Holt’s interim CEO shares a message with Holt supporters.

To our valued partners, collaborators, and friends:

I am humbled to serve as the interim CEO in addition to my role as CFO at Holt International. I am confident our team will remain strong together during this transition and help pave a path of resilience well into the future.

My career and personal passion are rooted in organizations like Holt International. My wife, Cathy, and I have a heart for adoption — we have three adult children, the youngest of whom was adopted from China. I started my nonprofit journey in 2001 as a missionary, serving in Tanzania as the finance director for the Lutheran Mission Cooperation. Before joining Holt as CFO five years ago, I served in leadership positions for complex, mission-focused organizations that provided social services or healthcare within the U.S. and abroad. Prior to my nonprofit roles, I worked as regional director of procurement and logistics for a Fortune 100 company. I trust that my diverse background and experience will serve Holt well at this time.

Our mission still lies ahead of us. As a leader, I’ve always taken a multifaceted approach for increasing revenue, expanding services and establishing long-term strategic visions. This approach will guide me, putting the children, families and partners we serve as my top priority every day.

11. The Convent of the House of Good Shepherd in St. Louis, Missouri, a Home for “Wayward Girls”

St. Louis was a booming river city at the onset of the 19th century. When industry encroached upon the privacy of the wealthy, they donated or sold off their estates and moved to the country. In 1851, a prominent family donated their land and built a home for the Sisters of the Good Shepherd to house “wayward young women.” The stone and brick complex was not heated, took up an entire city block, and was incased by a 12 foot brick wall. Within the walls of the house unwed mothers gave birth to illegitimate children who were forcibly removed from their birthmothers and adopted.

Young women arrested for sex offenses were sent to the Home and forced to live cloistered lives as seamstresses, lace makers, and laundry girls. Their names were changed and they were forbidden contact from the outside world. When family members did arrive to take home their sisters or daughters, the were often greeted by a young woman who showed signs of physical abuse, starvation, and in some instances even pregnant (although she was not pregnant upon entering the convent!). In 1900 the convent moved to the western reaches of the city limits. Urban renewal forced the closure of the House of Good Shepherd in 1969.

10. Farm Girl Inmates at Abbotsford Convent, Melbourne, Australia

Samuel Moss traveled to Australia and made a fortune in gold mining. He donated money and land to construct the Abbotsford Convent in Melbourne. The complex had many buildings as well as farmland. In the 1840s Irish sisters from the Order fo the Good Shepherd arrived to run the farm, orphanage, and reform and industrial schools. Any girl that was considered to be in “moral danger” was sent to the convent by family members, parish priests, or police as a way to protect their virtue.

“I don’t know who I am…

if you’ve ever made a jigsaw and you’ve got one piece missing, that’s how I feel.”

John Tuthill never knew his biological parents and the circumstances of his birth in Dublin 44 years ago remain a mystery.

John

Adopted as a baby in 1979, he has little idea about his original identity, despite a frustrating 13-year search.

Ministry of Justice and Security, Directorate-General for Punishments and Protection

Job description

The Advice, Management and Central Authority (ARC) directorate at the Directorate-General for Punishment and Protection (DGSenB) is looking for an enthusiastic and solid adviser who will carry out the activities within the Central Authority for International Children's Affairs (Ca IKA). area of ??the Hague Child Protection Convention and the Hague Child Abduction Convention. This concerns two temporary positions (one for 32 and one for 36 hours) for a period of one year.

Activities

In the role of advisor at the Ca IKA, the activities have a varied character.

Remote mothers, mothers in the Netherlands who have had to give up their child for adoption, will not receive compensation from the government, the court ruled earlier this year. The coercion to adopt did not come from Child Protection, but from their own environment. In the meantime, the Ministry of Justice and Security is conducting a second investigation into exactly that question: whether or not state coercion? An initial investigation was aborted following complaints of bias and privacy violations. If the state does indeed appear to have made a mistake, the cabinet wants to prevent proceedings by settling. Journalist Marco de Vries went to the setting of his own adoption together with his mother of waiver Mieke and wrote this personal story about it.

I have two mothers. Which one is the real one? One, Jantina, believes that everything is controlled from above. The other, Mieke, prefers to steer himself. She can't handle navigation systems, usually has a road map unfolded on the passenger seat where I am now. This trip was my idea, but she immediately said yes, does not get talked about it on the way and therefore misses the right exit.

Then we take the next one and drive around. Her van thunders over the back roads of the Veluwe. The meadows are yellow and swampy in the November sun, the woods bare and grim. I grew up here, she is strange. I'm still looking for the address on my phone. Turn left in six kilometers, Google says. Destination reached.

Henk and Ineke turn out to live right behind my old primary school. Would I have ever seen them at that time? I may have played soccer with one of their many children. They are slightly older than Mieke, but just as vital. Ineke wears her long, white hair in two pigtails. She leans back in her large chair and looks at me searchingly.

I tell about myself. How it went. Still got there reasonably well. That I would like to meet them. My voice sometimes gets hoarse when it comes to that. An egg filled with mucus and snot that belches when asked difficult questions. But those aren't your real parents, are they? But where do you really come from? Well, from here apparently. I hatched with these people. And now they expect a thank you? No, I don't get that impression.

That's how you could describe a large part of my life in Amsterdam. From 1999 to 2018 I was allowed to live in Amsterdam. A life that I describe in retrospect as sex, drugs and rock and roll, especially the first ten years.

I was 27 years old when I moved from Deventer to Amsterdam, a wish I've had for a long time. Growing up as a homosexual in the Noordoostpolder was not for me. And I also noticed that I did not dare to be completely free in Deventer. After I 'come out' to my adoptive parents, everything made me feel like I had to move to the capital quickly because that's where it all happened, or so I thought at the time. And when the time came that I had found a place to live in Amsterdam, I couldn't believe my luck.

I came to live in the E-neighbourhood of Amsterdam Zuidoost, and found a job at KPN's call center. I combined that with an internship at the PAAZ in Zaandam. Working during the week and doing internships, going out on weekends. The latter in particular was a real revelation to me. Surrounded by other gay men for three days in a row, I loved it.

I soon found out that this life also had a downside. I also quickly spent the money I earned. Going to the Thermos sauna twice a week, and dancing every Friday and Saturday evening in the EXIT, is financially difficult. Going out every week also meant, for me at least, that I needed a lot of new clothes. And although I bought my clothes at H&M at the time, it went pretty fast. I thought it was also important to look good if you wanted to fit in.

Because my salary went through quickly, and my thoughts of 'new clothes and stuff count' became the only truth, I was short of money. It also didn't help that I bought a so-called comfort card and started buying things on installment. That only made the problem worse. In order to quickly get extra money, I decided to do escort work on the advice of an acquaintance. This turned out to be lucrative, there were many men who were willing to have sex with me, and who were willing to pay for it. In order to keep up with all this, I looked for help, which I found in the use of drugs. Taking ecstasy and snorting cocaine became part of my life over the weekend.

The Dutch adoption system has exploded. Earlier this year, the hard-hitting report by the Joustra Committee revealed that the Dutch government had known about abuses in adoptions since the 1960s – from child trafficking to child theft. An acute stop to intercountry adoption followed. A group of adoptive parents, and parties such as the Interlandelijke Adoptees Foundation, oppose the adoption ban and find the report too one-sided: after all, many adoptees in the Netherlands are doing very well, aren't they?

In De Balie, program maker and adoptee Parwin Mirrahimy talks with adoptees and experts: how should the Dutch adoption system proceed?

A pressing task that awaits the new cabinet is to adopt a definitive position on intercountry adoption. Is this possible again in the future? And if so, under what conditions? This evening we are anticipating this by talking to a number of adoptees from different parts of the world. We talk to them about their journey and about their experiences with the Dutch adoption policy. Together with experts, they discuss the pros and cons of the current adoption system.

Adoption brings positive change in many lives. But adoption in its current form too often leads to abuses. What needs to change in the adoption system in the future? And what should we keep?

speakers

Consulted on 04-11-2022.

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Original caption and salutation

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Child welfare organization Wereldkinderen is shocked by the role it played in the much-discussed mismatches in Colombia, according to program maker Kees van der Spek. Like the TV program Spoorloos , the foundation worked for years with Edwin Vela, the Colombian fixer who became discredited after the broadcast of Scammers .

Friends Annick (37), An Sheela (42) and Sheela (41) lead different lives, but have one thing in common: all three are adopted from India. and they know what you struggle with if you don't know exactly where you come from. “Adoption is not always a fairy tale.”

Recognition and recognition

“Recognition and recognition. That's what I find with An Sheela and Sheela and all those other adopted kids from our Facebook community. For example, if I say, "I don't know exactly who I am," they know exactly what I mean. It is something that binds us. What do you run into if you don't know who your biological parents are? How does it feel when the start of your life is unclear and what you know about it may be based on lies? What are you struggling with then? They are things we discuss when we see each other on meeting days.” Annick is speaking. In 2008 she was only fifteen when she wanted to meet other adopted children. Together with her mother, she founded the Facebook group Adoptie Schakel, for children and their parents adopted from India. Initially a friendly group that exchanged messages and saw each other now and then, years later it became a more serious community. On which members post messages and photos, but which also organizes and undertakes all kinds of things.

The club got more and more members, from the Netherlands and Belgium. At a certain point, Annick was no longer able to manage everything on her own. In 2017 she asked An Sheela to help, a year later also Sheela. The three of them try to take the Facebook group to an even higher level. Together they organize meeting days and information evenings about DNA tests, for example. The three also fight against illegal adoption in their home country of Belgium. Despite their adoption stories being completely different, the trio feels connected to each other and to the members of their community.

Annick: “In the fourteen years that I have been working on this, the adopted children from then have grown up. Many have started families or have now made a roots trip to India. Sometimes they find what they are looking for, but often it is impossible. India is a huge country and the government discourages adopted children from looking for their biological parents. It's simply not done. The moral is: let the past rest.”