NCFA Media : Current News

NCFA's New Role: Global Ambassador for Adoption

Dear Friend of Adoption and NCFA:

This is truly a critical time for intercountry adoption, and for the children who will benefit most from it.

Almost daily, news stories recount tragic circumstances faced by countless orphans around the globe. For so many children, adoption is the best hope for love,
security, safety, and a permanent family of their own. Joyfully, in 2004 nearly 23,000 children from a vast array of countries joined American families through adoption. Yet tragically, there are many places where the stability and continuation of international adoption appears uncertain at best.

In response to the needs of children around the world, NCFA has become the most informed, proactive, and influential organization concerned with the issues of
intercountry adoption. NCFA is uniquely positioned and qualified to take adoption advocacy and expertise directly to foreign governments and promote sound, ethical
adoption programs, both domestic and international. And we are making the most of our limited resources to do just that!

In only the past few months, NCFA has asserted its international leadership by reaching out to governments and adoption authorities in countries from Europe to Asia,
and from Africa to South America. NCFA has prepared written testimony for Congress on the best interests of Romania’s orphans, so many of whom are once again languishing in ill-equipped state run orphanages without hope for families. Twice, I have traveled to Russia to educate and build relationships at the highest levels of the government. And twice, NCFA has hosted top leaders from the China Center for Adoption Affairs (CCAA)
during visits to confer with American adoption authorities.

Our efforts are producing positive results for children. During my most recent trip to Moscow, my meeting with Deputy General Prosecutor Sergey Fridinsky was
primetime national news. In that meeting (and others with key Russian officials and journalists), we offered a package of strategic reforms to improve the Russian
intercountry adoption system. Our reform package helped turn the debate away from the adoption moratorium that was being proposed. The Russian Duma defeated the
moratorium proposal, the next day!!! My lengthy interview with the national newspaper Isvestia ran on the front page. The policy ideas we developed with other adoption leaders, and then proposed in Moscow on behalf of the American adoption community, are now the talking points and action items being discussed in the adoption debate in Russia.

As I write this letter, I am on my way home from The Hague, Netherlands, where I took part in crucial Special Commission meetings concerning the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption. I saw there that the Hague Central Authorities for adoption in countries around the world have come a long way since the last Special Commission meetings in 2000. Some Hague-Convention countries have grown in their enthusiasm for adoption and have developed increasingly competent adoption systems. They are poised to increase their adoptions with American families, when the U.S. finally, formally ratifies the Convention. While I was there, I spoke with dozens of directors of these Central Authorities. They are ripe and eager to benefit from NCFA’s adoption expertise
and advocacy, to develop both their domestic and their intercountry adoption programs.

And more on China, the CCAA has invited NCFA to travel to Beijing to consult with them on managing the transition to the Hague Convention. This is a strategic opportunity to benefit Chinese orphans and American families.

My friend, NCFA’s opportunities to benefit children and families through global adoption advocacy are bursting with possibilities. But it’s not in the budget! We’ve been
coming to recognize this unprecedented opportunity over the last several months, and we need to raise additional funds to be able to serve it.

Quite literally, an additional $120,000 this year to expand NCFA’s Global Adoption Advocacy could make the difference of having a family, or not having a family,
for hundreds of thousands of orphans around the world over the next 20 years. We need your help. More important, I should say, the orphans of the world need your help.

As I said at NCFA’s Silver Anniversary Adoption Hall of Fame Awards Banquet this spring, we have much to celebrate, but much more still to do. Fifty years ago,
America was where other countries are today, in the early stages of overcoming negative attitudes toward adoption and recognizing adoption as the great child welfare institution that it is. Since then, America has become the most pro-adoption country in the world. Today, we have an unprecedented opportunity to extend this pro-adoption culture beyond our own shores to countries around the world that have yet to learn the blessings of adoption. Will you join us in this exciting mission?

Sincerely,

Thomas C. Atwood
President and CEO

P.S.: Will you help us promote a pro-adoption culture not only in America, but around the world? Please click here to contribute your gift of $100, $250, or $1,000 or more, so we can expand NCFA’s role as Global Ambassador for Adoption. This is an unprecedented opportunity to spread the good news about adoption and nurture the beginnings of adoption programs around the world.