With all the problems reported about orphaned and abandoned children around the world, no one initially expected it to be so difficult. None of us knew it at the time, but we were in the process of developing a life-long commitment to the care of children in the international arena.

The only adoptions from Vietnam at that time were through the remarkable Australian, Rosemary Taylor. Rosemary was strongly supported by TDH Lausanne, which made it possible for Vietnamese children to be adopted by Canadian families, including that of Herb and Naomi Bronstein.

In the process Naomi discovered a prejudice against international adoption in the Montreal social service and the impact on children of cultural prejudices in other countries. An activist by personality, she became outraged at the fact of children left to languish in orphanages in Vietnam and everywhere else because they were culturally unacceptable. Naomi described how during the lengthy process of completing the paperwork for international adoption, the babies died – and no one cared.

Naomi’s first reaction to the plight of children was extremely personal. She adopted as many as she could: three from Vietnam, one from Cambodia, another from Ecuador, then a sixth from Canada, ending up with 13 children, seven of which were adopted. Next she broadened her perspective and helped over 650 more to find new homes with other families in various countries by facilitating international adoption.

Eager to do more, Naomi began traveling to Vietnam and Cambodia, at her own expense, to arrange adoptions for others. Naomi was a dedicated worker whose style was that of a determined activist with little patience for the obstacles of bureaucracy, badly made laws, and people who did not work at her intense pace. Her impatience often cost her heavily in terms of good will and often resulted in opposition and lack of cooperation.

In 1975 Naomi, who was only 29 at the time, was absent from the role of housewife and mother to her 11 children back in Montreal and in Saigon arranging for another planeload of children to be flown to Canada. On April 4, as North Vietnamese troops advanced on Saigon, an Air Force C-5A cargo jet took off from the city carrying some 240 orphans, their escorts and military personnel. Minutes after takeoff a rear door blew off and the plane crashed, the upper deck fell down onto the lower deck of the plane, crushing the children and workers.

Naomi sprung into action immediately. Commandeering an orphanage ambulance, she raced through the streets to the wreckage and began transporting the injured to hospitals. A photo of her anguished face was flashed around the world and she instantly became the poster image for ill-fated ‘Operation Baby-Lift’ and the appalling death of 140 Vietnamese infants.

The experience left Naomi traumatized. She had originally found many of the orphans more dead than alive, in boxes and handbags, in places where evil has had its way. And now over 100 of her children were dead. They had been in her care and she confessed to burning with feelings of survivor’s guilt: She was supposed to be on the plane but had decided not to go at the last minute. Her friend took her place. Naomi’s grief was profound.

These tragic deaths indelibly marked Naomi’s attitude towards life. She particularly recalled the sight of a decapitated serviceman and of an infant whose arm fell off when the child was lifted. "Until then I hadn't been afraid of being in Vietnam. I thought, 'If you're doing good and you're apolitical, who is going to hurt you?' But the plane crash blew away those reassurances." Her sense of innocence and security was shattered by the violence of reality. The horror changed Naomi Bronstein into a zealot focused on saving children and altered her marriage and the lives of her children. "One does not become insane, but one will never be the same person again", she reflected.

To read more about Naomi’s remarkable life and work click here.

Kon Tum and the Central Highlands
By Dorinda Cavanaugh, Director of TDH Ontario
Published October 2009

This is an excerpt from an unpublished report by Dorinda Cavanaugh, describing a 2008 trip to Vietnam. It is printed here to provide background on the region and individuals trying to recover from Typhoon Ketsana, which struck in September 2009. For the full version please click here.

To reach Kontum, we took a plane to Ho Chi Minh City and then to Pleiku, where we rented a car to take us to Kontum (about an hour's drive). We spent two days here, visiting the five orphanages run by the sisters. Two of the orphanages are in the city of Kontum, each one with about 200 children living there, and three others, with a total of 100 more children, are further into the countryside.

Kontum is a province where mostly ethnic minority peoples live (the Banar, primarily), and is largely Catholic. Its most important product is the mountain-grown coffee. The provinces in the Central Highlands are perceived to have sided with the Americans during the war, and are still regarded with suspicion, to say the least. A large number of minority peoples migrated to Cambodia or other countries, including France and the US, and there is a perceived or real effort, including funding, from expatriate Vietnamese to encourage the Central Highlands to separate from the rest of Vietnam. For this reason, there is a great deal of government watchfulness and control over the governments of these provinces, which may translate into severe financial measures against those who are perceived as able to mobilize people against the present government. Although the Catholic Church in Vietnam is probably not perceived as such, this is perhaps one reason that has made it difficult for the orphanages run by the sisters to become accredited by the state.

The actual situation is that since March 1, 2007, Vietnamese law has decreed that private orphanages are not permitted to place children for adoption. Before this time, children went from Kontum to Italy and to France - not in large numbers, but nonetheless there were adoptions. About a year ago, after the new decree was issued, the sisters made application to the People's Committee of Kontum to be accredited as a public child-placing institution. All necessary documents were presented, and the sisters wait still for an answer. In fact a member of the People's Committee came to visit the orphanage recently, and indicated that she had no problem with accrediting the orphanage, but it was not her decision alone. We have in fact approached a few well-connected persons in Vietnam to ask their advice and assistance, and we hope that one day these efforts will bear fruit.

The orphanages themselves are very well run, with many abandoned children living there. There is a joy among the children not often seen in orphanages. Because of the openness of the sisters to receive visitors and help, there are often groups of interested foreigners, or US veterans, or aid organizations of various sorts who come to lend a hand. In one orphanage we visited, when we arrived at about 4pm, all but 2 or 3 of the toddlers were gone. While we waited and chatted to the sisters, about 15 of the children entered - children from 7 (!) to about 12 years old. They had been out since 8 that morning planting rice and jackfruit. That or similar activities was how the children spent their summer vacation. What was most humbling about this was the attitude with which the children came in from the fields - not a single sad face, not one complaint. The sisters explained that since there was no government funding, all the children worked alongside the sisters when they could (i.e. when they were not in school), growing and harvesting what they could to supply the orphanage with food. Thanks to the donations they receive, and by growing their own fruits and vegetables, the orphanage is able to feed the children with about $0.25 per day per child.

Thanks to a donation from a benefactor, we were able to give the orphanage $5000, and we will also bring another $5000 in November. Additionally, I will be going with a group of high school students from Collège Ste-Anne de Lachine in November to spend a week working at these orphanages in Kontum.

For the full version please click here.

The List
By Sharon Kashino , TDH Ontario Newsletter Editor
Reprinted from the May 2009 TDH Ontario newsletter

One of our most consistent questions and concerns as potential adoptive parents is our position on the ‘waitlist’. Having been through the adoption process once with TDH, and being back in the queue myself now, plus having had the opportunity to communicate with Dorinda on several occasions over the last few years about the list and also with other families, I will attempt here to convey my understanding of the operation of this list, and answer the common questions I have encountered. When a family first calls the agency, they are invited to fill out a preliminary application form, which places them on the preliminary waitlist. This list is kept to about 40. One family moves off this list and onto the waitlist for each family that receives a child referral, leaving an available space on the waitlist (which is kept at about 140).

The wait list contains families requesting girls, boys, either gender, older kids, twins, siblings or specials needs. How many are referred of each, and where families with those preferences are on the list - especially the ‘eithers’ - make it hard to calculate an accurate rank and time estimate. In the past there has been a long list of ‘girl only’ and not many girls. Now more families are specifying ‘either’ making the exercise of identifying wait time for a family who does specify ‘boy’ or ‘girl’ that much harder. Rest assured, the new policy is to give you your rank in overall numbers, and as you get closer to the top, more information will be available (such as ‘you are second for a boy and fourth for a girl’ or ‘there are 4 ‘eithers’, and 2 ‘girl only’ in front of you’).

When you are so deeply and personally invested in the list, it can be hard to understand, that it is in fact at times fluid. That is to say, just because you were sixth yesterday and a referral was announced today, doesn’t necessarily mean you are now number five. Due to extenuating and special circumstances, sometimes on the part of the receiving family, and sometimes on the part of the child being referred, there are exceptions to the numerical proceeding of the list.

Let me give a few examples: Sometimes it is because the child is older, maybe even by just a few months. The recommended age on your homestudy must be respected or an application to change the homestudy must be made through the Ministry. Perhaps there is a sibling group or twins who can only be proposed to someone approved for this, or a special needs adoption. Circumstances surrounding the receiving family may cause them to request to be put on hold, and then rejoin the list, or a family may withdraw for one reason or another, either of these situations causing an anomaly in the list. Sometimes (rarely, fortunately) a child dies or the adoption doesn't work for some other reason, and that family needs to be given the next child that becomes available. And while the list generally operates with your document to Vietnam date as your entry point onto the list, there can even be exceptions to this in some cases, be it due to an administrative hold-up or other extenuating circumstances. Dorinda has an open ear and heart and should a family have a legitimate issue that is impacted by their position on the wait list and that could cause their family significant hardship, their concern will be taken into consideration. There is some margin for "discretionary" decisions in this, occurring rarely but always justifiable; but generally involving private or confidential details.

So how often should you enquire about your position on the list, and will you ever receive an unsolicited update? If you are just starting out checking in once every 3 months will give you a good idea of where you stand. You can look forward to the quarterly updates in our new newsletter too! Once you are in the top 20, you are justified in checking in as frequently as once a month. The TDH staff certainly appreciates the requirement we all have to plan our lives, so yes, when you reach the point where your referral looks like it may come in the next few months, you will get a call from them if they haven’t already heard from you!

I welcome your comments on this article.
Sharon Kashino

An Important Update on the Process of Child Proposals from Vietnam
By Dorinda Cavanaugh, Director of TDH Ontario
Published June 2008

We have noticed a certain slowness in the frequency of child proposals in the last 2 months. This may have to do with the US situation, and perhaps a final push to allow them to receive as many proposals as possible before the deadline of September 1.

In any case, TDH will be going to Vietnam during the summer (July) - we are hoping to do several things:

1) to establish new relationships with orphanages in Ho Chi Minh City and another province

2) To try to encourage the acceptance of a private Catholic orphanage by the provincial People's Committee as a place from which adoptions can be carried out

3) To visit each of the orphanages we are working with, and to advocate for more child proposals

This being said, I have had a commentary that I feel we must act on, and which will affect future child proposals. That commentary is that in comparison with other countries (Italy, Sweden, France, Denmark, Spain, even the US), Canada is very particular about the children we will consider, requiring not only one medical, but sometimes even repeat medical examinations. The orphanages feel they have to "pre-test" children for Canada before they are even sent for the medicals at the clinic we use (to prevent useless trips to Saigon) and give us only the healthiest children. They feel this is not fair.

I cannot help but agree. After all, the first goal in adoption is to find homes for children in need. But always at the same time, we are fulfilling the desire of adoptive families to parent a child.

When we started doing adoptions almost 40 years ago, the attitude was very much that of opening hearts and homes to children who had been abandoned, war-injured, orphaned, or were ill. Gradually, however, things changed and unfortunately evolved to the point where there was more and more demand for "healthy" children, and few parents ready to accept children with problems of any sort. The increasing financial
demands for completing an adoption doubtless also played a role in this change of attitude - people felt that if they were "paying more" for an adoption, they had the right to be more demanding regarding the child.

After much thought, we have decided to proceed as follows: We will continue to ask for medical assessments to be done at the international clinic, with an eye towards providing as accurate a portrait of the child as possible. We will do all the tests - Hepatitis B and C, HIV, syphilis, thyroid function tests, and CBC - that we have always done. We will NOT, however, do continued follow-up to determine health status. We will, when it is judged necessary for the health of the child, bring the child back for further consultation if sufficient medical expertise is not available in the child's province. But we will try to find families for EVERY child who is presented to us, as quickly as possible.

This change will certainly privilege those parents who are more open to accepting children with some health problems or with uncertainties regarding health. You can still ask for a child in excellent health, and you will also be able to refuse a child whose health you regard as not sufficiently good, as always. What you will not be able to do is to ask for further testing, because the orphanages are unwilling to do this. If you do refuse a child (presuming you are first on the list), you will be offered the next child proposed. Thus it is possible that we receive a child proposal for a child with a very high white blood count. The child could be offered to several families in the order they are on the waiting list, but may be refused by families #1 through #4 and only be accepted by family #5. The next child similarly could have some other issue - strabismus, for example - and this time be refused by families #1-4 again, and then refused by families #5-10, and only accepted by
family #11.

I think that our perception of adoptable children in the whole of international adoption has changed over the last several years. Some time ago, it was only healthy white infants that were considered, in part because there were so many children of this type available, and not so many adopting parents. Later, infants who were non-white but also non-black came to be considered. More recently, Africa is a very viable option for adoptive parents, as are older children. I think this is part of this natural evolution, which interestingly is bringing us full circle to the way things were many years ago.

I would like to suggest that you carefully consider this in preparation for a possible referral. The child that you may be offered may come with certain issues, often issues that are acute and will resolve with time (e.g. pneumonia, high wbc or asthma), or that can easily be treated in Canada (e.g. strabismus or harelip), or that resolve very slowly but may involve long-term treatment and possibly some risk factors (e.g. hypotonia). I encourage you to line up an international adoption medical specialist to review the child's dossier to help you respond as objectively as possible. And importantly, to know in yourself what you can and cannot accept.

I hope also that you will see this as a positive step in trying to make things move more quickly. If the orphanages perceive us as ready to place all kinds of kids, then it is likely that we will receive more children. To take no action will certainly result, in my opinion, in fewer referrals.

I welcome your comments on this article.
Dorinda Cavanaugh

Terre des hommes (TDH) founder, Edmund Kaiser
By Brendan Cavanaugh, Secretary General of TDH Canada

Edmund Kaiser was born in Paris January 2, 1914 and died in Coimbatore, India at 86 on March 4, 2000. Individualistic in the extreme, opinionated and stubborn, indifferent to the social rules; either one accepted his eccentric social sensitivity or one walked away from his in-your-face approach to social awareness. Kaiser was not one to inspire personal devotion but he did command respect for his personal dedication and his achievement. Edmund Kaiser was a social force to be reckoned with, a man aggressively dedicated to the defense of the most vulnerable members of the human race – its children.

Kaiser personally first founded Terre des hommes (TDH) in Geneva, Switzerland and then inspired the founding of national versions of Terre des hommes in many other countries. The cluster of national versions founded the worldwide International Federation of Terre des hommes (IFTDH). Today IFTDH is a widely spread organization that works on behalf of children in over 80 countries and is yearly responsible for some 800 child-oriented projects.

To read more about Edmund Kaiser and TDH worldwide read the full article::

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Memories of Vietnam
By Brendan Cavanaugh, Secretary General of TDH Canada
Published 2006

You know how when you visit an exotic place and are taken up with enthusiasm for the locale, the lifestyle, the very atmosphere of the place - then you go back home and it remains a fixed memory. From that time onward whenever the name of the place comes up, it is that frozen-in-time memory that pops up. Well, I have several of those frozen memories - the wrought iron gates that opened onto puffy white clouds at the side of one of the upper switchbacks of the Amalfi Drive in Italy, the windblown, severe, white stone front porch of church of the Sacre Coeur at the top of Montmartre in Paris, and the old quarter of Hanoi, Vietnam.

For the full version please click here.