China and HIV+ Adoption

WOW! WOW!

An online friend, Erin of Full House, Full hands, Full Heart, has a new job as HIV adoption Coordinator for her agency. This morning she reported that her agency had persuaded China (Yes, CHINA!) to "try" placing HIV+ children. This is SO huge. Please read her post copied below and SPREAD THE WORD!

"This week AAI staff has been in China, and we are being given the
wonderful opportunity to facilitate the adoption of an HIV+ child from
China, and hopefully start a program where HIV+ children are regularly
placed (which would be new to China). There was a big meeting and
basically those who are in charge of the orphans in China had no idea
that HIV+ children could be treated with medication and be basically
healthy. They had no idea that these kids could live long, full lives.
They had no idea that HIV was not spread through casual contact, etc.

After
some education and explanation, and the AAI staff sharing how over 20
HIV+ kids have now been adopted from Ethiopia, the people in charge in
China agreed to "try it". They gave us the referral of one child, a 20
month old little girl. She is very beautiful and seems to be doing
well, although is small for her age. She is developmentally normal and
has not been showing any signs of illness. From what we know there are
no ARV's available for Chinese orphans, so getting her home quickly
will be important.

We would love to get the word out about this
little girl so we can try and find her a home. If we can find a home
for her quickly and show the Chinese officials that there are parents
who will adopt these children, it could very well open the door for
many more HIV+ Chinese orphans to be placed in loving homes in the US
instead of dieing in orphanages.

China has been flexible in the
past with its guidelines for special needs kids and we believe that
they will be flexible for parents adopting HIV+ kids, however for the
first case we want a family that meets the guidelines (or is very
close) so it isn't a "stretch". The guidelines are:

- parents between the ages of 30-55
- married for two years
- income of at least $10,000 a year per family member and net worth of $80,000
- no more than four (maybe five) children in the home

Please
feel free to spread this information around anywhere you see fit,
especially if any of you have connections with the China adoption
community.

Also please share my work contact info with anyone interested, which is erin@adoptionadvocates.org"