Village of Hope Adoption Policy

Village of Hope Adoption Policy

Introduction:  Village of Hope is an NGO that focuses on comprehensive development programs for abjectly poor villages in rural Ethiopia.  One of our major concerns is the welfare of the children in the villages, who are almost universally malnourished, neglected, ill, and abused.  Many of these children are orphans (usually suffering benign neglect that often has life threatening consequences),  as many are high risk children ( on the run from the malignancy of rape, incest, involuntary servitude and slavery, genital mutilation, abduction, being sold or traded by their fathers -desperate children whose lives are at risk every day of their life ), others are just in big trouble.  We want to help them all and we have programs to do that.  We are building a High Risk Children Center (HRCC)to provide a complete care, education, and caring package to 300 kids that will shortly be living with us.  We are also building a family rehabilitation center (FRC), where as many as 600 kids and families will be provided support each month (on parenting skills, supplementary feeding of children, making psychologists and social workers available for consulting with families, and the like) while kids in trouble continue to live with their families, as dysfunctional as they sometimes may be.  We have assume none of these kids will be adopted, but we welcome both prospective domesitc parents (for whom we are working on incentives to adopt Ethiopian children - unheard of to date), and prospective international parents.  We cannot plan on any adoptions, but we welcome good families for any of our kids that are adoptable ("adoptable as defined by applicable national and international standards and conventions in both Ethiopia and the receiving country.")  The problem is that we tend to loose our shirt on adoptions.  Getting the paperwork done is crazy expensive!!  We can't do it anymore, or if we do it, we have to be reimbursed for all our expenses, otherwise we can't care for the kids in the HRCC.  We abide by all laws and standards of both the sending and receiving countries in all aspects of the adoption process.  The legal process is different for each child, depending on their family situation and where they live, so it is difficult to predict, in advance, what the costs might be for governmental approval of any given adoptive child. For these reasons, we are forced into the following policy on adoptions:

Policies

1.  We are not in the adoption business, we're in the business of saving kids in Ethiopia! We are not, and will not be an adoption agency.  We work with families and adoption agencies who have interest in adopting our children.
2.  We assume we will have each child until s/he is fully educated, trained, nurtured and independent. We are fine with that, but we want each of our children to have every opportunity for happiness we can facilitate.
3.  If there is an opportunity to find an adoptive home for any child and they are adoptable, we will cooperate fully with agencies, international or domestic, that place children in good homes.
4.  We routinely do the custody paperwork at the kebele and woreda levels (local) and will continue to do so.
5.  If we participate in paperwork beyond that (at the area, zonal, regional or federal levels), it will only happen if we are reimbursed fully, as we incur the expenses.  Otherwise, we will not be able to participate in these levels of paperwork!
6.  We will release a child, only if we receive the full documentation on the proposed families for the children and we approve of them, based on what we know about the kids, their needs and their situations.
7.  If we approve of a family and release the adoptive children, but for some reason the family does not complete the adoption process, the children have to be sent back to the VOH HRCC in Kersa Illala, until we can approve the new family and release them again, if appropriate.
8.  We expect that when a family expresses their intention to adopt a child(ren), that we will be reimbursed monthly for the costs of the children's care, which is now about $75/month.
9.  Depending on each adoption agencies' policy, we have no objection to adoptive parents coming to pick up their children, but we do not want them to visit the HRCC, or the children, until they come to pick them up, or we release them to the adoption agency.  The reason for this, is that when parents come with gifts and understandably wanting to spend most of their time with their child(ren), it causes depression, jealousy and discouragement for the other children, and is thus very disruptive.    
10. Finally, and most importantly - THE CHILDREN MUST BE RESCUED AND PROTECTED! We will not compromise on that sacred trust we have accepted when we admit each one of our precious children.

Thanks in advance for your understanding, why we must follow these rules designed to protect the children we are responsible for.

Lon