[mgummere]

There is a new group on yahoo called Russian Orphanage
News. It is relatively new, but will consist of monthly
digests with information about the various orphanages in Russia, with contact info, webpages, etc.

The hope is to educate the public on the state of Russian Oprhanages, and streamline communications between
parents and their children's orphanages (and hopefully
giving more targeted aid).

The group is located at:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Russian_Orphanage_News

[FamilyBound]

Sounds great!

Where is the information provided going to be received from? Who is providing these updates and how are they involved in the system?

[mgummere]

The information for the digests will be coming from
"open" press reports, mostly. THere is a ton of
information out there on Russian orphanages, however,
most is reported in Russian. Unless you do some
digging (and can read Russian or don't get tired
of on-line translators) it can be hard to find.

The backbone to the group is Mikhael Airumian
who was the director of Fireflykids.org. He now
lives in the US and works as a pediatrician.

You can see the full description of the list if you visit
the home page at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Russian_orphanage_news

The first digest is in the works. In the mean time I have
been collecting webpages of orphanges (yes, there are quite a lot of them and yes, they have pictures of children.)

The point of the group is to target the actual needs of the
orphanages (vice sending them things they store in basements).
Things like fire suppresion equipment (due to several fires
at several orphanges earlier this year....the the western
press didn't think was worth reporting on.

Mary
list owner

[shnoogiepoo]

If oyu go to www.world.altavista.com you can translate an entire page.

We are currently learning Russian. We want young children but anyone over 18 months is gonna have learned language in Russian and we do not want to add developmental stumbling blocks by setting them back 18 months by all of a sudden speaking a new language. We'd like to make the transition as smooth as possible. We know we will not be close to fluent, but if we can get through the basics we'll be giving them a good head start.

Often it seems like the attitude of us(americans) is that We'll the'll just all speak english. Many do but it's because thier education system has them learning 2nd and 3rd and 4th languages from Kindergarten and up. America is the country that can't even speak english, well. I'm just as guilty as the next person on this.

Unless you plan on covering up and lying to your children their entire life they are going to learn at some point they were adopted and from where... Why not give yourself and your children a wonderful life by teaching them about many cultures including the two they live in. The current one with a loving family in which ever country, and the one they were born into, Russia.