Thanks! Kendra

I am 18 and have lived in Uganda for a year now. I was wondering what it takes to adopt a child here?

I have one that I would like to adopt already. Her mother died at birth and she is now 3 months old. She is now in the care of a local outreach called Potters Village. I have fallen in love with her and would like to make her my child. I plan to live here for many years and so taking her out of Uganda is not something that would happen soon.

If you have any advice on this matter please do tell. I welcome any and all comments, good or bad. I need to look at all the pros and cons.

Thank you all.

Thank you for all of these comments- they are quite helpful.

I have been working with a group of 52 children in Kasese, Uganda for over 3 years. I have gone down to visit them twice and we have formed an organization in Canada that raises all of the funds for the children and manages staff that work on the ground in Kasese. We are working in partnership with a Canadian organization as well as a local Ugandan organization to ensure that the children are cared for, go to school, eat good meals and are setting up leadership and personal development courses and plans for the kids.

As we have gone through the very long process of getting this all set up properly we have been working to do all of the formal paperwork with the local government to ensure that we have care orders from each of the 52 children’s distant relatives or legal guardians so that we have the legal right to care for the children.

There is one child in particular who I have grown quite close to. He is now 5 and it has come to our attention that he is the only child that we cannot trace to any distant relative or tribe, leaving him firmly a child of the state. If anything were to happen, we would have absolutely no control or say in how he was treated or where he went.

I would like to do whatever I need to to become his legal guardian or to formally adopt him if that is what I need to do to protect him. We have a safe and solid in Uganda that I would leave him at for now because I do think that this better for him in the short term, but if the time or situation was right, would of course, bring him here. I want to make sure, though, that if anything ever went wrong in Uganda or with the project I would have the ability to go to Uganda and bring him here as his legal guardian or parent. It is also important to note that I have the support of the local government, the Canadian team supporting the 52 children and our staff and team on the ground in Kasese.

Although I am not new to Uganda I am new to this process of trying to formalize the care of Moses and you seem to be quite knowledgable about this. Is this something you could help me with or do you know where I could find more information or the right people to help me with this? If any of you would be willing to share some insights I would really appreciate it- you can email me anytime at carissa@silverlininglimited.com.

Thank you for your help- I really appreciate it.
Carissa

If you have questions about obtaining legal guardianship of Ugandan children, we would be happy to answer any questions.

The process is still VERY fresh in our minds!

Keith and Jena
bapgap at triad dot rr dot com

I am certain that we ran into Bethany and Amy several times at the court house and the US embassy as we were in Uganda in June/July to obtain legal guardianship of our new daughter. Congratulations to them, and to these children who hopefully are doing well now in their new homes.

Yes, the process was challenging, and we have learned a lot.
Mostly, we could not take our daughter home with us and leave behind her village with 1400 more orphans, without trying to figure out ways to continue to help. We also want our daughter to remain connected to her heritage and her culture, in a way so that she can be Ugandan and American, both, and won’t have to miss the memory of her first eight years of her life. Since our return from Africa, we have founded an organization called “Embrace Uganda”, with a mission to benefit two specific ministries within Uganda. The organization that cared for our daughter when she became orphaned is one of our partners there. International adoption is only a small part of what will need to happen to help this whole generation of orphans that are yearning for family, for hope and for a future. Please, visit http://www.embraceuganda.org, if you would like to learn more about our story, and the steps we have taken since, to try raise awareness here in the U.S. for the kids in her village and in her country.

We would also be happy to share more about our adoption story, if there is interest. Through conversation with our US senator here in NC, we have learned that it will take years for the US government to ease the hurdles that US CIS is placing on prospective adoptive families, all as a result of 9/11 and the world that we live in today.