AFAAD needs volunteers!

Call for Volunteers – Please pass on to students or other folks you know would be interested in our work!

AFAAD — Adopted and Fostered Adults of the African Diaspora is looking for qualified volunteers to work with our organization. We are looking for two interns who will work collaboratively with the existing board and founding members, as well as the larger community to assist with our annual projects.

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Volunteer Position Commitment
5 -10 hours a week
July – Nov 2009
Location: Oakland, CA (but MN and ATL positions soon!!)

what we need:
- marketing and communication support (website, twitter, email lists, blog)
- newsletter development and editing
- website development support
- Nov 2009 conference planning
- fund raising campaign support
- someone with their own laptop / portable
- administrative support (mailing, database entry, editing)

what you will get:
- experience with a project from beginning to end
- experience with web marketing and communication
- development of professional relationships with a diverse group of adoptees and foster care alumni
- strong skills in a environment that respects your contributions
- volunteer appreciation lunch or happy hour

please contact Lisa Marie with a resume and brief letter of interest, stating your interest in the project at afaadinfo@gmail.com by July 20th, 2009. QLGBT and people of color encouraged to apply.

Save Nov 6-8th!

Announcing the 2nd Annual Gathering of Adoptees and Foster Care Alumni of African descent:

November 6-8th, 2009

Oakland, CA

mark your calendars, spread the word! buy your air tickets!

details up soon!

Follow AFAAD on Twitter!

See what AFAAD is up to on Twitter!

WE DID IT!!!

WE DID IT!!

What an amazing weekend! Its incredibly difficult to write down what happened last weekend, and its really taken me about a week to come back to ‘normalcy’. In the next few weeks, we’ll be posting some of our group and individual experiences here for our friends who couldnt make it this year!

"Outside Looking In" Screening

It was truly an amazing weekend last weekend. We had over 30 participants come through over the weekend and each day we had sessions that were partially educational, but mostly focused on our theme for this year: “Healing ourselves, Making Connections”. We had much discussion, getting to know one another, and just providing space to feel safe to speak and express joy, anger pain etc.

AFAAD Group Photo

Friday night we had one event open to the public at the Oakland Art Museum, where we screening Phil Bertelson’s film “Outsiders Looking In”. This was a fun time, but also for me, reminded me why we were so stanch about not letting any AP’s or professionals into our space. There really is nothing like a space where we all are equals, and we are coming to the space with our own experiences, and once a year isn’t too much to ask. In fact, we need more. AFAAD got lots of ideas about workshops we plan to create specifically for adoptees and foster care alumni in the future.

Saturday morning we built an altar and had a gentle healing session where we placed things we wanted to heal on the altar, it was really one of the most powerful pieces of the weekend, that I think really solidified for me the philosophy behind the gathering that it always stay away from an academic bent (except when in educative/ activist mode), and stay true to the purpose of connecting adoptees and foster care alumni with one another in our common connections. 

We had some great evaluations and even more interest in making sure we connect the dots between foster care and adoption so that as a group we can address the political pieces of the social welfare system as well and stay true to our goals as a social justic organization. whew!

Some Photos Here and Some More Here

Enjoy the love people and see you next year! Woo Hoo!

One Month until AFAAD’s First Annual Gathering!

Its been a jam packed summer and the fall has been no different! AFAAD board members have been busy busy, preparing for our First Annual Gathering and making connections far and wide with adoptees and foster care alum who are excited about the Gathering.

We are excited to announce that we have many well- known TRA faces that will be joining us this year. Dr. John Raible and Michele Johnson of the film Struggle for Identity: Issues in Transracial Adoption, Dr. Julia Sudbury and writer Shannon Gibney of the TRA anthology Outsiders Within: Writing on Transracial Adoption, Filmmaker Phil Bertelson of Outside Looking In. We hope to screen David Akinsanya’s film about foster care, Raised by the State that focuses on the UK foster care system. The diaspora is strong ya’ll!

We are still looking for sponsors and donations. Please support if you can.

We are also excited about the teen discussion session we will now be facilitating during the Gathering on Saturday Nov 8th. Youth adoptees and foster youth – come through!

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!

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.