Children of All Nations (GWCA)

Great Wall China Adoption (Great Wall)/Children of All Nations (CAN) Program Service Accomplishments in this year: 1. ADOPTION SERVICES. Great Wall/CAN provides adoption services to place unparented children from Asia, Africa, Easter Europe and Latin America with U.S. adoptive families. Our services to the families and children include service planning, screening and selection, service delivery, counseling and post adoption supervision and support. The process is comprised of application, adoption training, home study, assembling documents, filing Immigration and Naturalization Services, filing application with adoption authority of the foreign government, a child assignment, travel orientation, travel to foreign countries, post adoption supervision, and family support. 2. ORPHAN HOSTING PROGRAM. Great Wall/CAN has wonderful hosting programs in the summer and the winter. This program is intended to provide the unparented children an opportunity to live in an American host family for a month. Hosting families also have a chance to bond with the hosted child, and many hosted children end up being adopted by the host families. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this program was cancelled for 2022. 3. HOMELAND TOUR. Great Wall/CAN organizes homeland tour annually in partnership with the sending country governments. Homeland tour gives the adoptee an opportunity to visit their homeland, visit their former care takers, the orphanages, and town they were born. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this program was cancelled for 2022. 4. ADOPTEE CULTURAL EXCHANGE PROGRAM. Great Wall/CAN partners with a partner international adoption agency in Europe and hosts a reciprocal adoptee hosting program during the summer. All participants are Chinese adoptees adopted by families from the US and Europe. Adoptees from the US and Europe are provided a unique and exclusive cultural learning experience. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this program was cancelled for 2022. 5. EXCHANGE STUDENT PROGRAM. Designated by U.S. Department of State to be the official sponsor of secondary school exchange visitor program, every school year, we select a group of highly qualified exchange students from different countries to study in the American high schools. Many of the exchange students are hosted by our adoptive families who have adopted from the students' home countries. This is one of the State department public diplomacy programs to promote the cultural and educational exchange between U.S. and the rest of the world. Great Wall/CAN also sends outreach newsletters intended to increase awareness of our cultural exchange program to the public and provide our organization's program news and updates. 6. EDUCATION AND INFORMATION. Throughout the year, Great Wall/CAN provides thorough and individualized adoption information and counseling sessions to the adoptive families interested in learning about international adoptions. The personalized sessions enable us to offer the highest client service to inform and prepare prospective adoptive families. Training programs are held to provide host families in-depth training and understanding of issues related to the children who are institutionalized and challenges the hosting families will experience. Adoption and adoption travel trainings are conducted through our online training courses. We frequently update our online courses to give the most update to date information and preparation to the prospective adoptive families on medical, emotional, parenting issues facing families adopting children from different countries. The online training course curriculum is designed to meet Hague Convention on Protection of Children. Free information e-packet is sent to the prospective families on a daily basis to provide families with current country specific adoption updates, status and policies. We continue to publish news and updates in the format of online blogs and posts on our Facebook, which reach over thousands of adoptive families. Great Wall/CAN publishes monthly updates providing education and information on latest adoption policies and procedures, and country updates to keep adoptive families well informed. 7. ORPHAN CARE PROGRAMS AND MISSION TRIP. Great Wall/CAN definitely has the best interest of children in mind. It not only works extremely hard to find loving homes for the unparented children, it is also doing its best to help many children that are not fortunate enough to be adopted. With Great Wall/CAN Orphan Care Programs, many children are able to have colorful toys to stimulate their sensory growth; books to broad their knowledge. Children received donated clothes for the holidays; much needed equipment such as formula, refrigerator, digital cameras, washers, dryers, computers, printers, and rice were also donated to improve the life of children still in orphanages. Our orphan care projects include sending Valentine gifts to each child living in our partner orphanages in Haiti; providing funding to an orphanage in Burundi for orphanage housing, food and supplies. There are many US volunteers caring for the Haitian children. Throughout the year, we have taken a few groups of volunteers to Haiti on a mission trip named Haiti Orphan Care Trip. The volunteers travel to Haiti orphanages to teach kids English, doing arts and crafts, painting kids' rooms, remodeling the living areas and bringing food/supplies to the kids. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and it is unsafe to travel to the country, this program has been suspended for now. 8. ACHIEVEMENTS THAT ARE NOT MEASURABLE. Great Wall/CAN's adoption programs, orphan care program and mission trips have contributed greatly to better the life of children and improvement of orphanage conditions. We certainly have witnessed many orphanages that we have worked with in the last decade transformed from poor conditions to a full service children's home with adequate facility and well trained care takers. We believe that every child deserves love and a home they can call their own. The children adopted through Great Wall/CAN are showed with endless love by their adoptive families. Physically and developmentally, they blossom like flowers after being adopted. Many of our adoptive parents sought our help after years of painful infertility treatment. The joy and excitement of becoming parent(s) are just beyond description. For these infertile parent(s), it's a lifetime dream coming true. For Great Wall/CAN staff, creating families for the children and adoptive parent(s) is our greatest achievement. The impact made by Great Wall/CAN's adoption programs, education sessions, training classes, hosting program, and homeland tour is far from being measurable. They greatly increase the awareness that there are still thousands of orphaned children waiting in the orphanages for a loving home. Great Wall/CAN exchange student program connects the cultures between our host families, adoptive families and the exchange students, and plays an important role to improve relations between the US and other nations. The program has contributed to enhance cultural understanding and mutual respect between our country and the rest of the world. Our international students have brought their culture and goodwill to our host families while our host families are able to experience other cultures right at their home. Great Wall/CAN's noble charitable work have attracted many people who believe in our organization's mission and want to be in the profession of doing good things and make an impact to the society.