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!!

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…)

How disapointing…. we just got the news that noone was matched from our batch of dossiers at the matching meeting in Lesotho last week. I’ll wait until Sunrise issues the official party line about why (and link to it when they do,) but suffice to say it’s disapointing. There will be another matching meeting in December, so MAYBE we’ll be matched before Christmas. But if there is one thing for sure in international adoption: “nothing is for sure.” Stay tuned.