Seven-year-old Natalie is a joyful and affectionate child who loves music. She has short-cropped hair and holds a warm, thoughtful expression as she sits beside her mother, Grace, whose radiant smile is full of laughter. Grace isn’t Natalie’s birth mother, but she has cared for Natalie since she was a baby.

“Natalie had been abandoned at birth and was a very sick baby,” Home Free, our partner in Uganda, shares. “When a government social worker reached out to Grace about a baby in need of a family, she began making regular visits, slowly forming a quiet but powerful bond. When Natalie turned three months old, Grace brought her home — not just as a foster child, but as the daughter she had longed to love.”

Last year, with the support of Holt’s team in Uganda and our partner Home Free, Grace completed the steps to formally adopt her.  

Home Free’s mission — like Holt’s — is to help children who are orphaned, abandoned or confined to facilities to grow up in safe and loving families. The Uganda-based organization works to reunite children with relatives, support families in crisis, and provide foster care and adoption to children in need.

Like Holt, Home Free strives to help children reunite with their birth families before ever considering adoption. But the reality is clear: not every child can rejoin their birth family. And for those children who can’t stay with their birth family, joining an adoptive family is a far better outcome than growing up in an institution. 

“Many orphanages in Uganda are not well resourced and there is little regulation,” explains Malia Robello, Holt’s senior program manager for Uganda. “Children often remain in the orphanages and suffer from poor nutrition, limited access to healthcare, social isolation and few educational opportunities.”

Tragically, children living in orphanages also sometimes suffer abuse at the hands of the people entrusted to care for them.

When Home Free first met Grace in 2017, she was fostering both Natalie and a one-year-old boy from the same orphanage. “Her foster son had experienced severe abuse and neglect in the facility and nearly lost his life as a result,” Home Free shares.

Although Grace struggled at first with his trauma-caused behaviors, she devoted herself wholeheartedly to nurturing him back to health. And with support from Home Free’s social work team to understand his trauma, their relationship grew stronger — and he began to heal.

Reflecting on her children’s experiences in orphanages, Grace shares that no child should endure abuse, neglect or hunger in a place meant to protect them. Every child deserves the chance to grow up in a safe, loving family.

“Adoption saves lives,” she says with conviction.

Partnering for Children in Uganda

Holt’s team in Uganda began partnering with Home Free to help complete domestic adoptions in 2024.

“Domestic adoption requires administrative and legal steps that can be hard for families to navigate on their own,” Malia shares. “Potential adoptive parents must coordinate with social workers, government entities, attorneys, courts and other service providers, and the process is not always clear. The expense of legal and court fees is also a barrier for most families wishing to adopt. This is where Holt comes in.”

While Home Free had developed incredibly successful foster and kinship care programs, Holt has long supported and advocated for domestic adoption in countries around the world — and could offer a unique expertise in navigating complex in-country adoption processes. 

Holt’s team in Uganda trained Home Free social workers on the adoption requirements and case file preparation. With this training — as well as additional financial support from Holt sponsors and donors — Holt’s team supported Home Free to complete the administrative steps for adoption applications, including adoptive parent assessments, background checks, family tracing to ensure children could not remain with their birth families, child medical checks-ups, and help convening district alternative care panels to approve adoption placements.

With donor support, Holt also covers the court/legal fees required for formal adoptions.

“Basic legal fees, investigation reports and court processes alone cost up to $1,500 per child, and this does not include the cost of assessment reports, background checks and other services that are required,” Malia says. “For a typical family in Uganda, these expenses are a huge barrier, which is one reason domestic adoption has not progressed in the country.”

The cost of adoption was also a barrier for Grace, who thought she had already adopted Natalie then was surprised to learn from Home Free that formal procedures were still needed.

“With the support of Holt donors, Grace was able to go through the administrative and legal process to become Natalie’s adoptive mother,” Malia says.

“I couldn’t have managed it alone—in terms of money, or even knowing what to do, when and how,” Grace says.

One important step was a medical examination arranged as part of the process, which revealed that Natalie had a heart defect.

“Thanks to that support, [Natalie] got the treatment she needed,” she says.

Changing Perceptions of Adoption

Today, Natalie and Grace share an unbreakable bond.

“She’s my prayer warrior,” Grace says. “Whenever she prays for something, it happens. She’s made me feel like a special mom.”

Still, the journey hasn’t always been easy.

“Some community members misunderstood Grace’s decision to adopt, and certain relatives felt she should focus on helping her nieces and nephews instead,” our partner shares.  

While progress has been made, adoption is not yet widely embraced in Uganda.

“Informal kinship care or taking in a child temporarily is more common, but the lack of a formal/legal structure for this type of care creates issues with child protection and wellbeing,” Malia explains.

Motivations to adopt are also not well understood.

“A lot of people wonder why a foster/adoptive family would not instead use their financial resources toward their own children, or care for family members in need,” Malia continues. “Many don’t know the conditions of orphanages or the impact of institutional care on a child, assuming the child has all their needs met at the orphanage. So we raise awareness of the positive, life-changing benefits of foster care and adoption.”

Through our the partnership with Home Free, Holt’s team in Uganda began holding information sessions for prospective adoptive parents — offering them a deeper understanding of adoption and the process involved. During these sessions, Holt and Home Free also address concerns that are challenging for prospective families to overcome without many positive examples of adoption in their community.

“It helps to have a community dialogue so people can hear about the motivations of families who wish to adopt and the benefits of providing children with a permanent, loving home,” Malia says.

While Grace has also had to overcome misunderstanding within her community, our partner shares that her close family — especially her mother and sisters — have embraced Natalie with love and pride.

They understand Grace’s motivation to adopt, which could not be more pure.

Growing up with a disability and facing rejection from her parents, Grace was raised by her grandmother, who helped her access the services she needed. Through this care and encouragement, Grace eventually learned to walk. As a foster and later an adoptive mom, Grace felt she could offer this same care and encouragement to orphaned and vulnerable children.

“I felt I had to love and support children that were rejected and neglected,” she says.

Grace’s courage has even inspired several friends to consider adoption themselves, and she encourages others to approach adoption with the right heart. “Wear the shoes of a true parent,” she says. “Don’t adopt to fill your own need — do it to give a child love and support.”

Next Steps to Get Children Out of Orphanages, Into Families

In December 2024, five children — including Natalie — were officially adopted through this program, and 15 more children are currently moving through the adoption process in Uganda. Without the joint collaboration of Holt and Home Free, these children would likely never be legally adopted.

To further our mission in Uganda, Holt is now beginning to work with orphanages in a district where sponsors and donors support children — to begin foster care and, eventually, domestic adoption services.  

“This is separate from the Home Free project, which takes place in a district in which Holt does not have a presence,” Malia says. “However, the goal is the same – to get children out of institutional care and into family-based care.”

*This story was written in partnership with Home Free.

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The post The Story of Grace and Natalie: Domestic Adoption in Uganda appeared first on Holt International.

Hai cranes his neck to look through the doorway of his room. His eyes light up and his smile widens when he sees that there are visitors here to see him.

Every day, Hai spends most of his time in his crib. The crib is made of metal, with wooden slats on the bottom covered by a thin woven mat. Caregivers come in to help him eat, get dressed and go to the bathroom. Twice per day, he’s placed in a special chair and wheeled out to the courtyard to sit in the sun.

Hai has severe cerebral palsy, and very limited mobility. He can lay on his back, and turn his head from side to side, but his legs and arms are twisted tightly, and very thin for a 16-year-old boy.

“It breaks my heart,” says Hang Dam, Holt’s U.S.-based director of programs for Vietnam. “When he was in his former room, he used to have a television so he could at least watch cartoons and interact with younger children.”

Now that he’s older, Hai shares a room with a 22-year-old girl with a severe mental disability. This girl has only been here a few months, and before that she spent her whole life locked in her family’s home — because they had no resources to teach her how to function in public. This is heartbreakingly common for children with disabilities who are born into poverty. Now that she’s at the center, she has to be on medication to help her stay calm. She isn’t able to speak, and cannot interact with Hai at all.

Hang pulls stickers out of her bag and puts them on the bars of Hai’s crib. His smile widens, and he can’t take his eyes off them. He asks her to give him the rest of the sheet of stickers. He doesn’t want to use all of them up right away.

Child Welfare Centers in Vietnam

The orphanage where we meet Hai is located in a province several hours south of Ho Chi Min City in Vietnam. In Vietnam, orphanages are called “child welfare centers,” and they are directed and employed by the local government.

This child welfare center is a large, white two-story building centered around an open-air courtyard. The rooms, coming off of the courtyard, have white painted walls and white tiled floors.

From the outside, you wouldn’t immediately know kids live here. Not until you see the small plastic play structure in one corner of the courtyard, or the sports court lines painted on the ground outside.

The facility is clean, orderly and well-run. The caregivers and orphanage directors have strong relationships and bonds with the children, and they work hard every day to make sure the children’s needs are met. With the support of Holt sponsors and donors, Holt’s team in Vietnam helps provide medical care, more nourishing food for the children, nutrition and feeding training for the caregivers, and helps advocate for the children to ultimately join families through reunification or adoption.

But not every child will leave to join a family. And even though Holt has helped improve the quality for care at this orphanage, even a “good” orphanage is no place that a child should grow up.

No Place to Grow Up

The reasons children come to live in child welfare centers in Vietnam are because their families can’t care for them — either because they are truly orphaned, or their parents or extended family are incapable of caring for them due to mental illness, disability or imprisonment. Some infants, and even older children, are left at the gates of the center — and found and brought in by the staff.

This is a safe place for a child to live. But it’s meant to be temporary.

“The government strategy is now to deinstitutionalize,” says Huong Nguyen, Holt’s Vietnam country director. Deinstitutionalization, or transitioning children out of orphanage care, is Holt’s goal in every country where we work. We believe children are meant to grow up in a family, not an institution.

Huong explains that the government has strict criteria for who can and can’t be enrolled into orphanage care. “First [the government] sees if the child has any kind of relatives who can take care of them,” she says. “And even if a child does come to live at the center, they have a plan for reaching out to the family to discuss when they are able to reunite the child and the family.” 

Around the world, Holt advocates for every child to thrive in the love and care of a permanent, loving family. Whenever possible, a child should be reunited with their birth family. But if this isn’t possible, we next pursue domestic and then international adoption. But each of these paths can be complex, and the reality remains that thousands of children around the world live in long-term orphanage care settings.

Holt-Supported Orphan Care

Holt sponsors and donors have supported this particular child welfare center in Vietnam for over ten years. The youngest children in the center, and those with special needs, have Holt sponsors who help provide for their nutrition and educational needs. And over the years, Holt has provided supplemental funding to hire additional caregivers, as well as nutrition and feeding trainings for the staff through our Child Nutrition Program.

One of the caregivers, Le Leiu, has worked here for nine years. Her background was in nursing, which she said has been a perfect fit for taking care of the children, especially those with medical needs. She walks around, holding 22-month-old Vy on her hip, balancing the child around her own pregnant belly. Le Leiu says Vy has bonded especially closely with her. Vy isn’t walking yet, and is small for her age — it’s possible that she has dwarfism, and the caregivers and medical staff are continuing to assess her as she grows. She snuggles into her Le Leiu’s arms, giving a shy and small grin.

“This job is very hard work,” she says, “but seeing the children grow and develop every day gives me motivation.”

In 2019, Le Leiu took part in a training from Holt’s Child Nutrition Program. During the training, she and the other caregivers learned how easily children with disabilities can choke and get injured during meals, how to position them properly, and about the specialized formula or food they need to grow and develop. She says this training made a big difference for the children.

“Phillip,” for example, has cerebral palsy, and has benefitted greatly from the nutrition training.

His caregivers received the training when he was just a baby, so his whole life he’s been fed upright with the proper chair, utensils and technique. He hasn’t experienced as much aspirating, and the lung infections that can follow, like some of the other children have had to suffer.

Philip’s eyes are bright, and he smiles freely as he moves around in his crib, playing with a toy. Properly trained caregivers, and having enough of them employed at the center, have made all the difference for him. But this is a constant struggle for orphanages, which are chronically understaffed. Despite Holt’s efforts to bring in more caregivers, this problem persists due to Vietnam’s complex bureaucracy and strict policies.

Right now, for example, there are six caregivers who take care of the youngest children and those with special needs. But Le Leiu will soon go on maternity leave, and another caregiver recently got injured and is unable to come to work. So for the foreseeable future, there are just four caregivers – split up over three shifts – caring for 14 children with disabilities. The orphanage is doing its best to fill the gap by assigning one or two additional administrative staff to support the caregivers during meals and bath time, and by allowing older children to play and interact with the toddlers after school hours. 

Many of the children here — like Philip, Hai and Vy — have disabilities or special needs. But many others who live here are perfectly healthy, both physically and mentally. Some children live here for a short while, just several months or years until the can be reunified with their birth families. But many others, like Hai, will likely live here for their entire childhood, until they either age out and go out into the world on their own, or are transferred to a center for adults with disabilities sometime in their mid-20s.

Aging Out, or Adoption

What happens when a child moves to an adult facility?

“They stay there forever,” Huong says.

But thankfully, many of these children have another option — international adoption. That is, if a family comes forward before they age out of eligibility at 16.

While Hai is too old to be adopted internationally, there is still hope for 6-year-old Phillip, who has been on Holt’s waiting child photolisting for years.

“They see international adoption as very good for children.” Huong says of how intercountry adoption is perceived in Vietnam. “Because [the child] will have a better life, and they will be cared for better, and they will have more opportunities to develop themselves.”

This is because at even the best orphanages, they rarely have the specialized resources needed to help a child with disabilities and medical needs.

“What I’ve seen, and what makes me so sad,” Huong says, “is that for children with cerebral palsy, or autism or other disabilities, if they have enough therapy, their functions can be improved.”

But while they continue to live in the orphanage, their development is slow. While the resources provided by Holt donors address the most basic needs of the children — nutrition, education, medical care, even some therapy — their psychosocial and emotional needs can never fully be met in an institutional setting.

That’s why international adoption offers so much hope — in the care of a loving family, children can receive the medical care and therapies that are simply inaccessible in an orphanage.

Domestic Adoption in Vietnam

At Holt, our priority is to reunite children with their birth families. If that’s not possible, domestic adoption is explored for a child, and this option is always pursued first before international adoption.

However, domestic adoptions, Huong explains, really only happen for the youngest and healthiest children.

For the children who are eligible for domestic or international adoption, they live each day, month and year in hopeful waiting for a family to adopt them.

The Complexity of Reunification

For some children, it’s a different kind of waiting. These children are waiting for their birth family to become stable enough to bring them back home.

“I felt scared when I first came here to live,” says Thuy. Today she’s 16, but she started living here at just 6 years old. She’s a beautiful young woman, petite with an athletic build. Glasses frame her deep, bright eyes, which fill with tears as she shares her story.

“He can take care of me,” she says about her father, who lives just a couple miles away from the center. But the heartbreaking, unspoken implication is that he’s not truly capable of caring for her…

Thuy says her father used to come and visit her, as well as her older biological sister who lived in the center. But he visited less and less frequently as she grew up. Now, she mostly sees him on holidays.

“I wanted to live with my father, but he often drinks,” she says. “He goes out and gets drunk all the time, and comes back violent… So I feel safer here.” She cries softly as she shares this, and the orphanage staff who sit with her fail to hold back their tears as well.

Thuy says that in the future she wants to graduate and get a good job, so that she can help support her father and biological sister.  

Despite her father’s abuse and unhealthy lifestyle, it’s evident that she still cares for him deeply. It’s a complexity that shows a child’s deepest desire – to be loved and wanted by family. And while the children live here at the center, the caregivers try to operate as close to a family as they can.

Orphanage Family

The children who live here refer to each other as brothers and sisters, and to their caregivers as mothers. Because for the time being, they are each other’s family.

Caregivers will take the older children out for coffee, to talk with them and offer support. And even when children age out of the center, they often come back to help take care of the younger children — or to receive support from the staff as they learn how to find an apartment, apply for a job, budget their money and learn how to cook.

“I’m both happy and sad when I’m living here.”

Thuy walks upstairs, down an open-air hallway to a room that she shares with six other girls. Above the entrance to their room is a brightly colored, handmade sign that reads “Tiem Salon” with drawings of hearts and stars around it.

The room consists of three bunk beds, and in one corner are several clothes racks that hold the girls’ school uniforms and outfits.

Thuy shows us her bunk, but then points to a different bed across the room.

“I sleep here, though, with my sister,” she says.

“They love each other,” her caregiver says smiling. These girls aren’t biological sisters, but have bonded closely as sisters while they’ve lived here.

“I’m both happy and sad when I’m living here,” Thuy says.

This sentiment could describe every child who lives here. Each of them has experienced the heartbreak of illness, poverty, family loss and more. But they live every day with hope.

Here at the center, they are safe, they have enough food, go to school and have their basic needs met. Their caregivers do all they can for them, and are constantly striving to make their lives better.

They hope for a family — whether that means going home to their birth family or joining a family through adoption. And they embrace their “family” in the orphanage as they wait.

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Cambodia

Families in Cambodia have always adopted children — just never through a formal process. But over several years, Holt’s team in Cambodia worked alongside the local government to develop a formal, ethical system of domestic adoption. As part of the process, Holt Cambodia and the Ministry of Social Affairs created a guidebook that outlined the formal procedures required to complete a domestic adoption in the country. Cambodia’s Ministry of Social Affairs approved the guidebook in 2023.

Now, thanks to the efforts of Holt Cambodia, the guidebook has been translated into English, from the Cambodian language of Khmer, and shared with child advocacy groups such as UNICEF and USAID. Being able to reference the guidebook in English will help these groups broaden their efforts as they work with children and families in Cambodia.

Colombia

Bambi, Holt’s partner organization in Colombia, held two workshops for parents and caregivers enrolled in its PROMEFA family strengthening program. The workshops focused on personal development and modeling good practices for children. At the workshops, parents were asked to reflect on how they reinforce good study habits in their home, and learned how setting aside concentrated time to focus on studies can have a positive impact on children’s cognitive and socioemotional development. Parents were also encouraged to consider their child’s medical history, life events and learning difficulties when establishing academic goals and routines.

Parenting education is an important pillar of Holt’s work in Colombia. With the support of sponsors and donors, families living in vulnerable, impoverished communities are receiving the help and resources they need to create a safe, secure and supportive environment for their children.

India

India is home to 139 million internal migrants, including children. These include families who migrate to cities from rural areas to find work. Holt’s partner organization, Vathsalya Charitable Trust (VCT), works with such families in the city of Bangalore, operating a daycare center for children of migrant workers and providing educational support for older children and other essential family services.

For children living in impoverished communities, VCT child development teams often provide support and guidance as they grow up — keeping them on track with their studies and helping them navigate the different challenges they face. VCT recently held a personal development training session for children ages 10 through 18. The training sought to educate adolescents about the physical changes they are experiencing and to offer practical strategies for managing those challenges. It also aimed to help promote self-awareness among the adolescents, encourage the development of healthy habits and foster an environment where participants felt supported and understood as they transition into adulthood.

Philippines

Teenagers in the Philippines who have aged out of institutional care live together in group homes through Holt’s Independent Living and Educational Assistance (ILEA) program. Through the program, teens and young adults receive a monthly stipend for food, regular medical care and other essential support.

Kaisahang Buhay Foundation, Holt’s partner agency in the Philippines, recently held a trust-based relational intervention (TBRI) camp for 16 teenagers and one houseparent living in an ILEA group home in Metro Manila. The camp aimed to help the teens better understand themselves, acquire skills and tools for self-regulation, practice mindfulness, build positive connections with others and promote healing and self-reliance.

Through nurturing group activities and guided discussions, the teens learned to build trust and navigate challenges while maintaining healthy relationships.  The TBRI camp provided not only a time for learning, but also a time for bonding, which will have a positive impact on the teens as they continue their personal and educational journeys. 

Uganda

Many children in Uganda have lost one or both parents to armed fighting among ethnic groups or HIV/AIDS. Some of them live with their grandparents or other extended family members. Others are truly orphaned and growing up without a family. While Holt does not facilitate international adoptions from Uganda, the Uganda Ministry of Gender, Labor and Social Development is now working to make domestic adoption more accessible for Ugandan families.

Holt Uganda recently worked with Home Free, a local child advocacy group, to provide social workers with technical training in adoption documentation, case management, and the legal process and requirements for domestic adoption. In addition, the groups also held information sessions for 37 prospective adoptive parents, offering them a deeper understanding of adoption and the legal process.

Next, social workers will begin a formal assessment of the prospective parents, conduct family tracing (to explore whether a child can be reunited with their birth family first) and update case records for children eligible for adoption. With these efforts, and the generous support of Holt sponsors and donors, more children in Uganda will have the opportunity to live and thrive in a secure family environment — in the country and culture of their birth.

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Two-year-old Kashvi was sick when she first came into care at our partner orphanage in India.

She was small for her age due to malnutrition and was behind in development when it came to talking and walking. But she was soon diagnosed with something even more serious, something that would require lifesaving care…

When Children Come to the Orphanage

Kashvi and her sister first came to our partner organization in Pune, Bharatiya Samaj Seva Kendra (BSSK), because their mother has an intellectual disability that made her unable to safely care for them and meet their basic needs. Children come into orphanage care for a myriad of reasons, each reason heartbreaking. While Holt and Holt’s partner organizations always strive to first keep a child in the care of their birth family, this is sometimes not possible — as was the case for Kashvi and her sister.

Many children are sick when they first enter orphanage care. Sometime this has to do with underlying medical conditions or special needs. Sometimes it has to do with the impoverished conditions they lived in before coming into care. Sometimes it’s because they routinely experienced hunger. Often, it’s a combination of all three. 

“We see that upwards of 40% of children are malnourished when children come into care,” says Emily DeLacey, Holt’s director of nutrition and health services, “with an even higher prevalence of malnutrition among the 25% of children who come into care with a medical need or disability.”

This was true for Kashvi. But thanks to Holt sponsors and donors, there was a place ready to provide her with the medical care, nutritious food and therapies she needed to become healthy again.

High-Standard Medical Care for Orphaned Children in India

BSSK has cared for children for more than 44 years and has high standards of care for the children at their facility. Donors help make it possible for BSSK to maintain a low caregiver-to-child ratio, ensuring that children’s individual needs are noticed and met. Trained cooks prepare nutritious meals. Orphanage staff track children’s nutrition and growth through Holt’s Child Nutrition Program, providing interventions when needed. Safe indoor and outdoor play areas give children a fun place to play and develop. And each child regularly meets with occupational therapists who assess their needs and help them work toward their physical, emotional and developmental goals. There’s even an intensive neonatal care unit on site for the smallest, most fragile babies.

With this attentive care, Kashvi’s health began to improve.

“She not only gained weight, but also started to thrive socially and emotionally,” says Prajakta, BSSK’s childcare program director. “Her integration into age-appropriate activities and interactions with other children reflect her growing confidence and comfort in her surroundings.”

But she still seemed easily tired and out of breath when she played with the other children. Her caregivers took these concerns to Kashvi’s doctor, who quickly found out what was wrong — Kashvi had a hole in her heart.

It’s not uncommon for children to be born with a small hole in their heart, although it often resolves itself within a couple of years. But Kashvi’s heart defect was large, and would need surgery to repair.

Kashvi’s Heart Condition

Kashvi’s heart condition also likely played a large role in why she was malnourished. Her heart was having to work harder than it should – increasing her metabolism and energy requirements. The reduced blood flow can also slow gut motility and decrease stomach size. Her heart’s inefficient pumping also causes fluid to back up into other organs. Often children with heart issues will need specialized diets (such as low fluid or salt), which can also make it hard to ensure a child receives adequate intake.

Because of her heart condition, Kashvi was more at risk for decreased food intake, frequent illnesses, infections, impaired nutrient absorption and increased energy and protein needs. If her condition was not treated early, she would be permanently impacted from malnutrition and poor growth…

But thankfully, with support from generous Holt sponsors and donors, the resources were available to help Kashvi right away.

“Our team, supported by Holt’s generosity, immediately sprang into action,” Prajakta says, “ensuring she received the necessary medical attention and support.”

Medical Resources, Nurturing Care

In order to have a successful surgery, Kashvi needed specialized medical care in the days leading up to the procedure. She had a cardiac catheter that helped determine exactly what was going on in her heart, as well as daily four-hour-long oxygen treatments. But her dedicated orphanage caregivers were there with her every step of the way.

Kashvi received open heart surgery to repair the hole in her heart, and it was successful! Her caregivers say she was strong and in good spirits throughout the whole process. Although her journey was not yet over.

“None of this would have been possible without the steadfast support of Holt [donors]. Their generosity has enabled us to provide Kashvi with the love, care and support she deserves.”

Next came 15 days of intensive post-operative care in the hospital, as Kashvi’s doctors strived to ensure she recovered well. Her caregivers remained at her side while she recovered, and then helped her adjust back to life in the orphanage as soon as she was able to return.

Today, Kashvi is 4 years old and doing so well. Her caregivers and doctors keep close watch on her health, and ensure that she receives the care she needs to continue to recover and grow. She and her sister are both matched with adoptive families, and will unite with them as soon as the adoption process is complete.

“None of this would have been possible without the steadfast support of Holt [donors],” Prajakta says. “Their generosity has enabled us to provide Kashvi with the love, care and support she deserves.”

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Seblewengel Telele lived and worked in the United States, a marketing professional with a big U.S. company. But every time she went home to Ethiopia to visit her family, she would see young children living on the streets — on their own, without a family.

“It was heart-aching,” Seblewengel says. So she decided to do something drastic. 

In her time traveling between the U.S. and Ethiopia, Seblewengel met a missionary couple who worked for an organization that helps orphaned and vulnerable children in a small lakeside town in Central Ethiopia. She moved there permanently and for five years volunteered in their mission to help children.

But she wanted to do more… Something personal that would have an even more lasting impact on children. That’s when she learned about Holt’s partner orphanage in Addis Ababa, SeleEnat Charitable Organization.

Holt’s Partner Orphanage in Ethiopia

Children at SeleEnat receive education, nutrition, medical care, child protection measures and social work support, thanks in large part to Holt sponsors and donors. Many of the children who live here have lost their parents due to illnesses such as HIV, or some parents have placed their children at SeleEnat due to poverty — in hopes that here, their child’s basic needs will be met. For these children, reuniting with their family is always the first goal. But for children who have no family to reunite with, SeleEnat aims to provide the best care possible as they seek for them a permanent family.

Although, no matter how well an orphanage cares for children, it can never make up for the nurturing, attentive care that only a family can give.

Seblewengel knew this, and wanted to help children in Ethiopia by making them a part of her family.

Becoming a Foster Mom in Ethiopia

When she first reached out to SeleEnat in 2018, there was no legalized framework for domestic adoption in Ethiopia. So instead, she decided to do the next best thing and become a foster parent.

At the time, foster care was also a newer initiative in Ethiopia — and with Holt’s support, SeleEnat was in the beginning phases of developing a training for foster parents that would support a new, formalized foster care program. Seblewengel became their very first foster parent.

She planned to foster two children from the orphanage. But SeleEnat encouraged her to consider three children — because they had three very special, specific children in mind for her…

Eight-year-old Yonas, 7-year-old Abel and 6-year-old Jemal were inseparable. Although not biologically related, these boys had bonded as brothers, and their social workers knew they would thrive in a home with a family. They loved playing soccer together, and were never apart.

Yonas, the oldest, is affectionate and friendly. He enjoys helping around the house and especially likes to cook! Abel is witty, chatty, independent and quick to see the bright side of every situation. And Jemal is energetic, imaginative and welcoming — always eager to meet and play with those around him.

“Despite her plan to have two children,” Kalkidan Teshar, the program director at SeleEnat, says of Seblewengel, “she was thrilled when she ended up with three children.”

So Seblewengel bought a house, enrolled the boys in school, and welcomed them into her family.

Transitioning to Life in a Family

After spending most of their lives in an orphanage, Yonas, Abel and Jemal took some time adjusting to life in a family.

“Since the children had been in SeleEnat for a long period time, they had built a strong attachment with the children in it, staff and environment as their home,” Kalkidan says. “This meant there were some predicted transition difficulties when they moved in with their mother.”

At first, the boys recoiled with any correction from their foster mother, saying they’d rather go back to live in the orphanage. They also struggled to adapt to new and different food, their new living environment and with what it meant to be part of a family.

But through this time, Seblewengel was patient and loving. Later, Jemal shared that her encouragement of them to share openly about their concerns and questions, and the daily help she gave them, helped him and his brothers get through this difficult time. 

A time of transition is typical for any child whether they join a family domestically or internationally, even if the conditions are much better than what they experienced in an orphanage. Although for a child who stays in their home country and culture — who maintains their same language, food and surroundings — the transition tends to be smoother.

“The transition to the new home was very emotional for the children as well as for me,” Seblewengel says. “However, with the support of my family, friends and most of all working closely with the orphanage, I was able to understand the children in a better way to move forward.”

And as they moved forward as a family, life became easier for them all.

The Benefits of Foster Care for Children

“Compared to group home or institution care, family-based foster care offers children a more stable living experience,” Kalkidan says. In a foster family, children learn important social skills and grow deep relationships with their foster parents — all things that prepare them for living with a permanent family someday, too. For younger children who have never had a stable bond with a caregiver, foster care also helps them reach developmental milestones and develop the healthy emotional attachments that will be so critical for later relationships in life — attachments that are harder to develop with rotating caregivers in orphanages.  

“Ultimately, the long-term hope for children in foster care is to get the opportunity of living a happy life by finding a caring parent who supports and encourages them every step of the way.”

Kalkidan Teshar, program director at SeleEnat

With support from Holt, SeleEnat’s foster care program has continued to grow in the five years since Seblewengel helped initiate the program. Today, they hold robust trainings for foster parents, counseling and preparation for fostered children, and help provide foster families with the educational support, medical resources and more to help the children in their care thrive.

“Ultimately, the long-term hope for children in foster care is to get the opportunity of living a happy life by finding a caring parent who supports and encourages them every step of the way,” Kalkidan says. Foster care, in Ethiopia and around the world, is ideally a temporary solution, with the end goal of a child reunifying with their birth family or joining a permanent, loving family through adoption. 

A Permanent Family

For Seblewengel, Yonas, Abel and Jemal, permanency was always the hope — and now it is finally coming to fruition.

Today, the boys are 13, 12 and 11 and thriving as brothers and with their mother. While they’ve moved twice since uniting with Seblewengel in 2018, they are now back in Addis Ababa, and attending the same school as their old friends from the orphanage! This has proved to be an ideal situation for them, where they can stay connected with their past, while thriving with all the nurturing care and love that Seblewengel has to give them.

While she is technically still their foster mother, from the beginning, adopting the boys was her greatest hope. Today, Seblewengel has begun the official domestic adoption process — now developed in Ethiopia — and hopes to become their legal, permanent parent soon.

Holt Ethiopia hopes that this family is the first of many to be united through foster care and domestic adoption. Because every child deserves a family of their own — just as Yonas, Abel and Jemal now have with Seblewengel.

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The post Family-Based Care for Three Boys in Ethiopia appeared first on Holt International.

When I heard Mira’s story, it made me smile. She is so happy and healthy now, and she brings so much joy to her family. Because of Holt sponsors, Mira is receiving the support she needs to thrive!

Tuesday is Mira’s favorite day of the week. She gets up and dressed early, just to be sure she will be on time for school. Why? Because Tuesday’s school breakfast is her favorite: fig, banana, a boiled egg and toast with peanut butter!

Mira attends a Holt-supported school in Haiti where Holt sponsors provide a free, nutritious breakfast every morning. The meals follow a weekly menu that is developed with guidance from the Holt nutrition team. It includes protein and vitamin-rich fruits and vegetables. Mira told us that all the meals are delicious and satisfying!

Gladys is Mira’s mother. She adopted Mira when she was just a small, sick baby. However, Gladys lives in poverty and could not afford all the medical care, nutritious food and school supplies that Mira needed.

“At the hospital, I would have had to pay the consultation fees, the lab exam fees and the medication fees. But my child benefited from all these privileges for free!”

Gladys, Mira’s mother

But then a Holt sponsor stepped up to help pay for Mira to attend school. This made it affordable for Gladys to send her to daughter a good, Holt-supported school that takes care of its students in every way it can. Now in 5^th grade, Mira has excelled in all her classes and her teachers comment on how intelligent she is. She wants to grow up to become a nurse!

In addition to school lunches, the school also brought in a medical team. They provide health assessments and nutrition education for all the children. During her check-up, Mira told the doctor that she sometimes got headaches and bellyache. As a result, the doctor prescribed her medicine to help! Now, after taking the medicine regularly, Mira says, “I feel fine!”

“At the hospital, I would have had to pay the consultation fees, the lab exam fees and the medication fees” Gladys says. “But my child benefited from all these privileges for free!”

I share Gladys’ pride and relief that Mira is developing physically and mentally from the quality meals and medical attention she gets at school. Holt sponsors are a blessing from God, and every time Gladys looks at her daughter she thanks God and Holt sponsors for helping her precious little girl to reach her full potential in life.

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The post Love and Care for Mira appeared first on Holt International.

Cambodia 

Our new foster care program in Phnom Penh placed the first child into foster care in late April. After being found abandoned at a hospital in Phnom Penh, the child’s case was referred to Holt Cambodia — which led to them now living safely in family-based care. 

China 

Two staff in China attended the China Charities Aid Foundation for Children’s (CCFAC) annual meeting, where our work received the “Outstanding Contribution” award. Our programs in Meheikou, Huinan and Menyuan were selected as national model counties for the protection of minors by the State Council Leading Group for the Protection of Minors.

Ethiopia 

Construction of an early childhood care and development classroom in Soda was successfully completed, including the establishment of a potable water point, and segregated bathrooms for the boys and girls. This new preschool will provide critical early education to more than 200 children. 

Haiti 

A total of 751 children received medical screening, including 125 children ages 0-5. In addition to the health screenings, all children received nutrition and hygiene training, HIV/AIDS screening, deworming meds and all children under 5 received Vitamin A supplements. Children identified with vision vision impairment, skin infections, and nutrition-related issues will receive follow-up care. 

India  

In Pune in the surround areas, staff at our partner organization BSSK received a 4-day library training.  

Mongolia 

Renovation has begun on a building that will become a service and activity center for children with special needs. When completed, this facility will serve as the central provider of services and support to children and their families in the Tuv Province of Mongolia. This project is being conducted in cooperation with the provincial government of this rural and largely underserved region. Project completion is scheduled for July 2023.  

Philippines 

KBF received another award from one of its partner organizations, International Justice Mission (IJM). KBF is one of its partners in the promotion and advocacy of the Better Network of Care to Survivors of Online Sexual Abuse and Exploitation. The citation was received by KBF’s executive director, Ms. Glady Bunao.  

South Korea 

Holt Children’s Services (HCS) took part in a conference on intercountry adoption held by the National Assembly in Korea. Titled “The Truth Beyond Distorted Perception of Intercountry Adoption in the Korean Society,” presenters from various disciplines provided information to help dispel misconceptions regarding intercountry adoption. Director General Son from HCS and Steve Morrison from Mission to Promote Adoption of Kids (MPAK) were among the presenters. Holt International president and CEO, Dan Smith, as well as several current Holt International adoptee board members also participated in the event.  

Thailand 

Twenty-two parents participated in Holt Sahathai Foundation’s “Smart Mum Workshop” to create acceptance towards different roles and responsibilities as a father and mother. The workshop aimed to build self-confidence for both children and parents, including an opportunity to review their strengths and weaknesses.   

Learn more about Holt’s work and history!

At Holt International, we help children thrive in the love and stability of a family. But our services extend far beyond the adoption work we are known for.

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The post Notes From the Field: June 2023 appeared first on Holt International.

Cambodia 

Holt Cambodia selected four new foster families in Phnom Penh, in cooperation with the Department of Social Affairs and Veterans and Youth Rehabilitation. Next, these families will receive health check-ups and foster parent training before hosting children.    

Colombia 

In Bambi’s PROMEFA program, 15 parents started their vocational training and school courses. As part of their orientation, they all received training materials, school supplies and produce baskets from Bambi’s community garden. 

Ethiopia 

Holt Ethiopia met with 50 families who have received a goat, cow, or chickens to use for nutrition and income generating. They discussed livestock care and management, as well as how to best sell extra milk, eggs, meat or offspring to grow income.  Each of these families is also engaged in a financial savings groups.   

Haiti 

Holt provided continuing education courses for teachers, carried out by the Centre de Formation Deschamps. Teachers were enthusiastic to resume this activity, especially the kindergarten teachers, who attended all sessions related to early childhood education.    

India  

As part of the Child Nutrition Program, BSSK led parenting skills sessions for mothers at three different community centers across India.

Mongolia 

The Holt-supported Red Stone School and other informal schools in Mongolia not only provide nutritional support, but also work in close cooperation with local school and social welfare officials to conduct child protection and educational interventions. In one location, our team helped to organize and participated in “Children’s Listening Day.” This event provided students with the opportunity to voice their challenges and concerns regarding their education and school, and to provide feedback to the educators. Students from 47 classes grades 1-12 participated in the meetings.   
 

Thailand 

One-hundred-and-four families (comprised of 114 children and 72 adults) came to Children and Families Club at two different locations in southern Thailand. The club’s objective is to build warm and healthy relationships within families, serving to promote children’s age-appropriate development. Parents were equipped with skills to help foster effective and positive communicate with their children. 

Uganda 

Holt staff and community facilitators visited eight early childhood development centers, 24 primary schools and one secondary school. A total of 27,800 children were reached and provided with mentorship and career guidance. This effort benefited both Holt-supported and non-Holt-supported children.   

Vietnam 

A total of 208 children at a Holt-supporter kindergarten in Vietnam received health services during the month. The checkups included checking the child’s height and weight, doing a finger prick test to determine iron levels, and providing vitamins and iron supplements if needed. Holt provided this same support to 130 children from three additional child care centers.

Learn more about Holt’s work and history!

At Holt International, we help children thrive in the love and stability of a family. But our services extend far beyond the adoption work we are known for.

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The post Notes From the Field: April 2023 appeared first on Holt International.

This past year, some of our top stories highlighted milestones we met as an organization, such as the launch of our newest adoption program in South Africa. Others announced significant changes at the organization, most notably the retirement of Susan Cox, Holt vice president of policy and external affairs, after 40 years of dedicated service.

In 2021, we shared about exciting and noteworthy developments that significantly affect our work and the individuals we serve, including the introduction of a new Adoptee Citizenship Act in March and our new partnership with grant-making organization Gift of Adoption in November. Alongside our post adoption team, we also addressed national issues that directly affect the lives of adoptees and adoptive families, such as the rise in attacks on Asian Americans over the past year in the U.S.

As we faced another year of the global COVID-19 pandemic, we shared how our teams both around the world and here in the U.S. have continued the important work they do for children and families. And throughout the year, we shared Q&A interviews with each of our overseas program directors — describing in detail how COVID has uniquely affected children and families in each country, and how Holt sponsors and donors are making a tremendous difference in their lives.

But as always, the stories that most resonated with readers are the human stories — often told by adoptees and adoptive families themselves.

Below, we have compiled our top 15 most-read adoptee, adoptive family and donor impact stories from 2021. We hope you enjoy reading these stories again or discovering them for the first time. Thank you for reading, and thank you for your heart for children and families in need around the world!

Top Adoptee Stories of 2021

Finding My Missing Piece — An Adoptee’s Birth Search Story

Thai Adoptee Taylor Beebe shares her experience with the adoptee birth search process, and how it felt to meet her birth mother for the first time in 20 years.

Holt’s 2021 Adoptee Scholarship Winners

This year, each applicant submitted a creative work framed around the prompt, “What’s in a name? Revealing the stories behind our adoptive names, birth names and nicknames.”

Orchestration: An Excerpt from Saundra Henderson Windom’s Memoir

As a child, Saundra Henderson Windom, née Bang Sun, was unsure where in South Korea she was born, and she never knew her parents—a South Korean woman and a Black American soldier. In her memoir, Windom shares her experiences with conflicting identities and cultural dislocation.

Thoughts on Racism from an Asian American Adoptee Parent

Adoptee Kit Myers shares how his life experience as an Asian American shapes how he plans to parent his daughter.  This piece was originally posted alongside reflections on race and parenting from two other Asian American adoptee parents.

Little Mirrors: Seeing Myself for the First Time

Megan Youngmee, a Korean Adoptee and mother of three, reflects on what it means to see your features mirrored in the faces of the ones you love.

Top Stories of 2021 About Donor Impact Around the World 

The Child Brides of COVID-19

In India, and in developing countries around the world, the COVID-19 crisis has significantly increased the risk of child marriage. But one key factor continues to make a dramatic difference in the lives of vulnerable girls and young women: child sponsorship.

First Child in Cambodia Joins Family Via Domestic Adoption

In Cambodia, Holt’s social work team has helped to develop three care alternatives for children growing up in institutional care — kinship care, foster care and for the first time, a formal, ethical system of domestic adoption. In March 2021, the first child in Cambodia joined her adoptive family via this new process.

COVID-19’s Global Impact on Children: Mental Health

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused an unprecedented amount of stress and anxiety — especially among children and families in Holt programs around the world. Learn how Holt’s on-the-ground team in Pune, India is helping to address this mental health crisis and protect the overall wellbeing of sponsored kids and families.

Children of the Red Stone School

This garbage dump outside Ulaanbaatar is a place where no child should ever be. But the Red Stone School is a way out. These are the stories of some of the children who go there.

Pandemic-Proof Care for Children

Children living in orphanages with special needs like Ping deserve to be healthy. In 2020, Ping urgently needed surgery. But due to COVID-19, he couldn’t travel from his orphanage to receive care in Beijing. That’s when Holt China staff, generous donors and local doctors stepped up to help — working remotely to ensure he receive the medical care he needed!

Top Adoptive Family Stories of 2021

One Family’s Story of Adopting from South Africa

Adoptive mom Amanda Kick shares her family’s story of adopting two children with special needs from South Africa, where Holt just launched our newest adoption program.

Thoughts on Older Child Adoption from Experienced Parents

If you’re considering older child adoption, one of the best things you can do is seek advice from other families. Families who have worked through many of the same fears or concerns you’re now grappling with, and who have gone through the experience of helping an older child adapt to a new country, culture, language — and, in many cases, to life in a family instead of an institution.

Our Story of Adopting from South Africa and Becoming a Transracial Family

Adam and Erin Turner share about their experience becoming a transracial adoptive family as they welcomed into their lives two children from South Africa, the country where Holt recently launched our newest adoption program.

International Adoption in the Time of COVID

Hannah and Paulo Lee were nearing the end of their international adoption process from Korea when COVID-19 became a global pandemic —  shutting down travel and causing obstacles they never could have expected.

My Thoughts on Transracial Adoption

Adoptive mom Laura Broadwell shares what she has learned about the complexities of transracial adoption in the more than 20 years since she adopted her daughter from China.

The post Top Adoption, Adoptee and Donor Impact Stories of 2021 appeared first on Holt International.

In May 2020, early in the COVID pandemic, a baby girl was born in a hospital in Cambodia. She was small — weighing just over 5 pounds — but her eyes were dark and lovely and shining with light.

A bright new life had just begun.

But for her mom, this was not a day of celebration. As she looked in the eyes of her newborn daughter, she faced a heartbreaking decision.

Unmarried, and separated from the baby’s father, she feared her family’s reaction if she came home with a child. In many communities in Cambodia, the stigma of single motherhood remains alive and well — shaming women for having a child outside of marriage. This newborn girl’s mom had managed to keep her pregnancy a secret from her family. And on the day her daughter was born, she decided to relinquish her parental rights.

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The nurse at the hospital contacted Holt Cambodia as well as OSVY, a department of the Cambodian government that cares for women and children. Together, social workers at both Holt and OSVY provided options counseling for the woman — and offered support and resources should she choose to parent her baby.

But her mind was made up. She wanted to relinquish her child.

“We always try to establish the family, help the family, so they can have their child back for the best interest of the child.”

Socheat Soy, Holt Cambodia provincial manager

Socheat Soy is provincial manager at Holt Cambodia in Battambang, the northwestern province of Cambodia where this woman gave birth. Soy manages Holt’s programs in the region, including sponsor and donor-funded efforts to help children remain in the loving care of their families, whenever possible.

At Holt, this is always our first priority. As Soy explains, “We always try to establish the family, help the family, so they can have their child back for the best interest of the child.”

Since 2005, Holt sponsors and donors have helped thousands of children to thrive in the care of their families in Cambodia — providing everything from school supplies and food support for children to job skills training and small business microloans for parents.

But until recently, when a family or parent could not care for their child, they had almost no alternative care options. Their only choice, really, was to place their child in an orphanage.

Nurturing Care Alternatives for Children

Five years ago, Holt received a grant from the GHR Foundation to help develop more nurturing care alternatives for the thousands of children living in Cambodia’s institutional care centers. In the years since, Holt has worked alongside the Cambodian government and several leading international aid organizations to develop three alternative care models — kinship care, foster care and domestic adoption.

Through kinship care, Holt works to reunite children with their birth families — if not parents, then aunts or uncles or grandparents who can provide the kind of loving, attentive care that children just don’t receive in institutions. With the support of sponsors and donors, Holt may also provide the tools and resources these families need to care for the child — such as food support, school supplies, counseling and even job skills training for the adults.

Not every child has a family member who can care for them, however. For these children, Holt developed another alternative — foster care.

As Soy explains, “We hire families in the community to help with taking care of the kids who are abandoned, who need support with the foster care. … Without support, they would be placed in a residential care center or pagoda or other places — not in families.”

By the time the young single mother in Battambang decided to relinquish her child on May 16, 2020, a Holt-trained foster family was prepared and ready to take her into their care the following day.

In the loving care of her foster family, the baby, Chivy*, grew stronger. “After receiving good care from a well-trained foster family supported by Holt Cambodia, Chivy was healthier and her weight became normal according to her age,” says our staff in Cambodia.

“After receiving good care from a well-trained foster family supported by Holt Cambodia, Chivy was healthier and her weight became normal according to her age.”

Holt Cambodia staff member

While Chivy grew in the care of her foster family, Holt Cambodia staff began exploring a more permanent long-term plan for Chivy. For the first time, they began to seek a loving adoptive family for a child in their care.

Domestic Adoption Begins in Cambodia

Historically, Cambodian families have adopted children. But never via a formal process.

“Adoption is still new for us. We have done it — adoption — but in the traditional way, not really the legal way,” Soy explains.

To ensure safe and ethical domestic placements, Cambodia needed to develop a formal, legal process for vetting prospective families. They needed a process to thoroughly explore whether a child could be reunited with their birth family first. And once a child is united with a family, they needed a process for post-placement visits to ensure the suitability of the match and the long-term well-being of the child in his or her adoptive family.

“Adoption is still new for us. We have done it — adoption — but in the traditional way, not really the legal way.”

Socheat Soy

Working alongside the Cambodian government — and drawing upon Holt’s nearly 65 years of experience in adoption — Holt’s team in Cambodia helped build out these processes step by step, all with the goal of finding a family for every child in need of one.

Bo Sreyleak is a social worker at Holt Cambodia and the team leader for foster care and domestic adoption. She works closely with the local ministries that now oversee the domestic adoption process in Cambodia. As she says, “We can share that with Holt Cambodia, we implemented the full domestic adoption process relative to the guidelines of the social affairs and the ministry of justice.”

The First Adoption Case Is Approved

In Cambodia, many children come into care after being found abandoned — often in a hospital, often left by single mothers or parents struggling with poverty or other hardships. For these children, Holt Cambodia conducts a search process for their birth family with the hope of reuniting them.

As Soy explains, “Before we search for adoptive families, we also do some kind of announcement to find their birth family. We apply all the laws and we want to do it in the proper procedure.”

In Chivy’s case, her mom formally relinquished her — making it possible for Holt Cambodia to immediately begin finding an adoptive family for her. A young couple in their late 30s soon came forward. The local social affairs ministry in Battambang conducted a homestudy assessment on the family, and found them to be a good match for Chivy.

“They have a good living condition, a loving family and are in good health, which could provide care for the child,” our staff writes. “Reference check, health check and criminal check were carried out with both prospective adoptive parents.”

As part of the process in Cambodia, Chivy was placed with the couple for a six-month trial period. After close follow-up visits with the family, an application was submitted to the court in early 2021 and on March 3rd, the court formally approved the adoption case — the first to be approved through this new process. “We got the final approval from the court for one child. … We’re so happy and the local authorities congratulated us,” says Soy.

Today, Chivy is thriving with her parents, and they are overjoyed with their daughter. As adoption is still a relatively new concept in Cambodia, however, they wished to keep their identities private.

As Soy explains, “Adoption is a new thing in Cambodia, the legal way, and it’s quite sensitive.”

But as Holt Cambodia and the Cambodian government raise awareness about domestic adoption and the need for families to adopt children, more families are coming forward — hoping to be matched with a child. Already, they have another child in process of being approved for adoption.

Next Steps

For everyone involved, the development of a formal domestic adoption process in Cambodia is cause for celebration. For children growing up without families, it is filling a vital need.

“It’s very important and quite necessary to the children. Because there are so many kids living in [orphanages] and they don’t have parents. And many, many kids who are abandoned,” says Soy.

Moving forward, Holt Cambodia remains committed to helping as many children stay in their birth families as possible. Through the generous support of Holt sponsors and donors, every year more than 3,000 children and families receive the critical support they need to stay together. Holt Cambodia will continue to work alongside local ministries to counsel women like Chivy’s mom who are facing unplanned pregnancy, and give them the support they need to parent.

But for children who can’t rejoin their families, or for children whose mothers make the decision to relinquish their child, they now have a much better option than growing up in an institution. They can stay in a foster family, and ultimately, they may be able to join an adoptive family in Cambodia.

Holt Cambodia is continuing to support the local ministry as they seek families for children domestically, such as helping them identify and screen children living in orphanages who could potentially be adopted. And once this new process proves smooth and efficient, they hope to explore another long-term solution for children living in institutional care in Cambodia: international adoption.

“Before we move to international adoption, we need to make sure our domestic process is going smoothly,” says Soy.

But yes, he says, ultimately they plan to explore every possible way for children to grow up in the love and stability of family.

“The goal is we want them to have families,” he says.

*  The adoptive family featured in this story has requested we not provide any identifying information or photos. The name of the child has been changed.

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The post First Child in Cambodia Joins Family via Domestic Adoption appeared first on Holt International.