New numbers and update on changes

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We received an update on the changes happening. I am copying some of the information into this post. It's a little hard to follow but basically it's not going to be as bad as we thought. We were very encouraged.

Today we want to update you on the feedback we received yesterday from our foreign staff in Ethiopia, which was confirmed in a discussion with our adoption colleagues in a Joint Council caucus call later in the day.

At this time, all Foreign Staff on the ground in Ethiopia are reporting that MOWA has completed their staffing changes and are now currently working at full capacity to complete those adoption cases currently re-scheduled or assigned a court appointment through the courts of Addis Ababa. Our staff believe this to be around 800 cases they are working at full force to complete with no restrictions on the number of cases processed each day. This is great news! We are thrilled to hear these drastic changes do not seem to be going into full effect.

We are also pleased to report that for new cases moving forward; it appears the original changes proposed by MOWA will not be implemented to the degree of 5 cases a day. At this time it is unknown whether or not MOWA will issue a formal statement regarding how they will process cases in the future, but from all discussions it will not be a drastic decrease from before. Through the continued work, meetings, and advocacy of many Foreign Staff members in Ethiopia, it appears any future changes within the case processing for MOWA will avoid sweeping and disproportionate alterations to the number of cases processed each day. Rather, the hope is that MOWA, Joint Council, Adoption Service Providers, the US Department of State and other NGO organizations can come together to support the government of Ethiopia in strengthening the process for ethical adoptions to continue while also improving the general social structures to assist with family preservation in Ethiopia. This plan was acknowledged in the recent posting by the US State Department this morning at http://adoption.state.gov/news/ethiopia.html. We understand the US Department of State cannot issue a formal statement without MOWA issuing a retraction. Based on the information we are receiving, MOWA is concentrating on processing the current adoptions and the new staff is not focused on numbers, but doing their jobs.

Major Changes

There is a lot happening in the world of Ethiopian adoption right now that will most likely have a major impact on our process. It is one of those things that is completely out of our control.

The simplest way to explain it is that the Ethiopian government is making a change in the number of adoptions they process each day. We are being told that the number is being reduced by as much as %90. From what we can tell this is due to the Ethiopian Government believing there is a lot of corruption going on. This change effects every agency that processes Ethiopian adoptions, not just ours.

Think of it this way, this will mean that over 3,500 children that would be sent to good home over the next year will have to stay in an orphanage. Or, it means that a child will be in an orphanage 5-7 years longer than before. It is really sad for those children.

You can read official info about this by clicking HERE and HERE