MindLeaps Dance & Data

MindLeaps is working to facilitate meaningful social-emotional learning among underserved young people, particularly children who are affected by poverty, homelessness, displacement, discrimination, and other legacies of genocide, war, and institutionalized oppression. 

For example, children who have been forced to live on the streets of Kampala, Uganda -- who resort to using drugs to assuage their feelings of pain and hunger -- will most likely not be able to succeed in school, even if they are granted the opportunity. Their social-emotional learning and cognitive skills need to be supported prior to their involvement in the traditional school systems.

Social-emotional learning challenges are even more widespread now due to the Covid-19 pandemic given the isolation and loss of mental resiliency during the pandemic. But such challenges are exacerbated in the communities in which MindLeaps works in Rwanda, Uganda, Guinea, Mauritania, North Macedonia, and Brooklyn, New York.  Children who grow up in divided, impoverished, and oppressed communities are even more vulnerable to the negative effects of the pandemic since they lack the support structures to mitigate the negative effects.

In some ways, we all know that the pandemic was a burden on our social-emotional skills. We can all feel this. But how do we really know? How can we track it? Not knowing is part of the problem that MindLeaps solves. Through the MindLeaps Dance & Data program, MindLeaps is able to track, through our data-analytics software linked to our dance program, the progress of children in 7 key social emotional and cognitive skills. 

In Rwanda, for example, MindLeaps can see that the pre-pandemic progress made by one cohort of children -- in the 7 social emotional and cognitive skills measured in our dance program -- was reversed due to the various difficulties and changes they faced during the pandemic. After a few weeks back in the program, we could see that they had regained some of these skills. MindLeaps has a 100% re-enrollment rate in schools in Rwanda as a result, compared to the national re-enrollment rate which was below 70%.

MindLeaps harnesses the power of dance and data-analytics to demonstrably support social emotional learning and cognitive skills in children affected by trauma, thereby creating mental resiliency and educational pathways. 

Dance & Data is MindLeaps’ arts-based accelerator program built on data-driven metrics. Scientifically proven brain change is stimulated through carefully crafted kinesthetic exercises. Two-hour, non-stop classes (Intensive, fun, aerobic) include a 45-minute warm-up to measure grit and memorization, across the floor exercises to measure self-expression, teamwork, language, and tolerance/discipline, and choreography for self-esteem.

Analysis of each child’s improvements in seven core social-emotional and cognitive skills is conducted through Tracker, MindLeaps’ own data-analytics system developed by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, Drexel University, and engineers in the private sector. The program is administered by certified trainers.

Grading is conducted on mobile tablets by certified trainers/instructors. Each child receives a grade on a seven-point scale, for each skill in every class they attend. As soon as the Tracker tablets are connected to the internet and synced with the system, MindLeaps can see change in real-time, make adjustments immediately, and distribute timely data reports to stakeholders.

On average, MindLeaps children achieve a 35% improvement across all seven skills in 12 weeks. 

66% of MindLeaps’ children perform in the top 20% of their academic classes.

MindLeaps serves children and youth affected by poverty, homelessness, displacement, discrimination, and other legacies of genocide, war, and institutionalized oppression.

MindLeaps has grown into a standardized dance-for-social-emotional-learning program operating in Rwanda, Guinea, Uganda, Mauritania, the Balkans and the United States, serving 10,000+ children since 2014.

Children growing up in North Macedonia are underserved because they are forced to learn in separate schools, forced to withstand the divisionism enshrined in their societal norms. They are at risk of perpetuating the system and, worse, violent extremism.

Refugee youth in settlements in Uganda are underserved because they do not have their families have been uprooted from their home countries and they lack connectivity to society, stable financial futures, or independency. 

In Rwanda, children grow up in the shadow of the Rwandan genocide, with continued psycho-social trauma and economic disparities.

In New York City, children affected by parental incarceration must face the stigma associated with the criminal records of their parents as well as a combination of institutionalized racism and poverty that perpetuates the cycle of imprisonment for Black and Brown communities. 

MindLeaps supports children growing up in all of these circumstances with a holistic dance for social emotional learning program, providing the social emotional support to become resilient and self-sufficient even when facing the greatest obstacles.

Since 2014, MindLeaps has provided 10,000+ at-risk youth in Sub-Saharan Africa, the Balkans, and the USA, with a successful pathway to education. This begins with solid relationships and buy-in from the local communities, especially educators and dancer-educators. MindLeaps creates partnerships with local CBOs in each program country, and builds the program from the groud up. 

MindLeaps’ software, Tracker, was designed by behavioral scientists and researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, Drexel University, and engineers in the private sector, while working in collaboration with MindLeaps local dancer-educators in each country. The curriculum, software and rubrics were developed after establishing enough of a track record of local engagement and expertise. 

MindLeaps is large enough to provide a substantial sample for the future research and program expansion, while still allowing for in-depth organizational involvement and collaboration.

MindLeaps currently has 85 full-time employees globally, with only three based in the United States. Part-time certified trainers provide professional development and program support when needed. 

In Guinea, West Africa, MindLeaps is creating a hub for scaling the training of young dancer-educators, especially young women, to expand MindLeaps' impact in Africa and globally.

In the wake of Covid-19, MindLeaps is employing our Dance & Data methodology to respond to social-emotional learning challenges in the United States, with a particular focus on improving racial equity.

MindLeaps is currently partnering with Children of Promise, a robust community service organization in New York City serving Black and Brown children who are affected by parental incarceration. We are in the middle of our pilot program, testing our methodologies for the first time in the United States, to demonstrably support the social-emotional learning of children affected by mass incarceration.

MIT Solve's support will enable MindLeaps to grow and scale our program in the United States. We will conduct a thorough review of our curriculum and software in the U.S. context, especially updating and adapting our rubrics to the post-Covid realities facing Black and Brown children in Brooklyn and the Bronx. 

MindLeaps’ innovation lies in its ability to capitalize on the underlying power of its codified dance programming. Students not only feel the pure joy of creative movement, but are also simultaneously engaged in a deep experiential program for cognitive development and social-emotional learning. MindLeaps has strategically designed its classes around imparting skills that are often lacking in the youths’ current environment, but are necessary for not only academic success, but success in life.  

MindLeaps' program is also innovative because it provides staff members with the ability to see how a fun and healthy dance program is changing the lives of children. This motivates staff members and allows for real-time adjustments when challenges can be seen in the data. Staff meetings do not revolve around guessing, rather, instincts about children and their progress (or lack thereof) on particular skills, can be seen, verified, or questioned in the tracking system.

This is a game changer for the field of arts-based education and even for physical education, another area where MindLeaps' program can check the boxes needed by school systems, while at the same time demonstrably preparing children to become resilient and successful.

Our impact goal for the next year is to expand our United States programming in New York City from Brooklyn into the Bronx, strengthening the mental resiliency and social emotional learning skills of 150 Black and Brown children. 

At the same time, we aim to continue transforming the lives of 2,000 at-risk children globally as well.

Over the next 5 years, we aim to double the number of children in our programs globally, including quadrupling our offerings in the United States to 600 children per year.

We will accomplish this by building a training hub in Guinea, West Africa for training young dance and educational professionals in the MindLeaps' techniques. We will also conduct trainings in the United States and create overlaps between the programs globally and in the U.S.

MindLeaps uses a seven-point scale to track each child's progress in each of seven key social emotional and cognitive skills while participating in the MindLeaps Dance & Data Program. These skills are memorization, grit, self-esteem, teamwork, language, tolerance/discipline, and creativity.

On average, MindLeaps children achieve a 35% improvement across all seven skills in 12 weeks.

Simultaneously, and with long-term tracking, MindLeaps monitors the academic performance of every child who participates in the MindLeaps program to see how the gains in social emotional learning bridge the gap in educational opportunities for at-risk children. 

66% of MindLeaps’ children perform in the top 20% of their academic classes.

Through a dance program undergirded by data-driven metrics, demonstrable short-term gains in social-emotional learning skills lead to long-term gains in academics and extracurricular achievements, providing bright futures for children who otherwise lack the ability to accelerate their sense of hope and mental resiliency.

Tracker is MindLeaps’ own data-analytics system developed by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, Drexel University, and engineers in the private sector. The program is administered by certified trainers, by inputting grades into tablets (off-line for low-accessibility communities) for each child, on each skill, in each class. The tablets are then synced to Tracker via the internet. The comparative results are available immediately after syncing.

The data-analytics software, Tracker, is inextricably linked to MindLeaps' strategically designed, targeted dance curriculum created by professional dancers, psychologists and educators with expertise in working with youth from vulnerable populations. 

Studies have shown the importance of kinesthetic movement in the development of learning skills, and much of this research has informed the evolution of the MindLeaps curriculum.

This curriculum is built around five progressive modules, designed to meet students at their ability level, both physically and social-emotionally. To participate in the program, youth join 2-hour sessions, 3 times per week, taught by highly trained instructors. These classes follow a formal structure and require a tremendous amount of energy and mental concentration.

The extreme rigor of the class is one of the key reasons why students are motivated to keep returning day after day: they improve and see that, often for the first time in their lives, they are capable of self-betterment. In fact, MindLeaps classes have a 95% student retention rate after the initial two-week period due to the dynamic teaching style, the varied methodology and the attractiveness of the core activity: dance.

MindLeaps' staff is 96% BIPOC globally.  MindLeaps has a program model that empowers local teams to run programs in all of our countries. In addition, MindLeaps partners with local social service organizations that reflect the identities of the children served by the MindLeaps programs, and whose presence actively encourages unity and reconciliation. For example, in North Macedonia, where schools are segregated according to ethnicity, MindLeaps ensures that the staff teams teaching the Dance & Data programs are comprised of teachers from different ethnicities, so as to become models for the children for unity not divisionism.

In addition, MindLeaps has a proactive approach to serving marginalized groups including women and girls in Mauritania and refugee settlements in Uganda, people living with disabilities (such as in our new program for children living with hearing loss in Nyabihu, Rwanda), and children affected by mass incarceration in the United States (through our pilot program with Children of Promise).

MindLeaps' staff (including part-time staff) is 28% BIPOC in the United States. The MindLeaps' board of directors is 30% BIPOC, and the Advisory Board is 33% BIPOC, including Misty Copeland, the first African American Female Principal Dancer with the prestigious American Ballet Theatre.

In 2021, MindLeaps enacted a strategic planning process at the board level focused on assessing organizational values and diversity. The process has led to reorganization of the organizational chart, such that each country program is led by a staff person who reflects the backgrounds of the population served by that country's program. 

In 2022 and 2023, MindLeaps is focusing on training more BIPOC dance instructors in the United States to match the scaling of our programs in the U.S. to support the social-emotional learning of children in Black and Brown communities.

The MindLeaps model is to provide high-impact, life-skill-stimulating dance programming to at-risk children, often in association with local partner organizations and schools. The children need social-emotional support through the kinesthetic powers of fun, targeted dance programs. The organizations and schools need children to be able to follow tutoring and academic programs for long-term educational success. The children cannot follow their programs without the social-emotional and cognitive skills provided by the MindLeaps innovation.

With increasing recognition for its successful work in social and emotional learning, MindLeaps has been expanding our fundraising capacity in four ways: continuing to partner with US Embassies, seeking and receiving grant funding from private foundations and corporations, developing an individual donor program, and earning revenue through the Tracker data-analytics system (product and program licensing).

Individual Contributions comprise the majority of MindLeaps' revenue ($472,000 in 2020), with government grants as a substantial secondary source ($117,000 in 2020). Program revenues comprise only about 2% of total revenue.

Examples of US Embassy Grants

2021: Dancing – Learning – Healing, US Embassy, Guinea - $19,613 (Covid-19 sensitization)

2021: Creative Expression and Human Rights, US Embassy, Mauritania - $199,082 (child protection)

2020: Julia Taft Fund, US Embassy, Guinea - $24,935 (work with refugees & returnees)

2020: US Embassy, Mauritania - $47,347 (decrease radicalization with virtual academy)

2019: US Embassy, North Macedonia - $100,000 (fight youth extremism in Cair)

2019: US Embassy/Department of State, Rwanda - $35,130 (inclusion)

2019: US Embassy, Rwanda - $5,880 (cultural dance exchange)

2018: US Embassy, Guinea - $9,825 (improve positive life decisions of street youth)

2018: Julia Taft Fund, US Embassy, Rwanda - $24,200 (work with refugees in Rwanda)

2017-18: Girls LEAD, US Embassy, Rwanda - $15,830 (business training for girls)

2017: Ubumuntu Festival, US Embassy, Rwanda - $7,500 (cultural dance presentation)

2016: US Embassy, Rwanda - $6,300 (cultural dance presentation)

2015: US Embassy, Rwanda - $3,800 (international dance exchange with Americans)