As Lisa pointed out in a recent post on the Guatemala Adoption Blog, adopting from a country often results in parents feeling that we've adopted the country as well as the child.

This manifests in different ways in different families. Some, like like Kari Grady Grossman, mom to a Cambodian-born son, raise money to build and fund whole schools. (I've written before about Kari's book "Bones That Float", and will be doing more on this later in the week.)

Stop Exploitation Now! is an organization set up with the involvement of adoptive parents to fight exploitation and abuse in developing countries and to rehabilitate victims. Keeping children out of brothels is a major focus of their work.

Other families support orphanages, donate time, energy and money in various ways to contribute to their children's countries of birth.

I've recently come across a resource for people with an inkling to follow efforts for the positive in some of the world's poorer nations, many of which were our kids' original homes. The Development Gateway Foundation provides an online resources portal for worldwide knowledge-sharing with tools for bringing together people and organizations working to improve life in developing countries.

It's stated mission is to "reduce poverty and enable change in developing nations through information technology," focusing in three areas: effective government, knowledge sharing and collaboration, and empowering local organizations.

There's a directory of official aid activities globally, for those who'd like to see who's putting what money where and for what that has more than 400,000 projects and programs in its archives, and a network of Independent Country Gateways that provide local information.

In the section on gender equality and programs addressing women's issues in various countries you can learn about a Gender Mainstreaming Program in Asia, a grantee of the Global Fund for Women in China, the Shaanxi Women's Federation that is working to advance the rights of rural women, many of them migrant workers, and advising thousands of domestic and sexual abuse survivors, Women's Dignity, a group that defends and promotes the rights of Chechen women living through one of modern-day Europe's most deadly civil war, the National Union of Guatemalan Women, working to mobilize the people to pressure the government to improve health care, increase economic benefits and guarantee education in native Mayan languages as well as put on rallies and cultural events, Land of Women, a group that protects the indigenous communities of Chiapas, Mexico, The African Women Food Farmer, Women Entrepreneurs, and an online resource for gender empowering tourism like the "Women of Nepal/3 Sisters Adventure Trekking Agency", the only company in the Himalayas supplying female trekkers with female guides, and also offers a training center and hostel for women.

The typical Nepali woman slaves both in her household and in the fields, bearing back-breaking loads day after day, often without pay. Empowering the Women of Nepal encourages uneducated, underprivileged and overworked women from the rural areas of the country to enter the tourism and trekking industry. The group believes that by improving education, employment and decision-making opportunities for women, it can strengthen the independence and self-sufficiency of women in Nepal. The girl guides enter into an apprenticeship program on the trails where they earn full wages and acquire hands-on experience for earning their guiding certification.

There are more ways to impact the lives of our children's original compatriots than we know. Who would have thought that the mother of a Nepali-born daughter could help to improve life for girls in the country by hiring them as guides when Everest beckons? (Or, prehaps, recommending them when K2 calls to someone less busy raising kids. Mothers do mountains every day, as we all know ... mountains of laundry, mountains of dishes ... ) How many have thought before in terms of gender-empowering tourism and its potential to give women in birth countries more options and opportunities to parent their children?

If you have other organizations or resources that parents of the world's children should know about, please share them.