Adoption Angels Network
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Motivation
Trying to find your biological parents in a foreign cuntry is something a lot of adoptees are keeping themselves busy with. Marcia Engel (30, Amsterdam) is one of those adoptees. She also walked a long, hard and especially expensive road to finally find her biological mother. To help other adoptees she took the first step to found Adoption AngelsNetwork.
Founding Adoption Angels Network (AAN) was not done without any reason. She did this to support others in their search. Finding your biological parents is one thing, but financially it's something else. This is very often forgotten. It's very frustrating not to get in touch with your biological family because you don't have access to the Financial means. As a result of the financial help Marcia eventually received, she succeeded in finding her biological mother. But Marcia would like to see other adoptees being able to do this too. That's why she started Adoption Angels Network, so that others will also have the opportunity to find their parents without spending a lot of money.
Central registration system
In the first instance, Adoption Angels Network consists of a registration system. At the website PlanAngel people are able to register. This goes for the adoptee in question as well as the biological family. They can identify themselves and whom they are looking for. Marcia will hereafter contact these people. Their addresses and phone numbers will be saved in a central system. This way, data of the parents who gave up their child through adoption, can be connected to the data of the searching adoptees in the country they ended up in. The registration system is not accessible online.
Adoption Angels Network aims for more than just the Netherlands. With the aid of family in Bogotá and Medellin (Colombia), mothers who once gave up their child are being searched for. It is a difficult process. In Colombia giving up a child through adoption is viewed as a shame. It's a taboo. Sometimes mothers even become an outcast when they're pregnant. They are not able to ever return to their families. Not even when the child has been born and afterwards has been given up. The Government forbids parents to look for their child they gave up within a period of 20 years. This has been made punishable! After all, a parent loses the authority of the child when it's given up by adoption. But even when a child has been given up by adoption, years later it turns out that parents who gave up their child would really like to know how their child is doing. Adoption Angels Network tries to overcome this bridge.
Marcia's family shows a map concerning which parents gave up their child on the spot. Even though the law forbids looking for your child, it's permitted to Carry over your data to Third Parties. So in Colombia a list is made of parents who gave up their child. Be careful though, because adoption is still taboo in Colombia. This list is digitally saved in the Netherlands. In doing so, it becomes possible to connect data from the Netherlands to data from Colombia. It cuts both ways. On one hand, the system of Adoption Angels Network is filled by names of adoptees from the Netherlands. On the other hand, data also comes from Colombia through contact with the parents who once gave up their child.
Multi-national
Adoption Angels Network doesn't only look for parents in Colombia, but also in other countries. As soon as new contact persons in other countries sign in at the website, they will also look for people over there who gave up their child. These people will be registered. The website of Adoption Angels Network gives out further information in different languages. This way a bigger group of people will be reached. This makes the website of Adoption Angels Network unique! The explanation of Adoption Angels Network is described on the website with international languages.
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Partners
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Colombia Roots
Like Colombia Roots, we want to help adoptees to find their biological family. Colombia Roots is an organisation that organises "Roots Reizen” (lit. Roots Travels) and it deals with the queries of Dutch adoptees. At the moment we are only dealing with queries from the Netherlands, though we hope to deal with queries from other countries in the future. One of our goals is to help adoptees from Colombia become acquainted with the Colombian culture and society.
Colombian Roots says: "We cooperate with "Plan Angel" because we are working in the same field. Next to that, Plan Angel has the same ideals as Colombia Roots so that cooperation will go smoothly. It appeals to me that we as adoptees have a certain angle which also connects with the queries of adoptees.”
0057-17755879
0057-312-44050286
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