July 08 Update

Its been a busy year over here at AFAAD!

From one of our social gatherings

We’ve been meeting all year, once a month, going back and forth between a social setting, and for our discussion group. These group meetings have been instrumental in our growth as a solid group. We started off only meeting for discussion and realized we needed social time together, just being with one another. The discussion group has been full of watching adoption films together, discussing our individual searches for our birth families, our struggles and joys with our reunions and of course the surreal-ness of what it all means for us in our 20’s, 30’s, 40’s, 50’sand beyond. For all of us, its been the first time we’ve had a chance to vocalize our struggles with our families, our childhoods and to articulate with people who actually understand the depth of our complex experiences. We all have such different stories, and such divergent ways of expressing them, but it comes down to connection.

Our Development Coordinator Connie Galambos-Malloy stuffing envelopes!

Our Development Board has also been meeting once monthly! Yes - we’ve been busy! Whew! The board has been busy finalizing our nonprofit paperwork, developing our youth and adult programming, looking for funding, creating collaborations with other adoptee organizations, other foster youth support organizations and of course - planning our firsts ever Annual Gathering in November! For all of the update information on the gathering - Check out the Info Page. In June we did our first announcement mailing to let everyone in the adoption world and beyond know that we exist and that we are growing quickly! Karie and Connie and I spent hours in the AFAAD ‘office’ stuffing envelopes with flyers and information packets.

Lisa Marie with Amie Kim (Board Member) & Younghee Lowrie of AKASF.

I also spent sometime working closely and visiting with local Korean adoptees in the Bay. Watching their work together and seeing how they create space for one another is amazing! Whats really been inspiring is their direct support of AFAAD’s growth and their complete understanding of our need to support black adoptees on a global scale. Its amazing how similar our needs are as communities. Collaboration in the future is SO goin down!

I have to say, for me this year has been an amazing learning and growing experience. Not only has my own search and reunion developed in new ways, my relationship with TRA’s across the globe continues to grow!

I am amazed at how much this organization is needed. I am overwhelmed each time I meet an adoptee in their 20’s, 30’s, 40’s 50’s who tells me, “I have never spoken this out loud”. I am so thankful that I have the energy, time and focus to do this. (We DONT have the money - so DONATE!!) I am blessed to be in this position.

I am asking you to start looking out for us! ANY time you find an adoptee or someone who has been part of the foster care system - tell them about us! Tell us about them. We want to support them and let them know they are not alone. I KNOW we are out there!

We are Growing!

Nov 2007 AFAAD update:

It’s National Adoption Month and AFAAD is going on our first campaign to let the adoption community know we are here, pushing to support global adoptees, and providing a network. We’re doing a mass mailing this month - we could use volunteers, funding for postage and envelopes. Please help.

We are also excited to announce we’ve chosen our date for the 1st Ever, 1st Annual AFAAD Mini-Gathering! November 6-9th, 2008. Put it on your calendar, tell an adoptee you know, start saving your pennies!

We are amazed at how much this organization is needed. We am overwhelmed each time we meet adoptees in their 20’s, 30’s, 40’s 50’s who tell us, “I have never spoken this out loud” or “I have never been in a room with another black adoptee just.. out like this”. We are so thankful that we have the energy, time and focus to do this. (We DONT have the money - so DONATE!!)

We are asking you to start looking out for us! ANY time you find an adoptee or someone who has been part of the foster care system - tell them about us! Tell us about them. We want to support them and let them know they are not alone. We KNOW we are out there!

Our Mission

AFAAD is a nonprofit organization connecting, supporting, and advocating for the needs of the African Diasporic adoption and foster community on a global level, through community outreach, legislative advocacy, scholarship and social gatherings.

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AFAAD is an international social, community based, research oriented non-profit organization that attends to the specific concerns of adopted and fostered adults and youth across the African diaspora. We are adult adoptees, we are transracial adoptees, we are foster children across the world. We are adopted to London from the US, we are adopted to Sweden from Ghana, we are international and global in every way. We are multi-cultural, multi-racial, same-race - we are the diaspora.

Our mission emerges partially from our commitment to ensure conversations in academia and popular culture around adoption progress in a way that include contributions by, for and about adult adoptees. We support and make visible those who are doing the research, constructing the policies or creating the artwork and films. We place race, culture and connection at the forefront of our transracial, same race adoption and foster care stories.

Our mission also emerges from our beliefs that providing international connections and space to make visible the adoption and foster community that lives inside African diasporic cultures worldwide will give support to those who otherwise are isolated in their experiences. We believe our stories have a powerful message about kinship, family, race and the diversity of global black identities.