Thursday, July 16, 2009

Please Help

As some of you may know, my Canadian best-friend, Arnica Rowan, is currently in the process of adopting twin girls from Ethiopia. They learned early this week of terrible news regarding their adoption agency in Canada, Imagine adoption. Imagine adoption is officially bankrupt, for what reason we are not entirely sure. The accounts the transition home relies on to feed and care for our children have been frozen.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/adoption-agencys-bankruptcy-devastates-families/article1217223/

We all had serious concerns regarding their children and where they would be taken care of in the coming weeks, therefore, Arnica decided that it would be best if to travel to Ethiopia immediately. Please take the time to read through this petition and sign it if you support it. Something needs to be done to help these families dreams of an Ethiopian adoption to be facilitated.

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Friends, Family and Supporters of International Adoption:

We need your help and support to protect the future children of families adopting internationally through Imagine Adoption. On July 10, 2009, Imagine Adoption, a government regulated agency in Cambridge, Ontario, Canada declared bankruptcy (Globe & Mail, July 14, 2009.)

It has been reported that there are more than 500 Canadian families who have been directly affected by this development. This number translates into an even greater number of children yet to be (or recently) adopted by Canadians.

The more than "500" families mentioned are at various stages in the adoption process for Ethiopia, Ecuador, Ghana, Zambia and possibly other countries.
Each family has entrusted many thousands of dollars to Imagine. As this process usually takes more than a year's time and many thousands of dollars to complete, we urge the Ministry of Children and youth Services to do the following:

Immediately determine a solution to facilitate and complete all of Imagine Adoption's active files affected by this bankruptcy filing.

As this situation has been allowed to occur while operating under the direct regulation (license) of the Ministry of Children and Youth Services it is imperative that the Government of Ontario takes an active role in ensuring the well being of the many hundreds of children and Canadian families who have found themselves devastated by this news.

As a community, the families who were working with Imagine Adoption are trying to come up with possible solutions to protect the well-being of our children and keep our dreams of starting or completing our families alive . We can't do this alone.

Please support our cause by signing this petition and encouraging all your friends and families to do the same.
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/SaveOurDreamofAdoptingInternatio/index.html
Thank you for your support.