Humanitarian Outreach in South Africa

During the last several months, our agency has been working to develop humanitarian outreach to South Africa. As part of our agency's mission we believe we should be working to assist those children who need assistance both in the US and around the world.

Our agency chose to focus their attention on South Africa due to the high number of children orphaned by aids and because of my personal ties to the country. Over the last several months my son, Grant, has worked to raise funds to assist three projects in South Africa: Refilwe project in Johannesburg, a project in Pietermaritzburg supported by the Nelson Mandela Foundation, and Shepherd's Keep orphanage in Durban.

Grant, with the support of Adoptions of Indiana and his classmates at Belzer Middle School, Lawrence Central High School, and Moe's Southwest Grill, worked together to raise $$$ to be used in South Africa to assist orphaned children. They raised $2,700 which translates to almost R27,000.

Grant and I traveled to South Africa arriving a few days ago and will volunteer with each of these projects. We hope to bring home a better understanding of the aids crisis and to develop some long term relationships where we can partner together to assist children. We also hope to bring home information so that we in the US can understand how the aids crisis is affecting children and the nation as a whole.

While we're in South Africa we have the opportunity to reside with my family and that has been unbelievably wonderful! Grant is having a chance to really get to know his cousins and extended family. It's quite a celebration and learning experience all in one.

More later--
Warmly, Meg

Well This Is My First Attempt--

I've been encouraged to develop a blog for our agency and I must admit that I'm a bit intimidated. Our hope is that this blog will provide readers some accurate information and encouragement about adoption and will be able to respond to current happenings within the adoption community and Adoptions of Indiana in particular.

Stay tuned as I deal with my learning curve.
Warmly, Meg