Decisions Made and a Request for Help

Well we did it. We booked our tickets. We are off to Ethiopia on June 7th. Now before you get excited NO we didn't get Tegegn's VISA. We have been told that it will be in, in approx 4 weeks from now. If I've learned anything from this process, approximately is different for everyone. With that said we have booked our flights home July 6th. Our hope is that we will be coming home as a family of four, but that might not happen. If his VISA isn't issued in that time frame, Darryl and Celine will be making the long journey home and I will stay with Tegegn for and unknown period of time. Obviously I am hoping that if this happens it will be a short extended stay, but who knows.

All I know is that I need to be a mother to my child physically and not by seeing pictures of him. We as a family need to get to know each other, we need to be whole. In all honesty we need this journey of waiting to come to end, so that the hoping and dreaming is reality, and the anxiety, tears and heartache ends. That is why we have decided to take this risk.

So wish us luck!!

For those of you who read my blog and are not familiar with the process of adopting from Ethiopia here is a bit of a background - After a family receives a referral, they will wait anywhere from 1-3 months for a court date. Only after a successful court hearing can the travel documents be prepared for children - and families are ONLY able to bring their children home once they have received confirmation that the travel documents are ready. In the past, these travel documents have fluctuated in processing time, anywhere from 2 weeks to over six months!! Currently, these travel documents are taking an EXTREMELY long time - in fact, NO families who have gotten their referral since the bankruptcy (the first referral occurred in mid December 2009) have received their travel documents for their children. That means no family has yet bring home their child/ren to Canada and have been given no indication whatsoever of when this might happen. This issue is completely unacceptable and, even more so, unnecessary and could easily be solved.

In comparison to other countries, like the USA, families receive these travel documents within as little as two weeks after their successful court hearing. Also, in comparison to other Canadian High Commission locations around world that process travel documents, the office in Nairobi (in which Ethiopian adoption travel documents are prepared) takes over double the amount of time as these other locations and has gotten significantly longer over time.

This issue does not only affect Ethiopian children being adopted by Canadian families, but on a much larger scale, it also affects refugees coming to Canada. The Canadian Council for Refugees’ wrote a report describing the current problems in Nairobi and called for better resourcing at the Canadian High Commission in Nairobi. You can read more background on this issue here http://ccrweb.ca/en/bulletin/09/11/02 and the full report here http://www.ccrweb.ca/documents/Nairobireport.pdf

Here are the steps to follow to help us take action on this issue:

1) Cut and paste the letter at the end of this post into an email.

2) Send the email to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, Jason Kenney, at Minister@cic.gc.ca.

3) Copy your own Member of Parliament on the email. Using your postal code, you can find her/his email address at the following website: http://www2.parl.gc.ca/Parlinfo/Compilations/HouseOfCommons/MemberByPostalCode.aspx?Menu=HOC

4) At this time, the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration is studying the issue of immigration application process wait times, specifically the long visa wait times of the High Commission in Nairobi. Telling this committee what we are asking for is a key step. We also want to let the Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Foreign Affairs critics know that we are doing this. Please copy the following Members of Parliament on the email to the Minister as well:

tilson.d@parl.gc.ca, BevilM@parl.gc.ca, chowo@parl.gc.ca, StcyrT@parl.gc.ca, Calandra.P@parl.gc.ca, GrewaN@parl.gc.ca, ThilaE@parl.gc.ca, karygj@parl.gc.ca, Wong.A@parl.gc.ca, DykstR@parl.gc.ca, Coderre.D@parl.gc.ca, Young.T@parl.gc.ca, pm@pm.gc.ca, Cannon.L@parl.gc.ca, rae.b@parl.gc.ca, DewarP@parl.gc.ca, lalonf@parl.gc.ca

Here is the letter for copying and pasting:

Subject line: Application processing times at the Canadian High Commission in Nairobi

Dear Minister Kenney,

I have read of the Canadian Council for Refugee's report on the Canadian High Commission in Nairobi. I am distressed to learn of the High Commission's processing times for its most vulnerable applicants. I am embarrassed as a Canadian to read in the report some of the personal stories of refugees and their dependants who are enduring significant hardships, and in some cases tragedy, as they wait years for their applications to be reviewed by your clearly overburdened visa officers in Nairobi. Furthermore, this issue also affects children being adopted by Canadian families.

CIC-Nairobi' s processing times for refugees, refugee dependants, and internationally adopted children are approximately double the average for all of Canada's overseas missions. In fact, CIC-Nairobi' s processing times for almost all other immigration categories lag dramatically behind the global average for Canada's overseas missions. This situation is hardly fair or just, especially given that it impacts some of the most at-risk people Canada's overseas missions serve.

I want my voice heard and to encouraging the Government of Canada to stop the neglect of this overseas mission and the many very vulnerable individuals and families it serves. I would like to strongly encourage Citizenship and Immigration Canada to act on the following recommendations from the Canadian Council for Refugee's report:

- increase resources (both human and material) at Nairobi;
- increase processing targets allocated to Nairobi;
- reduce the number of countries served by Nairobi by using or creating other visa posts in the region to take on some of the burden of Nairobi; and
- review refugee and immigration programs to ensure that access is equitable and that Canadian anti-discrimination and anti-racism policies are fully respected.

Your spokesman's comments in November regarding the High Commission's processing times seemed to indicate that the Government of Canada feels no sense of urgency to address this situation. While acknowledging that this region is beset with many special obstacles, Canada is clearly failing to meet these unique challenges with unique solutions. The only conclusion that can be drawn is that those with the power in Ottawa to address this situation simply do not care to make resourcing decisions that would better support and protect vulnerable children and families.

I urge you to extend our Canadian values of fairness and compassion to vulnerable waiting families and to search for solutions to the issues currently facing the High Commission in Nairobi.

Sincerely,
Your name
Your address

By sending these letters you will NOT help out Darryl and I. We are already in the process, and it will not change that fast, but you WILL make a difference to all the Canadian families in the future waiting for VISA's.

Letter writing made the difference after the bankruptcy. It helped us re-structure and allowed us to meet our son. I am asking you on bended knee. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE send these letters. No other family should be forced to make the decision to risk everything like we are doing and fly over without a VISA or to stay at home while there child grows up in an orphanage.

From the bottom of my heart, Thank you