Why Uganda?
I know many people will ask (or want to ask) "Why International Adoption?"We've known for years that we would one day start our family through adoption. Dan and I are both sensitive to the needs of many children in our own country who have been abandoned, or who may have grown up in a difficult family life. In our first year of marriage we worked at the Dale House Project, a home for teens who have come out of foster care and/or juvenile detention centers. We know the difficulties they have had to face, and are grateful that our country provides resources for them. Dan and I have also been to developing countries. We have seen first-hand, what orphanhood looks like in Honduras and Ethiopia. In both circumstances (domestic and international), there is a great need for love and mercy- for people to step in and make a difference to these children. But in many other countries, there is no good system for orphans and abandoned children. In some cases, there's no DHS, no foster care, no support, no education. When I was in Ethiopia, I saw children, little children, looking for food in the streets. In Honduras, we visited kids in government orphanages where there was one caregiver per 20 kids, and we saw kids on the street begging for food. It's different there. When considering where to start our adoption process, we chose Africa because the need is so great. UNICEF wrote in 'Africa's Orphaned Generations'; "Over 11 million children under the age of 15 living in sub-Saharan Africa have been robbed of one or both parents by HIV/AIDS. Seven years from now, the number is expected to have grown to 20 million". "Some 46 million African children — nearly half the school-age population — have never set foot in a classroom, according to the United Nations". And as we know in this country, education is of such great value. Every child in the US has a right to education, and thankfully children in the US also have a priority in our system to get care and at least basic needs (We can always improve, though!).And in Uganda specifically, "65 per cent of children in Uganda fall under the category of ‘orphans and other vulnerable children’. In real numbers, there are more than 2.2 million orphans and nearly 8 million vulnerable children in Uganda today. And nearly half of the country’s orphans have lost one or both parents to the AIDS pandemic" (UNICEF).(Dan and I do hope to one day also do foster care in the US, and have hearts for older kids as well, but for now, we have been called to start with Africa)[vimeo 19223562 w=500 h=281]A little more about UGANDA:"Today, Uganda has the reputation for being ‘Africa’s Friendliest Country’. This stems partly from the tradition of hospitality common to its culturally diverse population, and partly from the remarkably low level of crime and hassle directed at tourists. But there is a stark contrast to all of this beauty when you visit the history of the country. To say that it takes a village to raise a child is as true in an African village as it is in an American town. Especially if the children are orphans without hope of even a high school education. Uganda, has been living with social conflict, rebel conflict, violence, war and the AIDS pandemic for the past 20 years. Its growing economy is based on agriculture, with coffee, tea and cotton serving as its chief exports, yet Uganda remains one of the world's poorest countries. One of its most severe crises is the number of children orphaned each year by AIDS. Out of a population of 31 million people, one in 13 is an orphaned child. Of those, 1 million have lost their parents to AIDS, and that statistic is rising.Uganda has an estimated over 2 million orphans, and 25 percent of all households look after at least one child orphaned by either HIV/AIDS or war. Uganda's population is very young, with 51 percent below the age of 14. The increased spiral of adult deaths in Uganda means that the number of children orphaned each day is expanding exponentially. Africa is staggering under the load. The infant mortality rate is 65 infants under one year old in a given year per 1,000 live births. The majority of Ugandan citizens struggle to acquire even the most basic health care. There are only 4 doctors and 28 nurses per 100,000 people".