Batchelor Institute for Indigenous Tertiary Education in Australia.  Together, we seek bold solutions to reclaim strong families and strong autonomous Indigenous communities.

What We Are Doing
The global SPIRIT collective strives to reclaim our languages, philosophies, and ways of being to restore intergenerational wellbeing for Indigenous Peoples and our planet. We envision a future in which all children are born into a world that knows and embraces them. A world where they thrive in spaces that honor their joy, their potential, and their brilliance; grounded in identity, language, land, and ancestral knowing. A world in which caregivers are supported to nurture their children in safe, beautiful communities. The health of the planet will benefit from the success of this movement.

Indigenous play is medicine – healing and strengthening body, mind, spirit, family, community, and nature. Play fosters connection, identity, and balance. Play nurtures the present and prepares us for the future, moving across generations to strengthen relationships, build resilience, and shape systems that protect and uplift Indigenous children, families, and communities. Play enables us to cultivate homes, communities, and movements that sustain wellbeing, ensuring all children and the caregivers and communities that love them inherit a world of safety and joy. Through play, we restore, reclaim, and reweave a world of belonging for our children. We prepare systems to uplift their brilliance.

How Will This Improve Health in Your Community?
We believe lasting transformation grows like a seed — from the soil of community, nourished by land, culture, and connection. Based on our work to date, we have developed a seed-to-harvest theory of change model. Our theory flows through the natural rhythm of growth: From seed to harvest, from potential to transformation in these four areas:

Project Director: Sophia Taula-Lieras, staulal1@jh.edu