The narratives around adoption narratives are changing, led by the voices involved. This Adoption Week Scotland, we look at what the award-winning project Whatever Next? tells us about how we can learn from each other and international adoption.

Whatever Next? is an award-winning adoptee-led project which was started in January 2021 by three Chinese adoptees – Addie, Hannah and Jo - who met in Edinburgh at the tail end of 2019. Since then, Whatever Next?, which focuses on how adoption is talked about and represented, has made appearances on BBC Radio Scotland, LBC, and in the Herald Scotland, and is currently working with Solus Productions on a podcast and Adoption UK on a series of webinars. In this blog post, they share some of their thoughts on how discussion surrounding adoption is changing and how they navigate this.

The three of us, Addie, Hannah and Jo met in Edinburgh. Addie had posted on a Facebook group designed for UK-based Chinese adoptees to see if there was anybody in Edinburgh who fancied meeting up in person. Our first few meetings started as cups of coffee and cake dotted around the various cafes of Edinburgh and the project initially began as an experiment to see how some of our views on certain topics about adoption might shift as we grew older. We began recording a few of these with the idea that it might be interesting to listen back to these in a couple of years' time.

Since that first recorded conversation, Whatever Next? has grown far beyond anything we could have imagined and it has been both a great privilege and experience to bring our conversations to other adoptees as well as friends, family and loved ones outside “the adoptive triad” (birth parents, adoptive parents, adoptee).

Three aims we try to strive towards in our work are bridging gaps in dialogues with those outside of the adoption triad; documenting changes in our own thoughts surrounding adoption as we learn more and grow older; and challenging traditional adoption narratives while showcasing the diversity of opinions within the global adoptive community.

The Thiruvananthapuram district child welfare committee has ordered that a child that was already

declared legally free for adoption and handed over to adoptive parents under preadoption foster care shall be returned to the adoption agency.

The order was issued in view of the claim by a woman that it was her child and her parents and

relatives gave the child for adoption without her consent.

Anupama Chandran, a 22-year-old woman hailing from Thiruvananthapuram, had also moved legally

MAKED IMPRESSIONS: Many were moved to tears by Fredrik Solvang's strong story in the program «Lindmo» earlier this autumn. - The new report confirms what many of us have lived with since we were brought here in the 1970s and 80s, namely that we who are adopted abroad experience discrimination to the same extent as people with an immigrant background, the columnists write.

DANIEL Abimael SKJERVE Wensell

DIANA PATRICIA fynbos,

CHRISTINA VIOLETA THRANE Storsve, Adoption changing - Resource adopted and their families

HAWA Muus, Foundation on August 10

THE TESTIMONY GIVEN by Philomena Lee to the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes about the adoption of her son has been misinterpreted by the Government, the High Court has heard.

Michael Lynn SC, acting on behalf of Lee, said an assertion made in court by Eoin McCullough SC, acting on behalf of the Government, that Lee consented to the adoption of her son was inaccurate.

Lynn said that while Lee did sign the document in question, she was given “no other choice” and the full content of it was never explained to her.

Lee and fellow survivor Mary Harney are among several women taking legal action against the State following the publication of the final report of the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes earlier this year. Their two legal challenges are being used as test cases which will set a precedent for future similar cases.

The Commission of Investigation dissolved in February, so the women are taking cases against the Minister for Children, the Irish Government and the Attorney General.

This week the 98th title of Yvonne Keuls will be published. A book she had to write, about her foster child Gemmetje. Just as she had to tell all those other unjust stories, including about child abuse by high-ranking people. "If I see the law being tampered with, I stand up."

Yvonne Keuls turns 90 next month, but that doesn't mean she gets few Whatsapp messages. In fact, "it goes on throughout the day," she says. She shows the baby photos that appear in the family app: one of her three great-grandchildren. “I have three daughters of my own, four grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. I eat that. They all have cauliflower ears because I nibbled on them.'

Three daughters of your own, you say. Why?

'Because I've also had some foster children over the years. One of them stayed in my life for 25 years, that's Gemmetje. It took me quite a while to write about her, but it had to happen, I've known that for twenty years, since her death. I have never laughed with anyone as much as with that creature. Maybe with my mother. And you know what it is: if you really laugh with someone, you never forget it – you can't put your finger on it, but if you can really laugh with each other, the bond goes under the skin.'

The novel that Keuls wrote about that 'creature', Gemmetje Victoria , will be published this week. It is her 98th title. A book in the vein of the 'social novels' that are among her greatest successes, and which are still read today: The rotten life of Floortje Bloem (1982), The mother of David S. (1980) and Jan Rap en z' nmaat (1977), in which Gemmetje (as Gemma) also plays one of the leading roles.

Stephanie Kripa Cooper-Lewter has never been able to find the family who put her up for adoption, but her pursuit of information has shaped her life since being adopted by a single mom in Minnesota

Stephanie Kripa Cooper-Lewter will be celebrating her 49th birthday this November 28, but her exact age remains shrouded in mystery.

"We don't know if I was a week old or a couple of months old when they found me, so they just gave me a birthday," Kripa Cooper-Lewter tells PEOPLE.

That's because the mother of two was found as an infant in a cradle on the steps of an Indian orphanage started by Mother Teresa. The sisters there estimated she was born in 1972 and came up with her birthdate.

"That's the story I've been told my whole life," Kripa Cooper-Lewter says. "The sisters said they had a cradle outside the orphanage that people could leave children in, because it was common that babies would be abandoned on the street."

UN General Assembly recognizes the inextricable link between the Rights of the Child and the 2030 Agenda in a newly adopted resolution

On 18 November 2021, the UN Resolution on the Rights of the Child was adopted by consensus by the Third committee(link is external) of the General Assembly. The EU facilitated this resolution, in co-operation with the penholder, the Group of Latin America and Caribbean countries (GRULAC), with a focus on the rights of the child and the Sustainable Development Goals.

Accelerating the SDGs, and addressing new challenges

The resolution focuses on the inextricable link between the 2030 Agenda and the Right of the Child in accordance with this year’s UN Secretary-General’s report on the Status of the Convention. Beyond the sustainable development goals (SDGs) dedicated to children explicitly, all SDGs have an impact on child rights; and the promotion and fulfillment of the rights of the child is a fundamental and necessary step for the attainment of all SDGs.

Two pressing challenges were widely addressed in this resolution: digital and the environment issues. Both present risks – including cyberbullying – and opportunities, such as boosting digital skills and education, and bridging the digital divide. Both also demand that children be at the centre of our strategies.

PHILOMENA LEE AND Mary Harney should have been given an opportunity to reply to the report of the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes before the final version was published, their solicitor has argued.

Lee and Harney are two of several survivors of Mother and Baby Home who are seeking to have certain elements of the report quashed via a judicial review in the High Court.

Test cases involving Lee and Harney are being heard by Mr Justice Garrett Simons today and tomorrow. A test case is one brought forward that would then set a precedent for future similar cases.

Lee and Harney’s cases involve Section 34 of the Commission of Investigation Act 2004 – the women have taken issue with the fact they were not given a right to reply before the Commission’s final report was published in January. They believe some of the testimony they gave to the Commission was misrepresented in, or omitted from, the report.

The women’s legal teams are arguing that the Commission’s failure to give them a right to reply breaches the 2004 Act, as well as the women’s fundamental rights under the Irish Constitution and European Convention on Human Rights.

A Texas woman who was a program manager at an Ohio-based international adoption agency pleaded guilty today in the Northern District of Ohio to schemes to procure adoptions of Ugandan and Polish children by bribing Ugandan officials and defrauding U.S. authorities.

According to court documents, Debra Parris, 69, of Lake Dallas, engaged in a scheme with others to bribe Ugandan officials to procure adoptions of Ugandan children by families in the United States. These bribes included payments to (a) probation officers intended to ensure favorable probation reports recommending that a particular child be placed into an orphanage; (b) court registrars to influence the assignment of particular cases to “adoption-friendly” judges; and (c) High Court judges to issue favorable guardianship orders for the adoption agency’s clients. In her plea agreement, Parris also admitted that she continued to direct the adoption agency’s clients to work with her alleged co-conspirator Dorah Mirembe, after knowing that Mirembe caused clients of the adoption agency to provide false information to the U.S. State Department for the purpose of misleading it in its adjudication of visa applications.

According to court documents, in a second scheme, after alleged co-conspirator Margaret Cole, the adoption agency’s Executive Director, learned that clients of the adoption agency determined they could not care for one of the two Polish children they were set to adopt, Parris and her co-conspirator took steps to transfer the Polish child to Parris’s relatives, who were not eligible for intercountry adoption. In her plea agreement, Parris also admitted that after the child was injured and hospitalized, Parris agreed with her co-conspirator to conceal their improper conduct from the U.S. State Department in an attempt to continue profiting from these adoptions.

Parris pleaded guilty to conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and commit visa fraud in connection with the Uganda scheme, and conspiracy to defraud the United States in connection with the Poland scheme. She is scheduled to be sentenced on March 9, 2022. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

Trial against Cole is scheduled to commence on Feb. 7, 2022. Mirembe remains at large.

The government has made a “dog's dinner” out of its redress scheme for survivors of mother and baby homes, such as St Peter's in Castlepollard.

That's according to Paul Redmond, chairperson of the Coalition of Mother and Baby Homes Survivors (CMABS), who was born in Castlepollard in 1964.

An estimated 34,000 people will qualify for a payment under scheme, while 19,000 will also qualify for an enhanced medical card.

All mothers who spent time in a home will be eligible for a payment. A minimum payment of €5,000 will be made to mothers who spent three months or less at an institution and rises based on the length of stay, with a maximum payment of €65,00 for those who spent ten years or more.

Mothers who engaged in work during their stays will also be eligible for a separate payment, starting at €1,500 for those who worked for between three and six months and going up to a maximum payment of €60,000.