Not to dis the internet, but my recent little crisis has reminded me how important face-to-face relationships and discussions are - both for families in the process a for the kids, themselves. For all the worry I've had over children feeling comfortable being an Ethiopian adoptee in America, it seems that these meetings, where the look, feelings and experiences of fellow adoptees can be discussed in a natural, unguarded way feels like the best first step in engendering open dialog and positive self-esteem. If none of these are near where you live, you can check the Frappr map and see if anyone lives near you (add yourself while you're there) or post a message on the big group asking if others live near you. That's how our group formed with 5 or 6 families.
I posted before about the inspiring story of Nancy Meyer & her group in Chicago.
Lately, on the Yahoo! boards, some folks have been wondering how to start/join a group in their area.
That's why I'm grateful to Brian (dad of 3), fellow "SoCal Potlucker", mix-master supreme behind the awesome blog ON THE FLY and man of science for compiling pan-American information about local adoption groups (and letting me re-post it):We went to a potluck with families from our Southern California Ethiopian adoption group last weekend. Being the family that lives the farthest south, we often end up traveling the furthest to the event, but every time we attend one, I'm reminded how important it is to go. It's good for the parents to be able to talk to other families and it's good for the potential parents waiting for a referral so they can ask questions of people who've "been there; done that." Our kids are often the oldest ones there and they're not quite at the point of talking with their peers about adoption issues, but they're building friendships that will be helpful for those issues in the future. And of course its nice to (re)connect with people who's blogs you read on the internet (Blaine, Julie, and Kevin, was there anyone else that didn't out themselves to me?)So where do you find a local group? Here's a good start:
Connecticut
Rhode Island
Boston
Midatlantic: MD, VA, WVA, D.C., PA, NJ, and DE areaNew York City
loosely-defined northeastern states (New England, NY, NJ, PA etc.)
Illinois
Arizona
Northern California (SF bay area
Southern California
If I missed any groups, please add them in the comments. If you've got a blog about Ethiopian adoption, feel free to link to and/or post this list to your blog.
Thank's, Brian!
Friday, May 11, 2007
Find A Local Ethiopian Adoption Group
Thursday, May 3, 2007
Make Mother's Day Extra Happy
Use your Mother's Day present to help mothers you've never met! The links below will take you to catalogs which allow you to buy gifts that help others, the purchase of which directly help international aid organizations at work in Africa. All the charities listed in this post have gotten an "A" rating from the American Institute of Philanthropy (charitywatch.org), indicating that over 90% of their budget goes to relief work. In addition to supporting charities (or, in the case of ONE, an advocacy campaign), many of these products are FAIR TRADE or the handiwork of impoverished people. By purchasing from most of these sites, you are "giving" two times over: helping individuals directly and supporting a relief organization.
If you have a mom (or wife) who says "It's the thought that counts" and MEANS IT, try one of the choices below. These links also take you to places to buy gifts online which support "A"-rated relief organizations. In the cases below, however, the "gift" is really a personalized donation, which allows you to give the intended recipient of your gift a card stating that you bought school supplies for a classroom, or food rations or courses of AIDS drugs in the name of the recipient. Unlike raw donations, the amounts correlate to a specific usage, making the gift more "tangible" and meaningful.
Happy Mother's Day!
Africa News Round-Up
Progress on Punishing Those Responsible for the Genocide in Darfur:
(AP)The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for the Sudanese government’s humanitarian affairs minister and a janjaweed militia leader suspected of committing war crimes in Darfur, the court said Wednesday.
Ethiopia and Press Freedom:
(AP)Ethiopia tops a list of 10 countries — including three in sub-Saharan Africa — where press freedom has deteriorated over the past five years, a New York-based media advocacy group said Wednesday.
Three countries on the list — Ethiopia, Gambia and Congo — show that "democracy's foothold in Africa is shallow when it comes to press freedom. These three African nations, as diverse as they are, have won praise at times for their transition to democracy — but they are actually moving in reverse on press issues. Journalists in Ethiopia, Gambia, and DRC (Congo) are being jailed, attacked, and censored, a picture far worse than what we saw only a few years ago."
Ethiopia's Internet Repression
(Reuters) An Internet watchdog on Tuesday accused Ethiopia of blocking scores of anti-government Web sites and millions of Weblogs in one of sub-Saharan Africa's biggest cases of cyber-censorship.
SIGN THIS PETITION TO HELP FORCE AMERICAN COMPANIES TO STAND UP TO REPRESSIVE REGIMES. Google and other American companies allow Ethiopia and China to "block" blogs and webpages, in order to profit in these countries. If we are in the business of spreading democracy (and if Ethiopia is really our ally in the war against the anti-democratic terrorist ideology), we should encourage American companies to show, by example, how integral the "Fourth Estate" is to the democratic system.
Starbucks, Ethiopia, Strike Deal
Starbucks and the Ethiopian government agreed in principle on a licensing, distribution and marketing deal that recognizes the importance and integrity of the nation's specialty coffee names, they said in [a joint] statement.
The parties expect to formalize the details of the agreement and sign it this month.
"Ethiopia is firmly committed to work in partnership with all international specialty coffee companies and distributors of its fine coffees, including Harar, Sidamo and Yirgacheffe," said Getachew Mengistie, director general of the Ethiopian Intellectual Property Office.
Aid agency Oxfam, which launched an campaign in October last year urging Starbucks to talk to Ethiopia directly on the issue, welcomed the move.
"This initiative will help create real change for the 15 million Ethiopians dependent on the country's coffee sector," Oxfam America President Raymond Offenheiser said.
Poverty is dire in Ethiopia, where a quarter of its 80 million people rely on coffee. The average Ethiopian's yearly income, in purchasing power parity terms, is around $1,000.
Eight Ethiopian Hostages Free
Eight Ethiopians made a tearful return to Addis Ababa on Thursday, two months after being kidnapped at gunpoint with five Europeans in the country's remote northeastern Afar region.
Friday, April 27, 2007
Addis Sheraton the New Guantanamo!
Is anyone worried that our government has turned a downtown hotel in Addis Ababa into a potential target for a terrorist attack?!?!? Seriously, ANYONE KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THIS? (full article here)
More than 200 FBI and CIA agents have set up camp in the Sheraton Hotel here in Ethiopia's capital and have been interrogating dozens of detainees -- including a U.S. citizen -- picked up in Somalia and held without charge and without attorneys in a secret prison somewhere in this city, according to Ethiopian and U.S. officials who say the interrogations are lawful.
U.S. and Ethiopian officials say they have netted valuable information from some of the 41 detainees, who are being brought before a court whose proceedings are closed to the public.
Others have been quietly released, however, and human rights groups are criticizing the joint operation as a kind of "decentralized Guantanamo" in the Horn of Africa.
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
AP: Ethiopia Acknowledges Detaining Suspects
The Ethiopian government acknowledged detaining 41 suspected international terrorists from 17 countries and said foreign investigators were given permission to question them...
The government was critical of human rights groups and the media who have followed the detentions.
READ THE AP ARTICLE
Monday, April 9, 2007
TV Alert!
Tonight, NIGHTLINE (11:35 on ABC) will feature the reporting of Bill Weir in Zambia.
BLACK GOLD, the renowned documentary about Ethiopia's struggle to establish fair trade and trademarks on their most prominent growing areas is being aired on PBS, via their documentary series, INDEPENDENT LENS.
You can read more about BLACK GOLD and check your local airtimes HERE.
Saturday, April 7, 2007
Welcome, Friends!
Welcome the following families to the ETHIOPIAN ADOPTION BLOGROLL:
Show 'em some love!
April and Zach's Adoption Site
Augusta's Blog
Baby Ash's Adventure
Bringing Baby Home Blog
Ethiopia Mama
Fairy Good Baby
The Adoption of Nicholas
The Brocker Family Journal
The Earley Journey
The Schmidt Family Journey to Rebekkah and Joseph
Wednesday, April 4, 2007
New Families on the Blogroll
Welcome,
Ethiopia 2007
Mager Family Adoption Story
Our Big Crazy Family
The Long Road Home,
to THE ETHIOPIAN FAMILY BLOGROLL and SWERLFEEDS.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
The Great Starbucks Debate!
In February, Starbucks officials said they wouldn't oppose efforts of Ethiopian farmers to trademark their coffees.
Oxfam later said, "Starbucks has balked at signing a voluntary licensing agreement and has refused to engage in good-faith discussions with Ethiopia about the trademarking initiative."
Frankly, I don't know what to think about the whole Starbucks dust-up. I've followed it closely. It seems to be this: Starbucks holds copyright on some "brands" of Ethiopian coffee beans (Ethiopia being the birthplace of coffee.) Oxfam is a British-based non-profit that is helping to organize collectives for "fair trade" -- the selling of goods at above-market prices. People who dig the free market feel this is tantamount to socialist-style price fixing. Other people (including the humanitarian arm of the Catholic and Lutheran churches), feel it is protecting the dignity of farmers and helping to strengthen democracy.
Currently, Oxfam is supporting the Ethiopian government's attempt to copyright four "brands" of beans, based on where they are grown, (the same way that the Champagne area of France has a copyright on their "brand" of sparking wine).
Starbucks, a company that tries to have a very "responsible" corporate identity, was accused of using back-channel pressure to prevent this from happening. They denied it, but always added that they felt their corporate attempts at educating farmers on better growing practices would be better for the farmers than these Oxfam-style collectives and that they paid above-market for their beans, anyway. Sincere or corporate smokescreen - anybody know?
Finally, Starbucks vowed publicly that they wouldn't interfere (don't know if they ever admitted that they HAD interfered...?)
IF ANYBODY OUT THERE KNOWS MORE, COMMENT!!!Starbucks targeted by Boston nonprofit
New Mexico Business Weekly - 2:31 PM MDT Wednesday, March 21, 2007
On the day of its annual shareholders meeting in Seattle, Starbucks Corp. has been targeted by a Boston-based nonprofit that's working to help Ethiopian coffee farmers trademark their coffees.
In full-page ads Wednesday in The Seattle Times and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Oxfam America of Boston said Seattle coffee giant Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX) "refuses to sign an agreement recognizing Ethiopia's ownership of the trademarks of the country's coffees."
Oxfam says it's working with the farmers to obtain trademarks of famous Ethiopian coffees, including Sidamo, Harar and Yirgacheffe.
Obtaining the trademarks, Oxfam officials said, would give "farmers a greater share of the retail value of their coffees."
"If Starbucks is seriously committed to humanity, it needs to change its position and agree to negotiate a licensing agreement with Ethiopia that respects its ownership of its unique coffee trademarks," said Seth Petchers of Oxfam, in a statement.
In February, Starbucks officials said they wouldn't oppose efforts of Ethiopian farmers to trademark their coffees.
Oxfam later said, "Starbucks has balked at signing a voluntary licensing agreement and has refused to engage in good-faith discussions with Ethiopia about the trademarking initiative."
This story was first reported by the Puget Sound Business Journal, an affiliated publication.
Ethiopia's First Plumpy'nut Factory Opens
Click on the UNICEF graphic to help end malnutrition!
Until American companies "get on it and become competitive," he said, major manufacturing of the revolutionary food will remain minimal.
(Thanks to "spooky06" for the tip!)
Article by Indrias Getachew, UNICEF
UNICEF correspondent Sabine Dolan reports on Ann M. Veneman's inauguration of Ethiopia's first Plumpy'nut therapeutic food factory.
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — UNICEF Executive Director Ann M. Veneman inaugurated Ethiopia's first Plumpy'nut therapeutic food factory in Addis Ababa on February 20. The inauguration marks a joint venture between UNICEF, U.S. Fund for UNICEF board member Amy Robbins and the Hilina Enriched Foods Processing center.
Plumpy'nut is a high-protein and high-energy peanut-based paste used for the treatment of severely malnourished children. An estimated one and a half million children in Ethiopia are severely malnourished. At full capacity, Hilina Enriched Foods will produce up to 12 tons of the paste.
"Today as we open the doors of the fourth, and largest, factory in Africa that will produce Plumpy'nut, we are taking a step in the right direction in addressing the issue of malnutrition," said Veneman.
Generous solution
In 2005, Amy Robbins donated $1.3 million to UNICEF to allow the purchase and import of 267 tons of Plumpy'nut to Ethiopia. Formulated by French scientist Andre Briend in 1999, Plumpy'nut has been used to save children's lives in major emergency situations in Darfur, Niger and Malawi.
Plumpy'nut requires no preparation or special supervision so an untrained adult such as a parent can deliver it to a malnourished child at home, allowing governments to reduce the amount of money spent on therapeutic feeding stations. The paste has a two-year shelf life when unopened and stays fresh even after opening.
Though Plumpy'nut is relatively inexpensive and easy to transport, Robbins discovered that huge costs were incurred from its importation and that limited capacity at the French plant made it difficult to ensure timely food supplies from Europe.
To solve the problem, she donated $340,000 towards investment in the needed equipment to manufacture Plumpy'nut within Ethiopia.
Yesterday she visited a mother in South Omo, Ethiopia whose 10-month old baby was struggling with malnutrition but gaining weight by eating Plumpy'nut. "It was impressive because you see your investments, your partnerships are really tangible in the happy, healthy children and that expands to happy mothers and entire communities," said Robbins.
"I am a mother. I have four sons who are living in New York City and I am very disturbed by the fact that my sons have everything and there are so many children in the world who have nothing. And so I thought there was an opportunity to take the business expertise that I gained in New York and bring it here to Ethiopia."
Increased recovery rates
Malnutrition contributes to more than half of all child deaths in Ethiopia. The country's 2005 Demographic and Health Survey shows that 47 percent of Ethiopia's children are stunted, 38 percent underweight and 11 percent wasted.
"Recovery rates for severely under-nourished children have been as high as 90 to 95 percent by using Plumpy'nut as a therapeutic intervention," said Veneman. "Therapeutic foods are also helping AIDS patients who need adequate nutrition to absorb life-prolonging ARV treatment."
The under five mortality rate in Ethiopia has declined to 123 out of every 1,000 live births from peak levels in 1990 when one in every five children died before the age of five.
"Ethiopia has seen improvements in addressing malnutrition yet widespread hunger continues to exact an enormous cost in terms of human suffering and lost potential," said Veneman.
February 23, 2007
I had never heard of Plumpy'nut, but is sounds amazing. Why isn't it better known and better utilized? An article from ABC News may hold the answer:
Peanut Paste Saves Starving African Children
A Peanut-Based Food Paste Has Revolutionized the Treatment of Malnutrition in Africa
By KATE KLONICK
Oct. 1, 2006 — - It seems underwhelming in its plastic silver package, but Plumpy'nut, the peanut-based therapeutic food paste, is more than enough for hundreds of thousands of malnourished children.
Plumpy'nut, generically known as ready to use therapeutic food, or RUTF, is the invention of André Briend, a French pediatric nutritionist currently working with the World Health Organization.
For years, powdered milk laden with vitamins had been a solution to malnutrition. But preparing the milk required hygienic environments and refrigeration, which usually necessitated inpatient treatment, and was costly and time consuming.
Teaming with Michael Golden, an Irish nutritionist, Briend, who then worked for Action Against Hunger, sought to create a take-home, spoil-proof, preparation-free food to treat malnutrition.. In 1999, Plumpy'nut, a thick, edible, pastelike substance containing peanuts, vegetable oil, milk powder, vitamins and minerals, was created.
Each packet -- roughly the size of a cereal bar -- contains 500 calories of perfectly proportioned proteins, fats and carbohydrates. Two packets a day for two weeks are enough to nourish and rehabilitate a starving child.
Plumpy'nut Goes to Africa
Though the product was created almost seven years ago, it became widely used only in 2005 when the relief group Doctors Without Borders introduced it in Africa.
"It went a bit slowly," said Milton Tectonidis, a Doctors Without Borders special nutritionist. "They first came up with the product as an alternative to milk, tested it on inpatients, ran a number of trials ... and found the results were excellent."
By 2003, the group started giving Plumpy'nut to outpatients, said Tectonidis. "We worked with other NGOs [nongovernmental organizations] to test it out. In each case, it treated 1,000 or 2,000 patients, and we took inspiration from them. When we came out with it in 2005, we treated 60,000 in four months."
Since then, several hundred thousand malnourished children have been rehabilitated with Plumpy'nut, which is handed out in weeklong supplies -- a total of 14 packets -- to the mothers of starving children.
Perhaps more important than the number of children who've been helped by the peanut paste are the resources it has freed up in a resource-scarce environment.
"If you calculate the cost with all the staff and the water and the electric and the hygienic processing and construction," said Tectonidis, "it comes out as much more to treat inpatient than out-patient."
Instead, precious medical attention and relief resources can be devoted to the critically ill or those wounded in war.
Problems With Peanuts: Allergies in Africa
While widespread distribution of a peanut-based product like Plumpy'nut could pose a danger to allergy-prone children in the United States, that is not a concern on the African continent.
"Food allergy seems far less common in poor countries than in rich countries," said Briend. "This well-known observation has been explained by different factors, but apparently, crowding and repeated exposure to infections seem to play a role."
The dearth of allergies and asthma in developing nations, and the rapid growth of these ailments in industrialized countries (registered peanut allergies in the United States doubled from 1997-2002), is largely attributed to the hygiene hypothesis, a topic addressed in an April 2002 article in Science magazine called "Allergy, Parasites and the Hygiene Hypothesis."
"The lack of intense infections in industrialized countries, owing to improved hygiene, vaccination and use of antibiotics, may alter the immune system such that it responds inappropriately to innocuous substances," explained the article.
"After several years of using this product," said Briend, "and feeding several hundreds of thousands of severely malnourished patients with it, I never heard of a place where it was a real issue."
Buying the Basics
Recently, another product was developed. EZ Paste, generically known as BP-100, is similar to Plumpy'nut but does not contain peanuts. It does not have a commercial manufacturer.
As of 2006, only one company, the French-based Nutriset, was manufacturing Plumpy'nut and its individual ingredients for self-assembly.
"There should be hundreds of them," said Tectonidis, making products like Plumpy'nut.
But until American companies "get on it and become competitive," he said, major manufacturing of the revolutionary food will remain minimal.
Plumpy'nut costs roughly 25 cents per packet to manufacture, making a two-week supply (the amount usually needed to make a significant difference in malnutrition) costs roughly $7.
But by using peanut and milk surpluses in countries like the United States, where farmers are often paid to destroy their surplus crops, Tectonidis hopes to be able to buy the ingredients for RUTF wholesale, which would cut manufacturing costs in half.
"There could be a program where they get the raw materials for free and distribute it to the people all over the world," he said. "As long as they agree to sell the product without charging for the raw materials, we could get the product down to 10 or 12 cents a package."
The United Nations World Food Program could help such a collaboration, which Tectonidis said is urgently needed. "Young children in poor countries are dropping like flies due to acute malnutrition," he said.
Copyright © 2007 ABC News Internet Ventures
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Through the Computer, a Connection
I stumbled across this today and was touched:
I think sometimes, when we are caught up in becoming a family, we can unintentionally separate our children's birthplace from our children... This new development -- finding someone intimately connected with their birthplace, someone who understands firsthand the situation there -- well, it's pretty intense.
Read the post at Holding Still: internet magic.
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Underwear, Toothbrush, Books?!?
If you or someone you know is traveling to Ethiopia during 2007, Zethiopia and Ethiopia Reads challenge you to TAKE ONE BOOK with you, because we believe that education is hope and books can change lives.
Thanks to t s e n a n e and her wonderful blog Ethiopian Adoption Travelogue for the tip-off:
TAKE ONE BOOK is a new initiative that wishes to make it a habit for all those traveling to Ethiopia to fill up the excess space in their suitcases with BOOKS.
USAID places Ethiopia's literacy rate at 22%! Ethiopia Reads is a non-profit that believes Ethiopia's future lies in education, specifically, giving Ethiopia's many young people the opportunity to learn to read.
The feisty grass-roots organization is changing the culture of Ethiopia by establishing libraries and other literacy programs, including publishing books in local languages and offering continuing education programs to help educators in Ethiopia nurture a love of reading. Their crowning achievement is the SHOLA CHILDREN'S LIBRARY, the first free children's library in Addis. In 2006, the library logged 60,000 visits!
Ethiopia Reads urges:If you or someone you know is traveling to Ethiopia during 2007, Zethiopia and Ethiopia Reads challenge you to TAKE ONE BOOK with you, because we believe that education is hope and books can change lives.
There are, of course, other ways to help this amazing organization, including a tax-deductible cash donation, via their PAYPAL button, or via check.
For more information on the TAKE ONE BOOK campaign, please contact Catie Dupont at ethiopiareads@aol.com.
Books can be dropped off at Shola Children’s Library. Shola is located in Beklo-bet, behind the Dashen bank off of Debre Zeit road.
Another fine idea is to buy PULLING THE LION'S TAIL by Jane Kurtz. Jane was raised in Ethiopia and is one of the founders of Ethiopia Reads. She has written a slew of books about Ethiopia. 100% of her profits from this title goes to Ethiopia Reads.
Ethiopia Reads has some other fun ideas to help:
P.O. Box 2677
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
There will be a overseas rate for sending materials to Addis Ababa so be sure to take the package to the post office so the amount of postage can be computed.Steal this graphic, link it to http://ethiopiareads.org! Pass the word!
Sunday, March 11, 2007
US Army in Ethiopia: DISCOVERY'S "Our Children's Children's War"
At 9:00 PM, Eastern time - TONIGHT (Sunday, March 11th, 2007), Ted Koppel explores the future of the war on terrorism, in the special "Our Children's Children's War" on Discovery.
When promoting the show on "Meet the Press" this morning, Koppel showed a clip, in which Special Forces were on the ground, training Ethiopian soldiers. He explained that a few weeks later, those forces helped contain the Islamic extremist rebels in Somalia. More interestingly, he mentioned the Army is now focusing on intervening in Africa to a greater extent, doing both humanitarian work and, obviously, offering military training and support. Koppel explains that the Army views this as the future of the war on terrorism -- training and motivating indigenous forces to do the brunt of the fighting against Islamic extremists.
Read and watch more on his DISCOVERY site.
