Letter From The President

Dear Great Wall and Children of All Nations Families,

Spring has arrived, bringing plenty of changes at GW/CAN as well as within the adoption world as a whole.

Our newest program of Bulgaria is in place, and we are excited as it opens the doors for many families to adopt! There are children between one and 16 in need of loving homes, both special needs and non-special needs. Since 2007, Bulgaria has made great strides in improving the welfare of their children living in orphanages and their chances of being adopted domestically and internationally. Their children are beautiful, and most are of Roma descent. We are thrilled to begin this work of finding families for them! Please visit our Bulgaria page or contact our representatives for more information!

China has also been through a whirlwind of change. In addition to changing their name, the CCCWA (formerly known as the CCAA) has instituted new procedural changes to take place in the interest of their children, and they are now allowing single women to adopt as well! Please check out our China program updates for details on all of these developments.

In March, I traveled to China at the invitation of the CCCWA. I was honored to give a presentation sharing our experience of working with our YC and SZ orphanage projects, which we call our ICAN Hope Projects. The CCCWA allowed us to donate our expertise in child evaluations, fund medical check-ups needed for their waiting children to be adoptable, and provide financial aid to improve the orphanage facilities. In return, we are able to exclusively place their waiting children. During this trip, I visited a third orphanage, and we will begin a charitable partership with this orphanage as well. This orphanage will be our CD orphanage, and we are very grateful to the CCCWA for this opportunity and to our families who are adopting our YC and SZ children. (All of the Waiting Children from our YC project have now been matched with families!)

Last but not least, we are well into our preparation for our next Beyond Borders Conference, our annual international adoption conference. This year we are happy to be hosting the 2011 Beyond Borders Conference in our hometown of Austin, Texas, for the very first time! It will be the weekend of October 29 & 30, and we have some amazing speakers lined up, including adoption experts & advocates Dr. Todd Ochs and Craig Juntunen (founder and president of the Both Ends Burning Campaign). We seek to educate, inform and update the international adoption community and adoptive families about topics that matter to them, such as bonding issues or the specific challenges of Waiting Child adoptions. Beyond education, families have a unique opportunity to network with others in the same stage of the adoption journey. You will walk away with invaluable knowledge and 10 hours of Hague training! Adoption professionals may also opt receive CE credits. Registration for our conference is now open, so sign up or contact us with questions today!

These are only a few of the things that have been going on; for more updates, check out the rest of our program updates!

Please enjoy this edition of the GW/CAN Forever Families Newsletter, and as always, thank you for all your help and support!

Sincerely,

Snow Wu
President/CEO