March 2016
CHINA AND TAIWAN PROGRAM NEWSLETTER

This month brought us the lovely "Night Among 
the Stars" gala honoring our children still waiting for families as well as the ones who are home!

  
 

China
Program Update: 
March has been a busy month for Gladney's China and Taiwan programs - We started the month off with our 2nd successful fundraiser for Superkids and ended the month with 15 new child profiles assigned from our partnerships in China for matching with parents!  What an amazing way to book-end a month! 

If you would like to learn a little about some of the children who have just been assigned (a nine month old boy and several children who will be part of Gladney's Advocacy Camp) - follow us on our Superkids blog. 

And, to announce more great news for March - three LSCs were issued throughout the month!  (An LSC or 'Letter Seeking Confirmation" is the official referral from the Chinese Government of a specific child for a specific family that formalizes the petitioning / matching process.)

April will be a month of preparation and packing for parents, staff, and volunteers.  We have the Superkids Team getting ready for their trip to China in April to visit some of our partnership orphanages.  We also have Gladney's first ever 'advocacy camp' occurring in China simultaneously.  You may be wondering - What is an 'advocacy camp'?  An advocacy camp is an adoption agency organized trip that gives prospective adoptive parents and adoption advocates the opportunity to travel to orphanages in China to meet and spend time interacting with children who need adoptive families.  This opportunity is a recent initiative announced by the CCCWA late last year to further advocate for adoption for waiting children.  Gladney's first advocacy camp will bring 9 participants to China.  Please wish everyone luck on this new adventure!    

And looking forward to May......wow!  We anticipate approximately 10 families meeting their children in China during the month of May!  More good luck wishes will be filling the air later this Spring!

Taiwan
Program Update:   
Gladney's partner organization in Taiwan, Cathwel Service, is excited to announce their 2016 Roots Finding Trip! This is an opportunity for young adults who were adopted from Cathwel to return to Taiwan for an exciting cultural experience this summer. Along with sight-seeing, the group will volunteer in Cathwel's Jonah House and have the opportunity to meet with their birth families, if desired. For more information and the application, please visit Cathwel's website here. 
 
In February, we received travel dates for one of our families! We also received some new profiles of waiting children, including an adorable 5 year old boy and a healthy 7 year old boy. For more information on waiting children from the Taiwan program, please visit Gladney's  A Child To Love website.

ADOPT ME!

Click the images to read stories about children from our China and Taiwan programs!  
 
 
 
Gladney Moments
We were excited to see so many of our supporters at our special Superkids event on March 4th! The venue was elegant and the menu was exquisite! Two adoptive families spoke about their experiences and about how important Superkids was in their adoption journeys. The entire evening was a huge success and we are grateful to everyone who contributed!

Kelly Meier and her daughter Anna, adopted last year from China.

Ethan Holland with his siblings.

Money raised by the March 2016 fundraiser will send two Superkids Teams to China and Taiwan this year and help advocate for more than 35 children to find their forever families.  It will also support the Asia Waiting Child Suppprt Fund which provides financial assistance to families adopting older children and children with medical needs.

Superkids
Our next trip to China is just around the corner! We are packing our bags and getting excited to see the children! We will get updates for families who are eagerly waiting to bring their children home as well as meeting many other children who are or will be available for adoption.
Hope, one of the children we will be spending time with!
There will be several ways that you can follow our trip.  We will be updating the Superkids blog daily (internet and VPN permitting). We will also be posting on our Facebook page. We will be posting videos of our adventures to Periscope.  For anyone not familiar with Periscope, you can download the free Periscope app to your apple or android device and search for Superkids. Follow us and you will get a notification when we are live streaming videos! The videos will be available for 24 hours after we stream them, so you can still watch them even if you are sleeping while we are streaming! Since we now have a portable wifi device we travel with we should be able to live stream from orphanages, trains, and everywhere else we find ourselves! If you watch while we are live streaming you can even ask questions or make comments which we can see and answer immediately.

Upcoming Events
A great way to stay connected to Gladney and other adoptive families is to join our Gladney Family Association or GFA. There are several chapters around the country that plan fun and exciting events throughout the year.

The National Capital Area GFA has a Pirate Cruise planned for Sunday, April 17th! There will be a treasure hunt and water cannon fight - you don't want to miss out on this adventure! Wendy Stanley, Director of Social Services for Gladney's Asia Programs will be attending and would love to see our Asia program families! Click here for all the event details!

Stay Connected
The Gladney Center for Adoption, Asia Program, 850 7th Avenue, Suite 801, New York, NY 10019