Today is the day that the new Rainbowkids site has launched! If you are not familiar with Rainbowkids, it is not only the largest website dedicated to international adoption, it is also a huge photolisting of children available for international adoption, a monthly e-magazine and a website chock full of information and support for adoptive parents. Other features include chats and blogs that you can use without any charge.

Rainbowkids was created by Martha Osborne, who along with her husband has five daughters that joined there family through adoption from China and Korea, and Martha is an adoptee herself. You can read Martha’s blog here.

I have always liked Rainbowkids. I read the new articles every month. I scan the waiting child list more often than I probably should. We “found” our sweet Amanda on Rainbowkids almost four years ago.

But Rainbowkids has done something completely new, and completely close to my heart. Rainbowkids has created 20 new websites, each one dedicated to children with a specific special need. There is a website for adopting a child with Down’s Syndrome. There is a website for adopting a child with attachment difficulties. There is a website for adopting a child with Hepatitis B. There is a website for adopting a child with a heart defect. There are websites for toddler adoption and for older child adoption. And yes, there is a website dedicated to adopting children with HIV.

To see these websites, you can click here, or click on the green “Special Needs” tab on the left hand side of the Rainbowkids homepage.

Here is how the website describes this new endeavor...

Welcome to the area of RainbowKids.com that we are most proud of. This area was built for and by adoptive families of special needs children. Each link below represents an entire website dedicated to one specific special need. Each site is run by an adoptive parent of a child with that special need. This is an ambitious project: To create communities for parents considering the adoption of a special child, and for the children with that special need who are waiting for a family. As of this writing, October 2006, many of these sites are still under construction, but should be finished by December.
God bless the children who wait. --Martha Osborne

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