Everything about becoming an internationally adoptive parent opens eyes and hearts to this big old world of ours, and redefines our place in it. With our children bound to us by unbreakable threads of love and family, their roots entangle with ours, and the soil of their beginnings can never be foreign again. With the expansion of boundaries that comes with a feeling of more global citizenship, is it any surprise that we look for ways to do what we can to make the world a better place?

In researching various programs that provide assistance... more

Continued from here ...

If you'd like to take a look at the sort of thing UNICEF is busy doing while they strong-arm governments, individuals and organizations into buying into their "community-based care" gig, just imagine the resources that went publishing the following pdfs. Peruse them at your leisure and let me know if you can find one thing that imparts any wisdom you didn't already have a pretty good grasp of.

http://www.unicef.org/sowc07/docs/sowc07.pdf... more

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I've seen how 'community-based care' can work in many places. In Cambodia, like in India, Kenya, Brazil ... pick a country, any country ... it often means children falling under the 'care' of those organizing begging rings or owners of brothels or arranging for mine workers, rug tiers ... what ever. The UN is talking about "reintegrating children into communities", as if the orphanages that have... more

Perhaps it's this terrible cold I'm suffering with that's making me fuzzy enough around the edges to be too dense to grasp simple concepts, but this article from the CSM doesn't make a lick of sense to me today. Titled, "Africa shifts to 'whole village' approach for orphans: Orphanages in southern Africa are closing in favor of efforts to reintegrate children into communities," it has a nice... more

I really, really, REALLY meant to be done with the UN slamming for the month, but today's news from the International Court ... their verdict on the Srebrenica Massacre ... will not let me rest until I've done one more round of trashing. If you don't think this has anything to do with international adoptions, you'll be wrong. The ripples run deep and wide when it comes to war and genocide, and children, always with their fates wrapped around their ankles to weigh them... more

Continued from here ... Now, to that "immediate attention" thing ...

TEN YEARS AGO, this commission met for its forty-first session.

Any guesses as to the sort of blather that went on then? Not just "sort" of blather ... actual, real life, exact blather.

If you're thinking it was the same as this year's, you'd be so close to on the money that you'd... more

Today is the opening day of the United Nations Economic and Social Council's fifty-first session of The Commission on the Status of Women Be prepared to be underwhelmed.

The Commission on the Status of Women (hereafter referred to as “CSW” or “the Commission”) is a functional commission of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), dedicated exclusively to gender equality and advancement of women. It is the principal global policy-making body. Every year,... more

I am disgusted with the Toronto Star this morning. (OT tangent warning ... What an age we live in! Here I am, sitting at my desk on an island in the Indian Ocean, about to write about being ticked off over something I've seen in a Canadian newspaper, and sharing my irritation with you ... you being almost exclusively a person half the world away from the aforementioned desk. Cool ... )

I wrote yesterday about... more

The 21st of February has been, since a UNESCO declaration in 1999, International Mother Languages Day. Unfortunately, UNESCO hasn't bothered to get their logo for this year's commemoration out and about, so I've posted an old one. If you're wondering what this is all about here's some explanation in typical UN-speak:

The General Conference,

Recognizing the need to improve understanding and communication among peoples,

Also recognizing... more

In what appears to be reaction to focus on female infanticide in India, the government has announced that it will be building orphanages for the excess of unwanted baby girls.

Dubbed the "cradle scheme," the plan is an attempt to slow the practice that international groups say has killed more than 10 million female fetuses in the last two decades, leading to an alarming imbalance in the ratio between males and females... more