Looking for a little Roma girl to love

Romania still is not accepting international adoptions at this time. They have yet to set up any adoption rules. However, that said, Bulgaria is beside Romania, and suffers from many of the same economic hardships. Also, Bulgarian orphanages have a large number of Roma children, since they are considered "unadoptable" by people of Bulgaria. The process for the adoption is considered fairly long (about 10 months), but it is definately worth the wait as the children are gorgeous, and well taken care of (much better than Romanian orphans). I have been to the orphanages and seen first hand, and will be returning in two summers (as a volunteer).

oh thank you, thank you. I feel like there is hope for me now. Do you have any other information that would be useful to me or any other wonderful advise? I will follow this thread or you could email me directly at vemoffat@earthlink.net. I look forward to hearing from you. I've been despondent, not knowing which way to turn. Now I feel so relieved! I'm so glad we "met".

I volunteered in Bulgaria with a program called "MAR." The website for MAR is: [url]http://www.mar.bg/bulcamps.htm[/url] It has a lot of pictures of children, and of the orphanages. I live in Canada, so I do not have much information on adopting Bulgarian children using US agencies. I have heard that Wasatch is a good agency though, and their website is: [url]http://www.wiaa.org/bulgaria.asp[/url] Also, I can tell you a little about the process. From the completion of your homestudy to being referred a child is about 1-2 months (less time for boys and less time for Roma or Turkish children). After receiving a referral, you must travel to the orphanage to bond with your child for 4-7 days, or to decide you would like to be referred another child. After 6-10 months (depending on how fast the Bulgarian government does the paperwork for the adoption), you return to Bulgaria to pick up your child. As the time of referral, the child must be at least 12 months old. So, if you are looking for an infant, Bulgaria is not the place to go. As for the children, I worked in an orphanage in Gutzal. This orphanage was for children aged 7-18. The building was well taken care of, very clean. Many of the walls were painted bright colours. Also, there were many toys in toy rooms for the kids to play with. There were outdoor sports, and the caregiver to child ratio was really great. I also know a person who volunteered in Sofia (the capital) with children in the 0-3 range (this age group has a separate orphanage). The orphanage was extremely clean and well taken care of. The children were often held, and the caregivers responded to their cries. The infants showed great attachment to their caregivers, and played with toys in an age-appropriate manner. The inside of the orphanage was painted with bright colours, and their were many toys suitable for young children. Also, the children were fed healthy food (including fresh fruits and vegetable!). Many of the infants were chubby, and had good growth rates (compared to children in orphanages from other countries). The only problem was, due to the amount of children, the children in this age group were not permitted to go outside often. This did not seem to affect the children however. The caregiver to child ratio was about 1:4, so the children were given a good amount of 1-on-1 attention. Since Bulgaria allows international volunteers to work in the orphanages, the children seem to be doing much better than other Eastern European orphanages. The volunteers supply the children with healthy foods, toys, clean clothes, doctors, as well as help to fix-up the older orphanage buildings. The Roma people are extremely poor in Bulgaria (in some places unemployment is nearly 100% for Romas), there is a large amount of Roma children in orphans. Romas make up 3-4% of the population, but make up 25% or more of the children in orphanages. There should be no difficulty in you finding a little Roma girl in Bulgaria. I hope this information is helpful. If you have any specific questions, feel free to write me back.

I would advise you to look for an orphanage this has an international aid program set in place. The children in these orphanages do better than those in other orphanages. Some of the smaller or rural orphanages are not yet sponsored, so these children have less access to nutricious food, warm clothing, and doctors. Also, make sure that you are mentally ready to visit your child, leave and wait for up to 10 months before you can go back to take your child home. This is very difficult on parents (I saw many leave the orphanage crying because they had to wait). I would advise you to join an e-mail group with others who are currently adopting, or have adopted, from Bulgaria. There is likely a Yahoo group set-up for this purpose. The people in the support group can help you cope with the months of waiting. Other than that, Bulgaria is a great country, with many wonderful children waiting for families just like yours.

Holt International is actively recruiting families for Bulgaria [url]www.holtintl.org[/url]

Hi! Moldova is also a good choice We adopted 2 children from Romania before the ban. We found a site by college students traveling in eastern europe that was interesting and somewhat useful as well pages.ivillage.com/lele729 Otherwise Bulgaria uses foster home in general, rather than Romania and so it is better like they said