Folks, I just called CTV in Winnipeg, the Winnipeg Sun, and the Winnipeg Free Press. None of them had heard about the agency closure. ???

If you don’t want this to happen – call your local newspapers and TV stations, as well as the provincial news sources. Tell your stories, tell about the good work CAFAC has done, and see that the Ministry is pressured to work with them to continue.

They need to hear real people wth real stories!

Folks -

I just learned that Canada’s long-standing Ethiopian adoption agency CAFAC is on the edge of closing its doors February 3rd. this is absolutely TERRIBLE!!!

We need to help CAFAC get through this.

You may or may not know, but we were one of the first two families that flew to Ethiopia after the Imagine bankruptcy to get our kids. We can’t let this reliable and long-standing agency fall apart – especially if one of the core issues is the agency’s inability to charge adequate fees for increasing timelines.

When imagine fell apart, the tragedy wasn’t just families not realizing their dreams. The tragedies I saw were children being sent back to orphanages to live out their lives, Ethiopian staff losing their jobs and their own families going unfed, and a blight on the world’s perception of international adoption.

The CAFAC board explains their position very clearly and asks for help very clearly: http://cafac.ca

PLEASE, do at least one of these things tomorrow.

#1 Call a reporter in Manitoba and tell them why it’s a tragedy if CAFAC goes under/ceases operations.

#2 Call Minister Jennifer Howard’s offices 204-945-4173 (ministry) 204-946-0272 (constituency) to voice your support for CAFAC and to encourage the ministry to allow for interim funding and fee increases.

#3 if you can’t call, email your concerns to the minister: minfsl@leg.gov.mb.ca

Let’s unite and stop this agency from failing!!

Well, my rugrats are back home and back in routine. Aside from being a little tired and very cuddly, they seemed to have fared very well at Gramma and Grandpa’s house!

But on a totally different note: a little insight into what makes Sugar and Spice tick.

If there is one thing my kids are crazy about… it’s animals. The are avid naturalists, and love nothing more than to draw, read, watch or play out animal behaviors. Now, this mostly comes from Jrock and I (the whole nature / nurture thing takes another layer of meaning here.) We both are nature nuts – he is interested in animal behaviors and groups, as well as zoology. I’m more into ecology and interactions, as well as connecting with nature. He really likes mammals – I really like birds and other small beasties. It’s obvious we have passed these passions onto the girls. Jrock’s family were cattle farmers; whereas my family is the outdoorsy side. My dad’s a biologist and we all grew up hunting, fishing and exploring the great outdoors.

The fascinating thing is how the girls’ have got involved in our family interest but made it their own. spice is very creative and dramatic. So she loves playing out big elaborate stories and animal family scenes with her stuffies or small animal figurines. Spice is quite the little artist, and loves drawing pictures of animals and nature. She’s also very happy going for walks to watch ducks, or putter about in nature and the garden. Currently, she is growing some of her own pea plants in my kitchen.

Spice likes to examine bugs and other twigs and things in her microscope, always careful not to harm them. She also likes to call Grandpa on the phone and ask a specific question about something she’s been pondering… like why bighorn sheep’s horns keep growing.

Sugar, our ball of energy, is quite different. She acts out scenes directed by her sister, but her real passion is reading and learning about animals. She memorizes infinite details about different species, their interactions and habitats. Definitely, she’s the academic amateur zoologist, along with the same kind of detachment of many researchers. It doesn’t trouble her much to swish a bug to look at it.

But forget bugs – Sugar is interested mainly in cute animals (puppies) and large flashy species like zebras. Just like her sister, she loves it when Daddy finds her a video online that shows an animal doing something (hunting, reproducing, whatever,) and enjoys not only understanding but being able to explain her findings to other people. If you want to know how climate change works, just ask Sugar. She’ll ‘splain it!

Anyway, here are some of our girl’s favorite animal / nature toys and resources:

Schleich figurines.. boy they LOVE these, especially when they have a family or group of them.  Favorites are horses, tigers/lions and the new zebra and giraffes they got for Christmas.

The girls are absolutely gaga for Calico critters – all those infinitely tiny parts and the super cute animals! It’s just so right for their age!

Their matching Falkmanis otter puppets (they also have a skunk and an owl)

Some of their favorite reading books:

And their favorite books overall:

 And their favorite tools:

Favorite Netflix movie:

Favorite Netflix TV show (Tales of the Riverbank):

Once Upon a Hamster!

It’s been quite a while since I’ve posted anything about Vulnerable Children Society on my blog – but perhaps it’s overdue.

The truth is, even though we have had a WONDERFUL first year and a half, and been able to help many children, there are so many more waiting. I have their pictures… most of the kids are small and undernourished, and look sad or nervous. (They are such different pictures than the ones I have in our “already sponsored” folders – those children are smiling and healthy.)

One of our VCS directors recently visited Wonji, where we (through the goodwill of our awesome sponsors) are able to support extremely vulnerable children. She had been to the area a few times before, but was just aghast at the current need. There are so many kids who are either HIV+ themselves, or have parents/guardians who have HIV. The sad fact is, the ARVs (anti-retroviral medicines) they receive from the government DON’T WORK UNLESS THE KIDS ARE ADEQUATELY NOURISHED. So children in Wonji are dying of AIDS, not because they don’t have access to medicine, but because they are so malnourished that the medicines don’t work. They need food+meds to live.

This is a complete tragedy.

I know that we in North America have been hit hard by an economic recession. Many families have lost income.  I empathize with families feeling a crunch. In our home,  Jrock went free-lance in the fall, and has very little work in January/February. But we are lucky, and in no long-term danger. My income pays the bills and we never want for food or shelter. Our short-term strains are nothing compared to the absolute catastrophe that so many families in the Horn of Africa are facing.

So here’s my unapologetic request: if you have $35 a month to spare, please sponsor a child in our House 2 House program through Vulnerable Children Society. You know exactly where the money is going… and I can assure you that your on-going commitment will mean literally the world to a deserving Ethiopian child.

To sponsor a child, please visit www.vulnerablechildren.ca

You can also download our newsletter to see what we’ve been up to! This is all thanks to our amazing donors and sponsors, and super partner organization, Faya Orphanage.

PS: I’ll be putting my money where my mouth is today, too, and sponsoring another child.

Many of you, my wonderful family, friends and blog viewers know that I’m the President of Vulnerable Children Society. A huge source of revenue for us to do the amazing work we can in Ethiopia comes from holiday gifts – please consider slipping a little love in a stocking for your loved ones! By donating in their name, you not only warm their heart, but also make an essential difference in Ethiopian children’s lives!

Please consider reposting this on your blog as well!!! (Get a badge for your blog here.)

Whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa or Genna, a December gift of love for a vulnerable child is sure to delight and warm the heart.

Show your loved one that you care about them and about the children in Ethiopia at the same time. Donate to Vulnerable Children Society, or sponsor a Family, or Community Child through VCS’s House 2 House program in your friend or family member’s name.

It’s as easy as 1, 2, 3!

1.  Simply donate on the Vulnerable Children Society website with Paypal, debit or credit card.

2.  Send an email to info@vulnerablechildren.ca .Include your name, and the gift recipient’s name, full address and email, as well as any special instructions.

3.  If VCS receives your donation email before December 15th, they will send out a paper postcard informing the recipient of your kind gift. If we receive your donation after December 15th, they will send out an e-card to their email address on December 25th (unless you instruct otherwise.)

Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukkah! Joyous Kwanzaa! Melkam Genna!

I really think World AIDS day should be called World HIV Day now. You know why? Because thirty years after the pandemic was started, noone has to die anymore from AIDS. So why, then, are so many people suffering from this horrible disease?

• The World Health Organization estimates that more than 25 million people worldwide have died from this infection since the start of the epidemic.
• In 2008, there were approximately 33.4 million people around the world living with HIV/AIDS, including 2.1 million children under age 15. (From the US National Library of Medicine.)

If people with the HIV virus recieve treatment and nutrition, they won’t get AIDS. They won’t die from AIDS-related illnesses like infections or TB. HIV+ poeple, today, live just as long as HIV- negative people. They can have children, safely, who are HIV-. They can have life-long relationships with an HIV- partner and never infect their spouse. It’s truly remarkable how far the treament, prevention, and knowledge about this disease as come.

“Thirty years into the HIV/AIDS epidemic, it seems downright bizarre that human immunodeficiency virus was once known as GRID—“Gay-related immune deficiency”—because the earliest cases were concentrated among gay men in New York City and Los Angeles. Today, of course, we know better, after a 13-year-old boy named Ryan White and tennis star Arthur Ashe let the world know that what was once dubbed “gay cancer” could be acquired through blood transfusions, among other routes. After a little girl named Hydeia Broadbent who was born with HIV started speaking out, and a 23-year-old, drug-free, HIV-positive professional woman named Rae Lewis Thornton proclaimed her status on the cover of Essence magazine. After Magic Johnson—Magic Johnson!—retired from the Lakers due to HIV and prejudice. After N.W.A’s nasal-voiced frontman Eazy-E announced he had AIDS and died a month later. After these high-profile stories; the sparkly M.A.C Viva Glam and the conspicuously urban Rap-It-Up campaigns; the “No Glove, No Love” slogans; the free condoms at Planned Parenthood; the films like “Life Support”; and the memoirs like Marvelyn Brown’s “The Naked Truth.” After seeing our family members, friends and neighbors live with HIV and, in way too many cases die of AIDS-related illnesses, we now know without a doubt that this thing is ours. All of ours.” Excerpt from It’s World AIDS Day. What Are You Gonna Do to Stop This Madness?

When I started giving talks about HIV and AIDS 8 years ago, I often started with the image of a mother and her child. I said THIS is the face of AIDS today. When you think about the person who is now the most vulnerable to being infected to the virus – it is ME… just black, uneducated, and with a child (which I have now too.)

The scary thing about the HIV virus is that it really is a disease of social inequity. People who have access to education don’t get infected. Btu women who are uneducated, marry too early and don’t have control over their own bodies – these are the people most susceptible to getting HIV. And then it’s a question of access to treatment. Simply put, if you are poor… you better make darn sure you were born in a country that has free anti-retroviral medicine.  If you don’t want to get sick, you have to stay strong and eat properly. In other words, you better not be suffering from poverty or starvation, or you will get sick. And then if you get sick – you better be born in a country that has accessible healthcare.

IF you are so unlucky to have been born in a place where women do not have equal rights, there is insufficient healthcare… well, now you know why HIV still can turn into AIDS. It’s a social equity issue.

Some other quick basic facts about the HIV virus and AIDS:

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) causes AIDS. The virus attacks the immune system and leaves the body vulnerable to a variety of life-threatening infections and cancers.

“The virus can be spread (transmitted):

• ~ Through sexual contact — including unprotected oral, vaginal, and anal sex
• ~ Through blood — via blood transfusions (now extremely rare in the U.S.) or needle sharing
• ~ From mother to child — a pregnant woman can transmit the virus to her fetus through their shared blood circulation, or a nursing mother can transmit it to her baby in her breast milk

HIV infection is NOT spread by:

• ~ Casual contact such as hugging
• ~ Mosquitoes
• ~ Participation in sports
• ~ Touching items that were touched by a person infected with the virus.” (From the US National Library of Medicine)

Some other things you MAY not know!

* Everyone who is exposed to the HIV virus does not get infected. It depends on how much of the virus enters the body.

* People who are HIV+ can father and give birth to HIV- children.

* Effective “treatment of a person living with HIV puts the disease into virtual long-term remission and dramatically reduces HIV transmission”. In fact, immediate antiretroviral treatment of an HIV+ partner within magnetic couples, “where one person has HIV and the other does not, reduced AIDS-related morbidity and mortality in the HIV-infected partner by 41% and decreased HIV transmission to the sexual partner by 96.3%.” (Read more…)

Hi folks – did you know that it’s International WALK TO SCHOOL month?

In fact, in Kelowna this week is Walk to School week. Now, we walk to school every day… we only live two blocks from the girls’ school (on purpose.) But some people live a little further or just haven’t found the time to try it. Now’s the time. I have to say what I like as much as spending 10 quiet minutes of the day with my kids is the 10 quiet minutes walking back alone from the school. I often read when I walk, so that’s 10 minutes a day to chip at a novel, too.

Purposeful bliss, I say. But if that doesn’t tempt you, here are some other reasons to try walking to school!

International Walk to School is more than just getting together with children and going for a walk to school as a special event. This is certainly important, but the event’s greater aim is to bring forth permanent change in communities across the globe. Below are just a few of its goals:

Encourage physical activity by teaching children the skills to walk safely, how to identify safe routes to school, and the benefits of walking

Raise awareness of how walkable a community is and where improvements can be made

Raise concern for the environment

Reduce crime and take back neighborhoods for people on foot

Reduce traffic congestion, pollution, and speed near schools

Share valuable time with local community leaders, parents, and children

I was supposed to be at a conference with Wangari Maathai in a couple of weeks. I was so saddened that she passed away today and I didn’t get a chance to meet her. But like ripples in a pond, one person’s ideas can spread and she will be remembered for her unflagging committment to the health and sustainability of Africa.

For all of us trying to make a difference in some small way, here’s a lovely video to remember her by, and to keep inspired:

As a mother, I can barely imagine what it must be like to be a mama in the Horn of Africa right now.

The love I feel watching my children joke and play… the way I hold their warm bodies close to me while they sleep: these are universal joys of motherhood. What devastates me is the agonies these mothers must going through right now. No mother should ever have to watch your child cry from hunger and waste away in front of your eyes, misbehave and not focus because they are so startling unnourished, strain their young bodies beyond their capacity hauling water, lie sick and dispondant in a makeshift bed, or be shoved aside as they clammer for handouts at a refugee camp.

No mother should have to live through that. And niether should any child.

I’m sure there are many other moms out there who feel the way that I do. You simply cannot have a child from Ethiopia keep the drought at arm’s length. It’s too personal. We are too responsible.

I was driving in the car with my husband and girls a couple of days ago. We adults were discussing the drought and my work with Vulnerable Children. My husband, who was trying to tell me to not take too much on and slow down a little, made a comment like: “you can’t help everyone you know.”

Well, from the carseats in the back, the girls were outraged by his benign comment. “Daddy! Mommy has to help the kids in Ethiopia. We have to help them too. There isn’t any water, so they can’t grow food. And with no food, the kids are hungry, and the animals are hungry. Even the cows will die so they can’t eat the cows. And they can’t eat the plants if the plants aren’t growing. We have to help them. We have lots of money and they don’t have any money to buy food. So we all have to help them. Or they will die. The kids will die.”

That’s pretty much verbatim what came from the back seat.

And that’s why I can’t help but ask one more time:
if you havn’t given to drought relief in the Horn of Africa, please do.

_________

These experienced Canadian and international partners are already on the ground in East Africa:

World Food Programme (WFP)

The World Food Programme and its partners are:

• helping to meet the immediate food needs of 11.5 million drought-affected people in Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia, including drought-affected refugees in Ethiopia and Kenya
• through the United Nations Humanitarian Air Service, providing efficient, responsive and cost-effective air transport services for humanitarian agencies in the region

WFP has been preparing for this drought cycle and scaling up through the past six months. With CIDA‘s support to WFP‘s Immediate Response Account ($10 million in 2010-2011) and Forward Purchase Facility ($10 million in 2010-2011), the WFP was able to pre-position 400 metric tonnes of food in the Horn of Africa region in the spring.

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)

UNHCR and its partners are:

• providing emergency assistance to address the basic needs of up to 582,000 displaced Somalis throughout the region. This includes increasing access to safe drinking water, nutritious food and needed medical assistance, as well as improving safety and living conditions in the refugee camps.

UNICEF

UNICEF and its partners are:

• providing urgent life-saving treatments to approximately 510,000 families in Somalia and the region, including ready-to-use therapeutic food at the community level; access to safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene; and access to vaccines against measles, polio and other deadly diseases
• providing access to education through temporary learning spaces and school-in-a-box kits

CARE Canada

CARE Canada is:

• reducing malnutrition-related sickness and death in Ethiopia among approximately 41,000 severely and moderately malnourished children under five and pregnant and lactating women
• providing training support for approximately 210 health professionals, workers and volunteers and conducting an awareness campaign for target communities on child growth and good nutrition practices
• addressing immediate life-saving needs of approximately 90,000 people in Kenya by improving access to safe drinking water for both household and livestock consumption and by improving physical security for refugees and the host community around the Dadaab refugee camp
• meeting the basic health and nutrition needs of approximately 8,700 displaced persons in Somalia, particularly children under five, pregnant and lactating women and the elderly, through specific nutrition support, disease control activities, and hygiene and sanitation kits

Oxfam Canada

Oxfam is:

• alleviating suffering, preventing loss of life, and reducing the vulnerability of drought-affected livestock-based households (approximately 39,000 people or 6,500 households) in Wajir district, Kenya, through cash grants
• assisting approximately 30,000 drought- and conflict-affected displaced persons (86 percent women and children) in Somalia by providing cash transfers to particularly vulnerable households to purchase food and essential life-saving items
• reducing suffering in affected areas of Ethiopia for approximately 199,000 people (33,000 households) by ensuring basic needs and services such as access to safe drinking water, environmental hygiene and sanitation, emergency income through cash-for-work activities, and emergency livestock support (feeding and veterinary services)
• providing life-saving water and sanitation services to more than 400,000 internally displaced persons living in the Afgooye corridor outside of Mogadishu
• providing access to safe drinking water and sanitation for almost 14,000 drought-affected households in the Somali region of Ethiopia
• providing access to water and sanitation services to Kenyan host communities (10,000 households) affected by drought and the environmental effects of hosting a large Somali refugee population

Action against Hunger (ACF)

ACF is:

• providing access to health and nutrition support for approximately 283,000 people in refugee camps in Ethiopia, including children under five, babies, and pregnant and lactating women, and reducing illness and death due to acute malnutrition
• Treating malnutrition and improving the nutrition status of approximately 34,000 children under five and pregnant and lactating women in Kenya with interventions in water, nutrition and food security

World Vision Canada

World Vision Canada is:

• meeting the immediate needs of water-stressed communities in Somalia and easing the impact of drought for approximately 81,000 people by improving health, access to water and sanitation and livestock and resource management
• providing water, sanitation, and medical support to 145,000 internally displaced persons in Puntland who have fled insecurity in the south

Plan Canada

Plan Canada is:

• helping to save lives and maintain health by treating children under five for malnutrition and providing nutritional support to pregnant and lactating women, as well as increasing access to safe drinking water, hygiene education and water-borne disease prevention for close to 26,000 people in Kenya

United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)

OCHA is:

• coordinating the overall international humanitarian response in this complex situation in East Africa and providing essential humanitarian leadership and advocacy on behalf of the affected populations and humanitarian agencies, as well as engaging and coordinating with national authorities

Médecins sans frontières

Médecins sans frontières is:

• providing emergency medical support for 600,000 conflict- and drought-affected people living in the Ogaden region of Ethiopia

United Nations Department of Safety and Security (UNDSS)

UNDSS is:

• providing essential safety and security services in support of the overall international humanitarian response by coordinating safety and security for United Nations and non-governmental-organization personnel contributing to the humanitarian response enabling them to expand their operations