New Murals At Opportunity House

Thank you to Deb Solomon, an AAI adoptive parent,  and her recent group of volunteers who created the cheery murals below at Opportunity House, AAI's facility for special needs children.

Read our latest AAI Newsletter at this link.

Our most recent sponsorship newsletter can be found here! 

Some of Deb's volunteers also  spent time painting cribs at Wanna House

Photos from the new Opportunity House

Recently we told you that Opportunity House, our facility for special needs children, moved to a spacious new compound very close to Layla.  Ivy Dash, Layla House Compound Coordinator, recently sent these photos taken after the move.  The staff and children are very happy with the new space and a volunteer group has painted murals on the walls, making it even more cheerful and bright.

Awards Ceremony at Layla School

post by Julie Hehn, Layla School Director

 

 

 

Last Friday we had our quarterly awards ceremony for Layla school.  It is always a great time to celebrate the accomplishments of our students.  Each group has a 1st, 2nd and 3rd place award presented along with a awards given for working hard and being a strong community member.

We had four children perform on recorders with our music teacher Gutu accompanying them.  One of our older students, Mesfin (in photo above) shared a poem he wrote about Layla School and the teachers there.

Our program was a bit different than usual as we were fortunate to have two volunteers that were very musical working with us over this month.  Scott and Barbara have been assisting Gutu with his music classes. They have worked hard with each group on a special song which they performed during our ceremony.  You have not lived until you hear our children sing "You are my Shun Shine, my only Shun Shine.  You make me Hoppy, when Skies are Great!"  It was precious!

I know the children LOVED performing and as you can tell by the volunteers' smiles they had as good a time, if not better, than the children!

Akwwaaba Gathering for Ghana adoptees in Freeport, IL

A number of AAI-Ghana families gathered for an "Akwaaba" (means 'welcome' in a principal Ghana language) reunion in Freeport, IL last weekend.  The gathering was not organized by AAI but most of the families in attendance had children who were formerly in AAI's Eban House in Accra.  Anita Gillispie, AAI's Ghana coordinator and mom to two Ghanaians herself, attended the gathering with her family from Tulsa, OK.  She reported that all the children had a wonderful time reconnecting with each other and celebrating Ghanaian culture together with their "obruni" parents and siblings.  Lots of old friendships were renewed and new ones made and the group is already planning for a future event.  To learn more about AAI's Ghana adoption program, contact Anita Gillispie or check out this link.

 Activities included Ghanaian music and games, hair care, drumming and lots of swimming, bubbles and whiffleball.  A very good time was had by all and the event was even covered by a local paper and you can see the article at this link. 


below:  Anita Gillispie playing the Ghana version of "duck, duck goose" with a group of children and parents.

Dr. Rick Hodes and Eyob, an AAI sponsorship child

Post by Susan Poisson-Dollar, AAI Director of Development

Some months ago, it came to our attention that one of our sponsorship children, a 10 year old boy named Eyob, was in need of life-saving spinal surgery for his severe TB of the spine case.  People with this form of TB have such deformed spines that their lungs and other internal organs can be literally crushed and without surgery they face a slow and agonizing death.    Luckily for Eyob though, AAI staff had made the acquaintance of Dr. Rick Hodes, an American doctor in Addis who has come to specialize in these complicated cases.  The surgery is not available in Addis but Dr. Rick, as he is fondly called, has arranged for many of his patients to travel to the U.S. or Ghana where they can be operated on.   Dr. Rick agreed that Eyob did indeed need surgery to survive and AAI began a drive to raise the needed $10,000 to cover the expenses.  The money was quickly raised from a number of very generous donors and Eyob was on his way.

If you would like to read more about Dr. Rick's work, we highly recommend the new book about his work in Ethiopia This is a Soul: The Mission of Rick Hodes by Marilyn Berger.  The book is also an adoption story as Dr. Rick has adopted a number of the orphans that he has treated and ranks as the only single man that has been permitted to adopt by the Ethiopian authorities.  Dr. Rick has also been the subject of a recent documentary film entitled Making the Crooked Straight that was shown this spring on HBO. 

Here are some recent photos we received from the AAI social workers about Eyob.  Eyob traveled to Ghana as part of a group of children receiving treatment there.  He was a very sick little boy just a few months ago and now he is a healthy, active child looking forward to a good future with the help of Dr. Rick and his AAI sponsor.  To learn more about AAI's sponsorship program, please contact Brooke Cole, AAI sponsorship coordinator.  We are always in need of more sponsors to help orphaned and vulnerable children stay with loving caregivers and continue their educations. 

What a Difference an AAI sponsorship can make!

Post by Susan Poisson-Dollar, AAI Director of Development

For just a few dollars a month, you can make a huge difference in the life of a child in Ethiopia, Ghana or Burkina Faso. AAI has sponsorship programs in each of these countries; in fact several different ones are available in Ethiopia where we have been operating for over a decade now.

At first our sponsored children were often the older and unadoptable sibling of a child placed by AAI. When adoptive parents frequently learned that their child was leaving behind an older sibling and often several, perhaps in deep poverty and not able to even attend school, they helped us create a sponsorship program to ensure that the sibling(s) would have a chance at a brighter future.  The family was then able to receive a social worker's report and updated photos of the child/ren several times a year.  We now have over 125 children enrolled in this particular program, mostly in and around the city of Addis Ababa.  We have branched out now to outlying areas where we have worked with partner orphanages and we now have over 120 sponsored children, mostly orphans, in Dire Dawa, Sheshemone, and Dessie, where the AAI school was built.  While the children are enrolled in the sponsorship program because the need is so great, we do not yet have sponsors and hope that readers of this post will contact Brooke Cole, AAI sponsorship and volunteer coordinator to join the program and help us assure that we can continue this important work. 

The lovely young lady shown above, Tesfallen Melaku, was in AAI's sponsorship program for a number of years thanks to an AAI adoptive parent who adopted her sister.  The sponsorship helped put her through college and she is now 23.  When I met her in March 2010, she was working in AAI's sponsorship office and said that she just loves "helping people and finding out what their condition is."  Tesfallen has future plans to continue studying law or social work.

I was also lucky enough to accompany AAI sponsorship social worker Elsa Moges to visit the family shown above.   We learned that the father had been unable to work for several months because of an eye problem and while Elsa had been on maternity leave, he was to shy to talk to anyone else.  Elsa told me that the girls, Marta and Bethlehem, were outstanding students and also helped their father a great deal. She described them as a close, affectionate family.  

On our first visit, the girls cried as they described how worried they were about their father and how tough things had gotten.  Elsa rushed right back to her office after the visit and made an eye appointment for the father the next morning.  We picked him up by taxi and within two hours he had received an prescription for his condition and been fitted for some good sunglasses to help protect his eyes in Ethiopia's strong sun.   We went to the pharmacy to get the prescription and also some stomach medicine for the older girl who had been experiencing stomach pains so severe she couldn't eat, presumably from stress.  By the time I returned to the U.S. a few days later Elsa had checked in with them again and the situation was vastly improved with the father expected to be able to work again within a few days.  The adoptive family of these girls' brother paid the relatively small cost to cover these additional medical bills. 

Please consider helping to make a difference in the life of a child by joining one of our sponsorship programs.   You can make a recurring monthly or quarterly donation online and for just the cost of one extra-large pizza in the U.S., you will be making a great impact on the life of a child.   Thank you!

Temesgen's visit to the Port Angeles office

Blog post by Merrily Ripley, AAI Executive Director

It was very special having Temesgen, our attorney and the legal representative of AAI in Ethiopia spend two days in our office last week.    He spent several hours with staff, familiarizing himself with our procedures and discussing mutual issues.  More than 30 members of local families met with him for dinner on Tuesday night and he was able to connect with young folks who had been placed by AAI as long as seven years ago.  On Wednesday he was available to meet with families and to receive calls from them and on Wednesday afternoon he met with a group of teenagers to talk and share with them.  He was especially pleased to hear that two of them are starting University in the fall.

The important message that Temesgen shared was that there are some in Ethiopia who do not think that adoption is a good plan for orphan children, though most still think it is a very good option.  Recent negative publicity has raised some concerns among the more educated people.   He reminded us that Americans do not have a “right” to adopt the children.  Whether or not children are placed is up to the Ethiopian government;  they set the rules and we must honor and respect them.

Temesgen is shown on the left with three young adults placed through AAI---Wubi Acheson, Tigist Winters and Tamrat Haskins.  Wubi and Tigist will be studying at the University of Washington in the fall.