Helping orphans for National Adoption Month

One great way that you can celebrate National Adoption Month is to provide some donations for orphans.

It is time again for my regular appeal for donations, supplies and travelers willing to carry donations and supplies to Ethiopia for AHOPE.

I am the donations/supplies coordinator for AHOPE For Children, an organization that provides a nurturing home in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia for orphaned HIV-positive children, provides care for HIV+ children in the community through their outreach program and helps to educate the community about AIDS prevention. The children at AHOPE are now receiving antiretroviral drugs–thanks to Jane Aronson’s Worldwide Orphans Foundation–and are thriving. (For more about the organization, please see their website.)

Because AHOPE has a very limited budget for basic items like clothing, diapers and toys, we depend on the generosity of individual donors for these things and on traveling adoptive parents and volunteers to help deliver the donations. We realize that the adoption agencies also rely on traveling parents to transport supplies for their orphanages, and we do not wish to commandeer luggage space that the agencies depend on. But if any of you think you might still be able to squeeze some extra things in your baggage, we would be very grateful for your help.

Below is the most current needs list for AHOPE.

As always, I am in need of travelers who will be going to Addis Ababa, and are willing to carry over donations. Any amount, large or small, is needed and appreciated. With the Ethiopian courts up and moving again, and lots of parents traveling soon, I would love to get lots of travelers able to carry over donations.

If you are traveling to Addis and have room in your luggage to carry over any amount of donations, please contact me and I will arrange to have donations sent to you for you to carry over.

If you would like to gather donations and are not traveling, please contact me and I will find someone to get your donations over to AHOPE. If you are not willing/able to ship your donations to someone traveling and need me to find someone to pick them up from your home, then please know it may take some time for me to find someone that lives close enough to you to do so.

If you are gathering donations and carrying them over yourself, please contact me if you have any questions at all. I have directions and phone numbers for AHOPE available for travelers.

Some notes:

-If you carry donations over, you can either visit AHOPE and bring the donations yourself, or, you can contact AHOPE and they will have someone pick the donations up from where ever you are staying. Directions to visit AHOPE and contact info is listed below.

-It is easier for AHOPE (in keeping track of inventory) to receive a larger amount of one (or a few) items (such as a large box of socks and shoes) than it is to get one or two of a whole bunch of things (such as a box with three pairs of socks, one bottle of vitamins, two coloring books, one bottle of eyedrops and one DVD). That being said, any and all donations from the list are needed and appreciated in any quantity.

-I get a lot of people who ask me about shipping donations to AHOPE. Shipping items to Ethiopia is not only too expensive to make it cost-effective, shipping is also unreliable because of customs, etc. so it is not advised. Having travelers carry donations over is the preferred method of getting supplies to AHOPE.

- We adopted our daughter from AHOPE in the fall of 2006 and are currently in the process of adopting a little boy from AHOPE. Many younger children at AHOPE have been adopted or are currently in the process of being adopted (and yet there is still only a relatively small percentage of AHOPE’s children being adopted). When visiting AHOPE, please be aware and sensitive to the fact that the children may be referred to a family. Also, if anyone is interested in adopting an HIV+ child (from AHOPE or from anywhere else) and would like more information, please also feel free to contact me about that.

Here are the current needs of AHOPE (items from previous lists are always appreciated as well)

Antibiotics
Amoxacillin /syrup/
Erythromycin /200 mg tabs and syrup
Cefalexin 250mg capsule
Sterile gauze sponges
Sulpher ointment
Augmentin (Amoxacilln clavulin syrup
Anti fungals (ointment and shampoo)
Anti-acid tablets
Anti allergic syrup
Infant anti diarrheal medicine
Eye Drops
Original –Tetrahydrozoline HCI redness reliver eye drops
Artificial Tears – Lubricant soothes, moisturizes and protects

Pulse Oximeter No.1
Disposable pediatric authoscop
Nitrite (non latex gloves, edium and small size)
Hospital disposable bed covers

Thanks to all of you who think about the kids at AHOPE and help provide donations to the orphanage.

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