Help Us Expand Opportunity House!

AAI's Opportunity House Project in Ethiopia currently provides loving care and individualized therapy and training for thirty children with serious disabilities.  Twenty of the children reside on the Layla House compound and another dozen live at Kibeb Tsehaye, a partner orphanage cooperating in the project.  Our agreement with the Ethiopian government involves expanding OH's services to include fifty or more children over the coming months.  To achieve this, we need YOUR help!

There are two easy ways to contribute to Opportunity House and know that you have helped to make a child's life infinitely better.    Please consider sponsoring an OH child with a recurring donation of $35 a month or more.  In return, you will receive a photo and child report on a specific child at least twice a year.   We also need one-time donations for the purchase of needed equipment (as seen in these photos), the salaries of trained professionals and to pay for the staff training sessions we are doing for the children's caregivers.  If you would like to know more about specific OH needs and how you can "sponsor" a physical therapist or staff training workshop, please contact Merrily Ripley.  

Thanks to AAI parent Mike Erickson and volunteer Sophie Brill for these nice photos of children benefiting from Opportunity House services.

AAI Child is "Community Hero" in Utah

Recently an AAI adoptive mom shared with our listserve community that her son Phile was chosen as a  Community Hero this summer.  Phile has multiple special needs and spent time at our Opportunity House program.  Her story and some pictures are below.  

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Our son, Phile, came home exactly two years ago. He spent about a year at Layla House but most of his time was at Opportunity House. Phile is seven years old and has been diagnosed with mild cerebral palsy, autism, severe developmental delays and a seizure disorder called Lennox Gastaut Syndrome. As my mom once described, our family went through a pretty big "storm" that lasted well over a year after Phile came home. We spent a lot of time in and out of hospitals, doctors, offices, therapies, counseling, schools, etc. trying to find help for our son and our families "new normal."

We live in a small town of about 20,000 people in Utah. Each summer, our community has a week long celebration including a parade, carnival, rodeo, concert and a variety of other activities. As a part of the celebration, a community hero is selected based on nominations. To kick off the celebration, the "Hero" is announced. Phile was secretly nominated by a neighbor and was chosen by the city as the Hero. The city got in contact with members of my family to get more information about Phile and our family. We had no idea any of this was going on!

One afternoon my sister told us she had a surprise for our family and that we needed to go for a short drive to get to it. So we all got in the car and followed her a little over a mile from our house to a new park the city was building. When we pulled up, over a hundred people were there cheering and chanting Phile's name. There were family, friends, teachers, nurses - all people whose lives have been affected and hearts touched by their interaction with our son. It was incredible and we were completely shocked and overwhelmed! It turns out that the park the city was building is unique in that it is a handicapped accessible, special-needs park...and it was named after our son. There is a plaque on display with a picture of our son and his story which was written by my mom. The mayor was at the "reveal" and honored our son and our family. Our family was invited to ride in the parade and to be special guests at the Clint Black concert that weekend. It was also announced that all the proceeds from the city's celebration would be used to fund a rec program for the 200+ special needs children in our area. We were speechless! The park is nearly complete and we have asked to the city if we can add a handprint mural so Phile's park can honor all the special needs children in our city.

Where Phile lacks in "ability" he more than makes up for in heart. He has truly taught us the meaning of unconditional love. There are days where I find myself in a bad mood or feeling upset for one reason or another. Then I see my son who, in my mind, has every reason to be frustrated at life but is so happy and just smiles, laughs and finds joy in the simplest things. I am so grateful for his example, for my neighbor, the community that I am a part of, and my family who take the time to find the rainbows in the storms of life.

-Becky A.

wife to a fabulous man and mom 4 beautiful bio girls and 2 amazing boys we were blessed to find

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AAI needs new vehicles! Can you help??

Children piling in the van for another trip to the doctor's office

If you've visited Layla House in Ethiopia, you have undoubtedly seen and probably ridden in one of our old red vans.  Each day when they are not "in the shop," these vans travel miles and miles with children, staff and visiting parents.   They go to medical and dental clinics, the airport, the U.S. embassy, passport offices, the Mercato for food and supplies, and often to small villages in remote areas.   They carry social workers to visit children in our sponsorship program, adoptive parents to meet birth family, and staff to visit our partner orphanages all over Addis and well beyond.  At this point, they are really on their last legs with engines, bodies, seats and upholstery falling apart.  They are spending more and more time in the repair shop which wreaks havoc on the schedule and prevents us from operating as efficiently as we'd like.  As our staff there informs us, it's finally time to say goodbye to the oldest red Toyota van and to thank it for serving us well all these years!

Although the situation with our present vans has gone from bad to worse these past several months, we have GOOD NEWS to report.  New vehicles are usually very expensive in Ethiopia but because of our recent official agreement with the Ethiopian government to operate and expand Opportunity House, our home for special needs children, we have special permission to import a duty-free vehicle.  That means we will be able to purchase a vehicle for about $10,000, a deal we don't want to pass up but also a cost we don't want to pass on in increased adoption fees.  A generous adoptive family has already come forward with a $5000 challenge grant----if we can raise the other $5000, they will match each donation dollar for dollar.  So every dollar donated to our ETHIOPIA VEHICLE CAMPAIGN, is actually $2! Make your donation count twice.

Abraham, one of our drivers, embarking on yet another trip with a full van of kids

Our Ghana program is also in need of a new vehicle.  The Ripley Foundation, our affiliate in that country, has had no van for months now and families and stuff are increasingly reliant on taxis and public transportation to get around Accra and to travel to other parts of the country.  As our adoption program in that country has grown, we able to do more and more humanitarian work and reach out to more orphanages delivering food and supplies donated by our families and supporters.  The lack of a reliable vehicle is the biggest impediment to improving our work there and to giving visiting families a quality experience in that country.  Anita Gillispie, our Ghana coordinator, is in-country right now and she reports that sometimes it is very difficult to find a taxi big enough to take three or four kids and a staff member to a medical appointment and that without their own van, they are having to forgo many important errands.  So we are also starting a Ghana Vehicle Campaign and welcome any of your donations to get the Ripley Foundation staff moving again!

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.

The latest issue of the AAI e-newsletter just came out and is available at this link. In it, Merrily writes the story of Eyasu, a new two year old boy at Opportunity House, our facility for children with special needs. Eyasu was born without arms and would have faced a very difficult future in Ethiopia. We hope to find an adoptive family for him soon.



When she learned about Eyasu, Merrily recalled another family that adopted two children from Taiwan with similar disabilities. She called the family and learned that both children are now in college and doing very well. Below are some pictures of Molly and Mikel that the family was kind enough to send. We always loving hearing from people as their children grow up and this is a particularly inspiring success story.

Welcome to the AAI Blog!

Hi Everyone,

Welcome to our new AAI blog! We envision this as a space where we can post information about what's happening with all of our programs and projects. We know people love to read about current events at Layla House and Eban House as well as our humanitarian programs and we'd like to be able to share more than there is ever room for in our monthly newsletter. We're hoping that many AAI staff and volunteers will contribute to the blog on a regular basis so that our supporters who have expressed the desire for more "inside" information will now have it.

The latest big news is that we've rented a compound across the street from Layla House. This great new space will house our Opportunity House program for special needs kids and provide extra space for all of the children at Layla House (OH) to use regularly. The program serves both children available for adoption and children in the neighborhood who come for daycare because there are few options for these children in Ethiopia. At Opportunity House, there is an educational program that seeks to maximize the potential of each child and to provide them with a stimulating, nurturing environment. In Ethiopia the parents of such children often feel stigmatized and are not yet aware that many special needs children can lead productive, fulfilling lives. Many of the children have made incredible progress during their time at OH---starting to speak, walk, perform basic self-care tasks and the parents of the daycare children are so happy to have this service.

The new compound has wonderful outdoor space and will also have additional classrooms. Currently plans are being made for the Layla Kindergartners (KG) to have both classes and playtime there. Older children will also cross the street for craft classes and to interact with the Opportunity House children. We view this new property as a great addition to Layla House that will enable all the children to have a more varied, stimulating educational program.

The proceeds from the 2009 Layla House Quilt Raffle will be used to purchase playground equipment and educationals supplies for the OH property. Above is a picture of the beautiful quilt made by Layla House children and our wonderful friend and volunteer Barbara Patton. Please contact Johanna Sculley in the AAI office at johanna@adoptionadvocates.org if you'd like to sell tickets. The tickets are $5 apiece and come in books of 10. Johanna will mail you as many books of tickets that you can sell as well as a photo of the quilt to show. We've found in the past that the tickets practically sell themselves when people hear what the proceeds will go towards. The drawing will be held at our Warm Beach Gathering on Saturday, August 1, 2009.

We hope you enjoy this blog and please comment about anything in particular you'd like us to post about.