| In the early hours of Dec 26th 2004 the Western | | | | Adoption experts say the best thing people can do is |
| world awoke to the unfolding horror that we came | | | | to donate money to causes that directly help the |
| to know as the Asian Tsunami. Those of us still | | | | children. They say it's wrong to take a traumatized |
| recovering from obscenely large amounts of food | | | | child away from the environment that they have |
| and drink from the previous day sat transfixed as we | | | | grown up in. |
| watched a horror story of biblical proportions unfold | | | | "Adoptions, especially inter-country ones, are |
| before our very eyes. | | | | inappropriate during the emergency phase as children |
| The United Nations estimated that the Asian Tsunami | | | | are better placed being cared for by their wider |
| left more than five million people homeless, including | | | | families and the communities they know," said the |
| about 1.5 million children most of whom became | | | | charity Save the Children in a statement released Jan. |
| orphaned. The outpouring of emotion from around | | | | 6, 2005. |
| the world was of mixed benefit as far as the region | | | | International Adoption needs to be well planned |
| was concerned in that yes we all dug deep into our | | | | "The last thing they need to do is be rushed away to |
| pockets and yes we all lobbied our Politicians to | | | | some foreign land," said Cory Barron of Children's |
| something about it and yes bizarrely this tragedy | | | | Hope International, an American adoption agency. |
| may have had some knock on effect in the | | | | "We have to think of the child first." |
| movement to alleviate Third World debt and poverty | | | | Adoption by some well meaning couple in the west |
| but the blessings were mixed as far as the people on | | | | flying half way round the world bearing large sums of |
| the ground were concerned. | | | | money to whisk the child away to a life totally alien |
| Since the disaster, adoption agencies around the | | | | to everything it has known isn't always what is in the |
| world have been fielding phone calls from | | | | best interests of the child. |
| well-meaning families wanting to adopt a child from | | | | It is worth bearing in mind the following facts after |
| one of the countries hit. | | | | any tragedy like this: |