Several weeks ago, my team and I returned from the Philippines where we met and assessed 40 children for our Special Needs Project. We sat down with each of these children one-on-one, learning about their needs, personalities and desire for an adoptive family. And now, we have six months to advocate for them to find a families.

These children were truly incredible, and it is our hope to find the right family for each one of them.

In our travels, we visited many different child caring agencies, and experienced so many wonderful aspects of these facilities and the Philippines adoption program. Below are three unique characteristics of this program that I hope will stand out to families interested in adopting a child from the Philippines.

Most of the children we met in the Philippines…

Have a Strong Faith

All children in child caring agencies in the Philippines are raised and educated in Christianity or Catholicism. Most have daily prayer and Bible education as part of their routine – this typically happens in the evenings as a whole group. Children raised in Catholic child caring agencies have received their rites (depending on their age). For most children, their faith is important to them and they pray for an adoptive family every night.

Can Speak English

All the children we met can speak at least some level of English! Many could complete our entire interview without the assistance of an interpreter. A lot of school is taught in English, so children also know how to read in English. For older children, having a good foundation of English really helps them when they are placed with an adoptive family in the U.S. Without a huge language barrier, it is easier for them to make friends at school, and express their needs and wants with their adoptive family.

Receive Mental Health Support

Every child we met has had a psychological exam completed and most have access to counseling at their child caring agency. This is unique from many other adoption programs. The counselors at these child caring agencies talk with the children about their previous life experiences, help the children learn how to cope with negative memories and feelings, give them tools for dealing with frustration, and talk with them about adoption. One child caring agency we visited is strictly for girls who experienced sexual abuse. This facility has counselors and social workers on staff who help the girls work through their experiences, help them with the prosecution of their abuser, and prepare them to live in a healthy family setting.

There were so many children who touched our hearts — and all of them are so needing and deserving of a loving family. The children we met are very familiar with adoption, and they have regular conversations about it with their caregivers. Each one of them is excited about the possibility of adoption, and many of them express their desire to be adopted one day.

“For most children, their faith is important to them and they pray for an adoptive family every night.”

If you or someone you know wants to learn more about the children we met, we would love to talk with you! We were able to gather lots of photos and information about each of them, and would love to share about their specific needs and personalities.

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The post 3 Things to Know About Philippines Older Child and Special Needs Adoption appeared first on Holt International.

Our Special Needs Project team is currently in the Philippines, meeting children to help them find adoptive families. In between long days of travel and assessing dozens of children, our social workers sent the following report — to share about the children who have especially touched their hearts.

By the end of our trip, we will have spent 12 days in the Philippines, traveling by car, ferry, van and plane to meet 42 children — in hopes of finding them loving, adoptive families once we return to the U.S.

Each of these 42 children has sat down with myself, Luisa or Brooke (all of us Holt social workers from our Special Needs Project [SNP] adoption team) while we conduct interviews and assessments, and gather photos and videos to try and get a true sense of their personality, strengths and needs.

We all have children who have especially touched our hearts — children we have cried after talking with because of how special they are, how much they desire an adoptive family to love and support them…

Some of the Children We’ve Met

I think of Bernila*, a 14-year-old girl who is very talented in music and art. She was initially shy, but started to open up after talking for a few minutes. She was very inquisitive and wanted to know all of our favorite things. She admitted that she is teased by the other children because of her acne and it makes her sad when that happens. She wants a family who enjoys traveling because she wants to travel the world.

Another child who Luisa fell in love with has been waiting for a family for such a long time. She has a significant medical condition that has made it more difficult to find a family for her in the past. But part of this is because families that have seen her on the special home finding list don’t have access to a full description of her condition or an updated picture of her. After spending time assessing and playing with this child, it’s clear that she is a true gift, has many talents, and does not allow her medical condition to get in the way of her love for life or faith in being adopted by the right family.

There was a sibling group of two boys where the younger boy has a medical condition and the older boy clearly loves and is protective of his little brother. The older brother describes trying to protect his brother from being teased by others and watched out for him while we visited them. You could see their loving bond just from how they looked at each other.

Another older girl we met was so friendly and engaged — such a sweet and giggly teenager who loves to talk with her friends and has a crush on a boy in her class. She has traumatic and sad memories of her life with her biological family, and desires a family where she can receive love and undivided attention.

The Children Waiting for Families

Each of the children we’ve met is such a joy! Because most of them speak English, we were able to talk with them with only minimal assistance from an interpreter. Some children are extremely outgoing and ready to engage with us, and others are very shy and reserved. They’re all very familiar with adoption and most have seen friends get adopted. Adoption is an everyday conversation these children have with their caregivers.

The children range in age from 4 to 15, with the majority being in the 10-12 age range. We have seen sibling groups and single children, children who wish to be an only child, some who want older siblings and others who want (and would thrive with) younger siblings. We met with two children who have very significant medical conditions, but who are so happy and wish to be with a family. Other sibling groups we’ve met all love each other and want to be placed together. There’s even a sibling group of six! The older children in the sibling groups know that it will take a unique family to move forward with their adoption, but they still have hope…

And that is exactly why our trip, and this adoption program, is so important: hope. As we return to the U.S. with in-depth information and photos of each child, it gives them greater hope of joining a family.

Adopting a Child From the Philippines SNP

Families who would be a good fit for adopting a child from this program should be understanding of developmentally appropriate pre-teen and teenage behaviors, be supportive of a child’s faith and how they choose to worship, and have a true commitment to lifelong parenthood. They need to be flexible, understanding, accepting, loving, good advocates, and have large toolbox of resources — as well as a great sense of humor! Ideal families will meet a child where they are at, can sustain delayed gratification when it comes to attachment, are invested in the Filipino culture, and will utilize TBRI in their parenting.

If you or someone you know is interested in learning more about any of the children we’ve met on our trip, we ask that you come to a Lunch and Learn to hear more about them. And please don’t hesitate to reach out to Luisa or Brooke if you see a child on the SNP photolisting that you feel a connection to — they’d love to tell you more about them!

*Name changed

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On a typical Sunday afternoon, my daughter and I drive to our local wat (temple) where she spends two hours at Sunday school chanting and meditating, learning about Buddhism and culture, and practicing her Lao language skills. In the winter and spring, Sunday school is followed by an hour of learning traditional dances preparing for the Pi Mai (New Year) celebration held every spring. After dance class, we get back in the car, take a quick bubble tea break, and continue on to her playgroup for D/deaf and hard-of-hearing kids. We then head back home for a hurried dinner and a quick bedtime so she won’t be too tired for the start of the school week the next day. 

Our Sundays are long and involve lots of time in the car, driving from one side of the county to the other. We frequently have to decline invitations to other events like birthday parties or weekend getaways because we have standing Sunday plans. But our Sundays are also sacred — they are time dedicated to nurturing and celebrating my daughter’s identities — and I wouldn’t trade them for anything. 

Our Path to Adopting a Child With Disabilities

My husband, David, and I adopted our daughter from Thailand in November of 2021 when she was almost 5 and a half. From the time we started dating, we had always considered adoption as a way of building our family. After four years of marriage, we decided to begin the adoption process as we felt ready to become parents, knew that there were children in need of families and did not wish to have biological children because of the current climate emergency. We started the process with some understanding of and concerns about the complexity of transracial adoption. As a biracial Latina (me) and a proud Puerto Rican (David), we understood the ways in which growing up with family members who share your racial and ethnic identity grounds you and prepares you for the realities of being a person of color in America. 

We understood that nearly all children waiting for families through international adoption have disabilities, developmental delays or medical needs of some kind. When we considered which disabilities and/or medical needs we were open to, it was less of a question of what we were open to and more of a question of what resources we had access to in our region. We had many discussions with one another, carefully considering questions like, “Could we modify our home to make it accessible for a child who uses a wheelchair?” “What kinds of early intervention resources are available in our county for autistic children?” And “Does our health insurance cover speech-language therapy?” Ultimately, we ended up indicating openness to a wide variety of disabilities and medical needs. We lived in a suburb of a city with a world-class children’s hospital, in a state with well-funded public schools, and we both had jobs with excellent health insurance benefits and flexible schedules that would allow us to take a child to medical appointments during the day. 

Holt’s Thailand Special Needs Project

Our daughter is hard-of-hearing and had a number of other medical needs — some of which could be resolved fairly quickly upon arrival in the U.S. once she had easier access to medical care, and some of which will be managed throughout her life. We were matched with our daughter through Holt’s Thailand Special Needs Project, a unique homefinding program in which Holt social workers travel to Thailand to meet and create adoption profiles for children with disabilities or medical needs or who are older and are in orphanage care. 

Holt social workers had met our daughter twice during trips to Thailand and we treasured the opportunity to meet with the social worker who had met her and ask additional questions about her personality and needs. We had loved watching a video (included in her file) of our daughter at age 2 refusing to stack a pile of toy cups in a tower the way the social worker wanted her to. Instead, she insisted on stacking the cups inside one another and seemed annoyed that the social worker was not following her lead. It was wonderful to be able to talk to the social worker herself and hear that our daughter did indeed seem to be a headstrong leader with a mind of her own (a spot-on assessment of her personality). 

Our Daughter’s Ethnic Identity

As two hearing Latine people raising a hard-of-hearing Thai daughter, we recognize many of the ways in which we cannot meet all of her needs. As a family, we have worked hard to fill these gaps by building community with others who share her identities. Our daughter is from the far northeast of Thailand along the border of Laos. This region of Thailand — the Isan region — is in many ways (food, culture and language) more similar to the Lao people than Central Thai. While our daughter is proudly Thai, when we met her she spoke more Isan (a local language derived from Lao) than Thai, and her favorite foods are khao niew (sticky rice), sai krok isan (Isan sausage) and anything containing padaek (fermented fish sauce common in Lao cuisine).

While looking for local resources to connect our daughter with her heritage, we learned about a Lao wat in our area. I found the secretary of the wat on Facebook and sent her a message explaining that we were adopting a child from the Isan region and we were interested in connecting with the temple community to keep our daughter connected to her heritage. She quickly replied to my message asking if we could connect on the phone and that evening we spent more than two hours on the phone getting to know each other. A few weeks later, David and I attended our first service at the wat. We were warmly welcomed by everyone we met. The community was incredibly generous, spending time with us, teaching us the important cultural norms for being and interacting at the temple, and showing us how to participate in tak bat (the almsgiving ceremony in which you offer food to the monks). 

The temple community has surrounded our family with love and acceptance since that first visit, and has been the most important way that we have kept our daughter connected with her culture. Our daughter loves spending time at the temple, whether it’s for Sunday school, dance class, a service, or simply to help the women with cooking, cleaning and gardening. She has the sweetest group of temple friends — a group of girls who love to run around the temple grounds and all dance in the New Year celebration together. Our daughter is beloved at the temple — doted on by aunties who let her follow them around, give her special jobs to complete, and feed her treats like khao tom (sticky rice with banana and coconut milk steamed in banana leaves). The temple is where I have learned how to cook my daughter’s favorite foods authentically. It is where our family gets to be surrounded by our daughter’s culture, language and heritage even though we are thousands of miles from her homeland. 

The temple gives our family so much, and we have done our best to give back to the temple. We volunteer at the temple’s biannual food festival fundraisers, and have helped plan and run other fundraisers as well. We show up for work parties in the spring and fall to help with gardening, planting and other tasks to prepare the temple for the next season. David and I have joined the board of directors for a local scholarship foundation for Lao-American students. It is important to us that we build transformational relationships with the community of our daughter’s people. 

Our Daughter’s Identity as a Disabled Person

During our adoption process, Holt provided training and resources on the importance of considering our daughter’s racial and ethnic identity development, but there was no such preparation for how to support her identity development as a disabled person. (It is important to note that many D/deaf and hard-of-hearing people do not view deafness as a disability. In addition to being hard-of-hearing, our daughter has other disabilities.) As non-disabled people, we cannot truly understand the experience of being disabled. However, we have learned more about this experience by reading articles and books by D/deaf and disabled people, following D/deaf and disabled content creators on Instagram, and studying the history of the treatment and activism of disabled people in U.S. history. We have also sought out resources (books, journal articles, etc.) on cultural beliefs and historic and modern treatment of people with disabilities in Thailand in order to better contextualize and understand our daughter’s experiences before she joined our family. 

We have encountered more barriers to supporting our daughter’s identity development as a hard-of-hearing and disabled person than we had anticipated. For example, we found that our daughter was ineligible for some resources that we thought she would qualify for — such as a program that would have paired our family with a deaf mentor — because she was too old. Other programs turned out to be not available to us because of a loophole in our state’s educational law that leave children who are eligible for kindergarten (based on their chronological age) ineligible for preschool special education resources, which in our daughter’s case may have allowed her to receive services at our local school for the deaf and go to school with other D/deaf and hard-of-hearing children. While we felt so prepared in advance of adopting our daughter, we quickly realized that even with excellent preparation, challenges will arise and you must be flexible and persistent. When we realized she would not be able to attend school with other D/deaf and hard-of-hearing children, we had to find other ways to foster that part of her identity, like joining the Sunday afternoon playgroup. 

In his book “Far From the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity,” Andrew Solomon writes of “vertical” and “horizontal” identities. Vertical identities are those typically passed down from parent to child, such as race, nationality or religion, whereas horizontal identities are those that the child and parent do not share, for example disability or sexual orientation. In transracial adoption, a child may have many more horizontal identities than vertical ones. That is certainly the case in our family. As a parent, supporting your child’s horizontal identity development takes work. It takes effort, and intentionality. It can mean stepping out of your own comfort zone, or building a new community and support system. But it is some of the most gratifying work I’ve ever done. 

When I watch my daughter surrounded by women who look like her at the temple, or when she excitedly tells me that she needs to bring her new doll with hearing aids to show all her friends at playgroup, I am honored and grateful to be doing the work. 

Carly A. | Holt adoptive mom

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When Gabriel was 6 years old, he came down with a fever that worried his mom. She took him to a private doctor, who prescribed antibiotics. But he soon developed a heat rash all over his body and his fever continued going up. Doctors struggled to figure out what was going on — first misdiagnosing him with a viral infection, then hand, foot and mouth disease. Eventually, they realized that he had a rare condition called Stevens-Johnson syndrome. The first doctor he saw had also prescribed too high a dose of antibiotics. As a result of his illness and the overdose of antibiotics, Gabriel suffered severe health issues as well as permanent, partial vision loss.

Today, Gabriel is 16 and in the tenth grade at a local public school in Metro Manila, Philippines.

On a cloudy day in late August, Gabriel and his mom meet us on a street corner to guide us to their house, which would be impossible to find without their help. We follow them into a concrete labyrinth of dense urban housing, the overcast Manila sky barely visible between strips of sheet metal roofing and jumbled telephone wires that dangle haphazardly overhead. The streets along the narrow corridors are wet from recent rains, and lined with motorbikes, bicycles, sleeping cats and windowsills full of plants that add some welcome green to this “barangay,” or neighborhood, where hundreds of families live side by side — with no breathing room between them.

“We call them ‘depressed areas,’” says Glady Bunao, executive director of Kaisahang Buhay Foundation (KBF), Holt’s partner in the Philippines. “Most of the scholars we’re serving are really the poorest of the poor, and this community is included in those that are considered poorest of the poor.”

In his community, Gabriel is one of 66 students — or “scholars,” as Glady lovingly calls them —who receive monthly support from a Holt sponsor. Across the Philippines, over 1,150 children living everywhere from rural sugarcane plantations to urban barangays — in child care centers or with their families — are part of Holt’s child sponsorship program.

Because of his sponsor, Gabriel receives everything he needs to go to school — including basic supplies such as notebooks and pencils, uniforms required to attend class, new clothes and shoes every year, and the funds to cover fees charged annually by his school. Although primary and secondary school is technically free in the Philippines, every year schools charge anywhere from $75-$200 in building, maintenance, teacher and academic fees. And that’s just for one child. For a family of five like Gabriel’s that earns maybe $60 per week, the high cost of fees and supplies can make school unaffordable and cause children to drop out early. Sometimes, it means a family must choose which of their children get to go to school — and which stay home.

“When we’re providing for the needs of the children, we prevent family disintegration. We prevent families from surrendering their children for adoption. That’s the goal also — so that kids will stay with their family.”

Glady Bunao, Executive Director of KBF, Holt’s partner in the Philippines

“There are a lot of families who prioritize their children if they cannot send all their children to school,” Glady explains. “Somebody’s going to be sent, somebody’s going to stay.”

Although gender bias is no longer as much of an issue in the Philippines as it used to be — and still is in many countries where Holt works — other prejudices continue to determine who is most likely to succeed and who is most likely to be excluded. As in many countries, discrimination toward people with disabilities is still firmly entrenched in the Philippines, with few resources or opportunities available to them.

“There are such limited services for special education in the Philippines. There are opportunities, but there are more children with special needs availing it so that’s the problem,” Glady says.

For people with disabilities who are living in poverty, the odds are even more stacked against them.

Due to the severe medical condition he suffered when he was younger, Gabriel can only see a white reflection out of his left eye and can only partially see from his right one. But Gabriel has persevered and, in many ways, overcome his limitations. For a long time, his mom had to walk him to school. Now, he navigates the labyrinthine corridors of his neighborhood with ease. He helps with household chores, sometimes cooks meals for his family and even helps his mom with the small food stand she runs outside of their home. He also manages to do pretty well in school, though he struggles with reading. In class, he sits in the front row so he can see the blackboard better, and sometimes his fellow students will help him take notes.

As his social worker writes, “Despite his disability, he is determined and can compete with others in the school.”

But if Gabriel’s parents were forced to choose which of their children get to go to school, and which stayed behind, they may have kept Gabriel home.

“The income of the father is not stable. The income of the mother is also not stable,” Glady says of Gabriel’s parents. “The mother even expressed when we were there that sometimes, she just wanted to give up. If there is no educational assistance, then it will add to their problems. So we don’t know what’s going to happen.”

Keeping a child home from school because their parents can’t afford supplies and fees is devastating as it is. But sometimes, out of desperation, parents living in poverty in the Philippines will make an even more heartbreaking decision.

“When children are surrendered for adoption, one reason is because of poverty. The parents are not able to provide for their needs. For House of Refuge, most of the children there are older and they are abandoned,” Glady says, referring to a Holt sponsor-supported care center we later visit in Manila. “When we find their families, they will say it’s better for them to be in your care instead of staying with us because we have no opportunity — we cannot send them to school. If they get sick, we cannot bring them to a doctor.”

But when sponsors help meet the medical, nutritional, educational and other basic needs of children, it has a profound effect not just on the child — but the parents, too.

“For a visually impaired student like me, it has not been easy. But because of CISSL teachers and everyone who makes up KBF and Holt International, it is not just with things for learning but help to have self-confidence that I have the ability to finish my studies and reach my dream in life.”

Gabriel, sponsored scholar in the Philippines

“We also provide parent support like training — equipping the parents on how to help their children, because it’s not enough to provide educational assistance. We have to equip the parents on how they will teach the children, support the children in their homework. Be an encouragement to their children,” Glady says, adding that they also emphasize the importance of parents’ caring for their own mental health.

With support, parents feel more empowered and capable. They are less likely to lose hope, and less likely to place their children in someone else’s care. 

“When we’re providing for the needs of the children, we prevent family disintegration,” Glady says. “We prevent families from surrendering their children for adoption. That’s the goal also — so that kids will stay with their family.”

For a child with special needs like Gabriel who may need costly medical care, specialized therapies or special education, families face even greater struggles — and are at even greater risk of relinquishing them to a care facility that can meet their needs.  

“For Gabriel, if he wasn’t given the opportunity,” Glady says, “we don’t know what’s going to happen to him.”

Thankfully, he was given an opportunity — not only by the social workers at KBF who know him well, but by a few kind and generous people who he has never personally met.

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Who is Behind These Generous Gifts?

Gabriel’s home is the last one in a row of homes, with an icon of the Virgin Mary set into the adjoining wall and a few plants reaching for the thin strip of light that shines down from above. Inside, the living space is small and dark, but welcoming and neatly organized. Gabriel lives here with his mom, dad and two younger siblings. His younger brother is in 14 and his younger sister is 7. They have two floors, with the second-floor loft area accessible by ladder. Upstairs, boxes of clothes, toys and other belongings line the edges of the tiny space where the whole family of five sleeps on the floor each night. Through the thin walls, we can hear the neighbors talking and playing music. A barking dog sounds like it’s somewhere inside Gabriel’s house, but it’s a neighbor’s dog.

“They have to make do with whatever is available,” Glady later says of families who live in the cramped, often makeshift housing of Manila’s impoverished barangays — adding that many families live in worse conditions than Gabriel and his family. “You know, Filipinos are very resilient so whatever is available,” she says, “they will live with it.”

The families living in this area are especially vulnerable to Manila’s tropical weather. Typhoons are year-round in the Philippines, but the last big one that hit Manila — in 2019 — caused flooding up to the second floor of Gabriel’s house. With sponsor and donor support, KBF hired a military truck to deliver food, medicine and other supplies to the families living in the community. Gabriel and his family made it to safety and hunkered down at his nearby school, but they lost many of their possessions — including a special magnifying glass that Gabriel used to read with.

With sponsor and donor support, KBF has since replaced his magnifying glass — and also provided Gabriel and his fellow sponsored children with large plastic containers in which to store their school supplies so they won’t get ruined when it floods. For children and families in educational sponsorship in the Philippines, even notebooks and pencils are valuable possessions that they can’t risk losing.

“One dollar is precious for them,” Glady says. “They don’t want to spend a lot of money on something that is not an actual necessity.”

That’s why, every two months, Gabriel and his family marvel at the boxes of food, hygiene and school supplies that KBF delivers to their home. Inside, they find precious goods such as rice, milk, shampoo, toothpaste, rulers, notebooks, shoes, bags and uniforms. During the pandemic, sponsors even made it possible to provide electronic tablets for Gabriel and his fellow sponsored students so they could attend school remotely.

“They ask, ‘Who is behind this?’” Glady says of Gabriel and his family. Who are the generous people who provide all of this for them?

Although Gabriel knows he has sponsors in the U.S. — he has received birthday cards from them, and every so often he writes letters in response — he and his family are still beside themselves that anyone could be so kind to someone they’ve never met.

In his letters, Gabriel always expresses his gratitude and shares about his progress in school. Recently, he wrote a letter saying, “Thank you very much […] for all the help that you are giving for our necessary school supplies. It’s not just school supplies that you provide through the various activities that you do, you also teach us various things that can help not only in learning, but also in our being human as a student.”

As a visually impaired student, Gabriel does struggle a bit to keep up with his classmates. His KBF social workers are exploring opportunities for him to attend a school for visually impaired students that can give him the specialized education and support that he needs. But as Glady explained, special education programs are limited and often at capacity in the Philippines. At the same time, Gabriel’s mother has struggled to accept that her son would benefit from special education.

His mom cries as she shares the story of Gabriel’s traumatic childhood illness. Her son almost died, she says, and his eyes were nearly destroyed. Although she says she has nearly lost hope at times, her love and devotion for her son is obvious. During the pandemic, when Gabriel attended online classes, she would often read lessons aloud to him and describe what was shown on the screen during Google Meet classes. She understands why he feels that he can’t keep up with his classmates’ pace of learning, and has come around to the idea of enrolling him in a school for visually impaired students — if KBF can find a spot for him.   

“For Gabriel, his family is his main source of support, particularly his mother who assists him with the things he cannot do, especially matters related to his studies,” Gabriel’s social worker writes. Gabriel is also very close with his younger brother, with whom he loves to jam on the guitar. Gabriel’s social worker says he has open communication with his parents, who are always checking in with Gabriel and his siblings — asking about school, their friends, their lives.

The love and support they give him shows in how he feels about himself. “Despite his condition, Gabriel remains to have high self-confidence,” his social worker writes. “He rates his self-confidence as an eight out of ten.”

Educational Sponsorship Gives Hope and Opportunity

During our visit with Gabriel, he eagerly jumps up to show how he helps cook meals in the family’s small kitchen.

After he graduates high school, Gabriel hopes to become a chef. He already takes cooking classes at school, and he helps his mom prepare the foods she sells at her roadside stand. When sponsored students graduate, KBF social workers will try to help them get scholarships to attend college — or find employment if they don’t plan to go on to college. For Gabriel, the social workers will do their best to find a vocational training program that can accommodate his special needs.

But just graduating high school is often a significant achievement for children living in some of the most impoverished barangays in Manila.

“If they finish high school at least, some of the job opportunities available usually require ‘high school graduate,’” Glady says, explaining the importance of a high school education in the Philippines. “Like for houseparent, when caregiving institutions hire houseparents or caregivers, they say ‘at least high school graduate.’ So finishing education is very important for them. If they don’t finish, it may be very difficult to find opportunities to get out of poverty.”

Among sponsored students in the Philippines, the graduation rate is very high. They don’t take the opportunity given by their sponsors for granted.

“They’re always thankful because if not for sponsors from Holt, they would not have this kind of opportunity to graduate from school,” Glady says.

For Gabriel, graduating high school is the first major step to achieving his dream of becoming a chef. And with the support of his family, his social workers, his teachers and his sponsors, he feels confident he can get there.

In concluding his last letter to his sponsors, he wrote, “For a visually impaired student like me, it has not been easy. But because of CISSL teachers and everyone who makes up KBF and Holt International, it is not just with things for learning but help to have self-confidence that I have the ability to finish my studies and reach my dream in life.”

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In northwest Cambodia, there’s a village in the jungle home to many Holt-supported families and children. Along narrow dirt roads winding through lush palms and ferns are the homes where they live — some thatched and on high stilts, others made of concrete and metal sheeting. In many ways it’s a tropical paradise.

But families who live here also struggle with poverty and, among other things, a lack of medical care.

Heng and Her Children

One of these families is 35-year-old Heng and her three children. At first, the help she needed was similar to many of her neighbors in the village — food deliveries, educational help for their children and income-generating support. But her family’s needs ended up being greater, and more life-threatening, than she ever expected…

Heng lives on a piece of her cousin’s land in this jungly village outside the city of Battambang, Cambodia. She has a 10-year-old son and just two years ago, she also gave birth to twin baby girls, Sophea and Neary. She has no support from her babies’ father, and struggled to provide for them on her own, often going without even the basic items she and her children needed.

She didn’t have enough money to buy cow’s milk or even enough food for the babies, her older son or herself. Her own malnutrition and poor health meant that she also wasn’t able to produce enough breastmilk to feed Sophea and Neary. Both girls were beginning to look dangerously thin. That’s when neighbors in the village first referred her to Holt Cambodia.

Food for Hungry Children

A social worker from Holt Cambodia came to Heng’s home, sat down with her and listened to her share about her life and the needs her family was experiencing. It was evident that they needed help, and they especially needed more to eat. So right away, Heng received milk, bottles for the babies, rice, noodles, cooking oil, soy sauce, fried fish and more.

Finally, relieved, she had enough food to feed her children.

But even after weeks and then months of nutritious food, one of her twin daughters, Sophea, still wasn’t growing. This was all the more evident when Heng compared Sophea to her twin sister, Neary, who was putting on weight and developing with the increased nutrition. Sophea, by contrast, cried all the time, and refused food and milk. She even seemed to have difficulty breathing.

Heng’s Holt Cambodia social worker took note of Sophea’s health over several visits she made to check up on Heng and her family, and strongly encouraged Heng to take little Sophea to the hospital.

Access to Medical Care

When Sophea was 11 months old, Heng took her to see a doctor at their local hospital in Battambang. And they received difficult news: Sophea had a congenital heart condition.

A diagnosis like this is extremely difficult for every child, and every parent who loves them and wants to do all they can to care for them. But for a family living in poverty, it’s all the more devastating. Heng, like so many other parents of children with medical conditions living in poverty, knew she wouldn’t be able to afford the lifesaving care her daughter needed. She didn’t know what to do.

But children like Sophea are exactly why we have the Molly Holt Fund.

The Molly Holt Fund Provides Critical Medical Care

Molly Holt was a nurse and the daughter of our founders, someone who spent her life caring for children with special needs. She loved all of them deeply, and believed firmly that every child deserves a family and medical care to give them the best opportunity in life.

It’s because of Molly’s amazing life and legacy that we have the Molly Holt Fund. Each year, Holt donors generously give to care for children with special needs in Molly’s honor. The Molly Holt Fund is a continuation of Molly’s life and work — providing heart surgeries, cleft lip and palate operations, physical therapy, lifesaving medications and more to children who desperately need it.

This past spring, we shared Sophea’s story and need with Holt donors, who gave generously to the Molly Holt Fund to help her and children like her. And because of this support, Holt Cambodia and her mother, Sophea got the lifesaving surgery she needed.

Sophea’s Heart Surgery

The local doctor told Heng that there wasn’t anyone who could do the surgery in Battambang, but that she should take Sophea to a children’s hospital in Siem Reap. Amazingly, this hospital would even provide the operation for free. But Siem Reap was over 100 miles away — which would mean unreachable travel expenses for a family living in poverty.

But thankfully, Holt donors — through the Molly Holt Fund — were able to cover the transportation costs, accommodations, food and more that Sophea and Heng needed for their journey and long stay at the hospital.

Sophea received the surgery to correct her heart condition, and made a full recovery. She and her mom returned home soon after.  

Almost right away, Sophea began to gain weight. She began to grow — nearly catching up with her twin sister!

Not only did Sophea receive the urgent and lifesaving medical care she needed, but her family is continuing in Holt’s program, receiving the food they need to grow healthy and tools they need to overcome poverty someday.

Without help, Sophea would have continued to be sick, and her life would have continued to be in danger. But now, she has the healthy heart she needed to grow healthy and strong.

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Provide urgently needed medical care, therapies or adaptive equipment for a child with a disability or healthcare need.

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The post The Healthy Heart She Needed appeared first on Holt International.

Eight-year-old Arban could roll over on his own, but he couldn’t crawl. He could sit comfortably in a chair, but he wasn’t able to walk. He could hold things in his left hand, but he couldn’t feed himself.

Arban has cerebral palsy, which made the right side of his body especially weak. He had trouble with basic movements and daily tasks like eating, standing and walking on his own. He lives in Mongolia with his grandparents. They love him and take the best care of him they can, but this has become more of a struggle as he’s grown. 

“Due to his severe muscle tension, it was very difficult for us to carry an 8-year-old boy,” his grandparents said. “Holding and lifting him makes everything hard for him and us.”

For Arban’s whole life, his grandparents have desperately hoped for the opportunity to help him. But even if a miracle opportunity did come about, they wondered how they would ever pay for it…

Raising Money for Surgery

Then, his doctors found it. There’s a procedure they said would help him, a spinal surgery that encourages independent movement in the legs. It might even allow Arban to walk.

But there’s not a single hospital in Mongolia that performs this surgery. Desperately looking for options, his doctors and grandparents found a hospital in New Delhi, India that would perform the surgery. But they would have to remain there for three months while Arban healed and received physical therapy. The total cost would be an unreachable $40,000.

This was far too much money for Arban’s grandparents to afford on their own, as a family from an impoverished rural community in Mongolia. But they were committed to helping him and started raising money through donations from family and friends. They even sold their car, and as many of their other possessions as they could. After a year, they raised more than half of what they needed, but it still wasn’t enough.

“Although we made the decision to seek medical treatment for our grandson, the process of finding money to pay for high expenses was time consuming and stressful,” his grandparents said.

Thankfully the Molly Holt Fund exists so children just like Arban can get the medical care they need and deserve.

The Molly Holt Fund Helps Children Like Arban

Molly Holt was a nurse and the daughter of our founders, someone who spent her life caring for children with special needs. She loved all of them deeply, and believed firmly that every child deserves a family and medical care to give them the best opportunity in life.

“We had already lost a year when we received your generous donation. There are no words to describe how grateful we are for the financial and emotional support you have given to us in such a short period of time, to improve the quality of our grandson’s life.”

Amundra’s grandparents

It’s because of Molly’s amazing life and legacy that we have the Molly Holt Fund. Each year, Holt donors generously give to care for children with special needs in Molly’s honor. The Molly Holt Fund is a continuation of Molly’s life and work — providing heart surgeries, cleft lip and palate operations, physical therapy, lifesaving medications and more to vulnerable children who desperately need it.

Arban is exactly who the Molly Holt Fund was designed to help! As soon as Holt Mongolia heard about Arban’s grandparents’ efforts, they stepped in with donations from the Molly Holt Fund to provide the rest of the money needed for Arban’s surgery.

“We had already lost a year when we received your generous donation,” Arban’s grandparents said. “There are no words to describe how grateful we are for the financial and emotional support you have given to us in such a short period of time, to improve the quality of our grandson’s life.”

Surgery in India

So, last summer, Arban and his grandparents gathered their things. Then they made the long journey from Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia to New Delhi, India. It took considerable effort to transport Arban, with his impacted mobility, on such a long trip. His grandparents were nervous but so excited! They hoped that the grueling journey would be worth it for the sake of their precious grandson’s opportunities in life.

Little Arban received surgery on May 27, 2022. He had to spend nine hours on his stomach with a tube down his throat while the surgeons operated.

But the surgery was a success! So were the three months rehabilitation post-op in India, before the family could travel home.

“His legs look like other kids’ now!”

Arban’s grandmother

Before the operation, Arban’s legs had been stiff and angled, prohibiting him from walking and causing him a great deal of discomfort every day.

But today, after surgery and therapy, Arban’s grandmother says joyfully, “His legs look like other kids’ now!”

Arban and his grandparents traveled safely back to Mongolia in August 2022, where he continued to receive support and therapeutic care. He has been learning to walk and stand on his own, to the joy of his family.

Thank You, from Arban’s Grandparents 

After the surgery and return to Mongolia, Arban’s grandparents wrote a detailed letter thanking Holt donors for their generosity. Watching their 8-year-old grandson take his first steps, they were overwhelmed with gratitude.

“Although it is sad that we do not know each and every one of you who have donated and supported us and cannot thank you personally,” wrote his grandparents. “We want to emphasize that we feel proud and respectful of your organization as we think about how generous and humane you have been for the welfare of our grandson. As a result of the surgeries, my grandson’s quality of life improved significantly.”

This is what the Molly Holt Fund exists to do: provide orphaned and vulnerable children with life-changing medical care so they can live as healthy and independent as possible. Thanks to his loving grandparents and generous Holt donors, Arban can look forward to a life with greater freedom and opportunity!

Give to the Molly Holt Fund!

Provide urgently needed medical care, therapies or adaptive equipment for a child with a disability or healthcare need.

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The post Arban Can Walk, Thanks to Holt Donors appeared first on Holt International.

As she takes to the stage, Elita Damron reaches up to her ears and then sets something down on top of the piano before sitting down to play.

Her fingers travel furiously up and down the keyboard, playing Solfeggietto in C minor by C.P.E Bach — an impressively quick piece that seems to span every octave. But what makes it even more impressive is what the audience learns at the end — that she did it all without her hearing aids.

This performance was part of Elita’s latest competition in the Miss America Opportunity – where she was awarded Miss Fresno County. Her platform is one that is encompassed by her piano performance and who she is as an Asian American adoptee with a disability: Disability doesn’t mean inability.

Elita was adopted from China at 1 year old into her family in California. But it wasn’t until she was 3 years old that she was diagnosed with severe bilateral hearing loss.  

“No one really notices that I have a disability unless I tell them,” Elita says. “It’s never been something that’s held me back, and I’ve lived my life to prove people wrong about people with my disability — people with disabilities are so capable of so many amazing things!”

Elita herself is a horseback riding trail guide, personal trainer and musician, and hopes to go into the medical field one day. She also hopes she can be a role model for others like herself, because she never quite had anyone similar she could look up to.

“There’s no one who I would wholeheartedly say, ‘I see myself in that person,’ because I’m an Asian American adoptee living with a disability,” Elita says. “So maybe getting to be that for a demographic that hasn’t had a voice and hasn’t had a person? It’s the coolest thing.”

As an adoptee, the chance to advocate for adoption and represent children with disabilities is especially meaningful to her, because she knows that it’s primarily these children who are waiting for a family today through international adoption. And she believes they deserve the same opportunities as any other child.

While prospective adoptive parents may be unsure or intimidated about what raising a child with special needs could look like, she wants to show that it may look different than they think.  And as she speaks, acts and advocates on behalf their behalf, she uses herself as an example.

“There are so many amazing things that children with disabilities are capable of,” Elita says. “I want to highlight that and show that disability does not mean inability — and I hope to kind of change this as it pertains to adoption. I want to be that bridge and open the floor to conversation about this.”

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Provide urgently needed medical care to a child in an orphanage with special needs.

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The post Disability, Not Inability appeared first on Holt International.

Every summer, families in Mongolia stream out of cities like Ulaanbaatar to spend a few weeks in the countryside. It’s a cultural tradition, like a July 4^th barbecue or a summer trip to the beach. Cars carrying excited countrygoers roll out to Mongolia’s open steppes, which bloom bright and beautiful with grass and flowers in the summer.

Cities like Ulaanbaatar are crowded and struggle with issues like air pollution and water purity. So, these summer breaks are a brief and much-anticipated reprieve. Children in particular benefit from a week or two of fresh air and sunshine, during Mongolia’s brief warm months.

But traditions like these are an unreachable luxury for people who live in poverty. This is especially true for the families of children with special needs. For them, between the funds required and the complexities of traveling with a child with disabilities, a trip to the countryside is completely out of the question.

But that’s where Holt Mongolia comes in!

Kindergarten in Mongolia

In Mongolia, we work with a public, government-run school that Holt sponsors and donors have supported for nearly a decade. It serves low-income families, many of whom have a child ages 4 to 6 with a disability. Most of the disabilities are physical, like cerebral palsy, muscular development challenges or genetic malformations.

Currently, Holt donors are helping to improve the facility and provide nutrition support as well as therapeutic care and services for children with disabilities. These families cannot afford private therapies like physical or occupational therapy. So, the services provided by this state kindergarten are vital to their children’s development.

In addition to school, this center also provides crucial childcare! Children attend state kindergarten Monday through Friday, during school hours. For families who need it, it is also available through extended working hours as well. This means that both parents can work full time if they need, to provide for their families. 

“In many of these families, there is not a full-time caregiver available at home,” says Paul Kim, Holt’s U.S. director of Korea and Mongolia programs. “This kindergarten provides a level of support families would otherwise not have. It really enables families to not only get proper care for their children, but it also ensures family integrity and stability if both parents can be employed.”

In many areas around the world, rates of child abandonment are higher for children with disabilities. There are so many parents living in poverty who cannot afford care for a child who needs critical medical attention. As a result, they face the heartbreaking reality that staying home with a child who needs full-time attention will mean they cannot afford to provide for the rest of their family.

In Mongolia, the kindergarten we work with directly addresses this parenting dilemma. It makes it possible for both parents to work and earn an income while their child receives nurturing care and vital therapeutic attention at school. This makes all the difference.

“It tackles the issue of child abandonment,” says Paul, “taking it out of the equation.”

Summer Camp and Respite

However, despite the care and attention the children at the state kindergarten receive during the week, their families have no way to afford summer vacation. And while they receive physical and occupational therapy at school, their parents aren’t equipped with the knowledge or training to provide therapy at home that would stimulate their child’s continued development.

Seeing this, the state director had an idea! What if they held a family summer camp out in the country, and brought in physical and occupational therapists to train parents?

This is how a summer camp for children with disabilities began in the Mongolian countryside.   

“Think of it as a week-long respite for families who otherwise would have none at all,” says Paul. “The goal was to make families stronger, healthier and more knowledgeable about their children, and quite honestly their own needs too.”

When Paul heard about the idea, he loved it! The state provided some of the funds for camp and Holt Mongolia stepped in with the rest. There was enough to fully fund three week-long camp sessions for smaller groups of families. Almost all 186 children attended camp, with about 60 families per session so they could receive more individual attention.

Camp was completely free except for the gas needed for families to get there! Families stayed in traditional Mongolian homes called gers at the campsite. The food was provided by staff with training in child nutrition and feeding methods. Support staff from the state kindergarten gave all-day supervision for all the children who attended.

So, this past summer, families of children in this state kindergarten were able to do something that had seemed out of reach: get in their car, drive out to the countryside, and spend a week by the lake watching their children play in the sunshine and fresh air.

“What was so apparent to us while we were out there was how much love these parents have for their kids,” observes Paul. “They want the best for their children and to be able to meet their needs as best they can. The other thing that was great was that it helped to build community among these families. They could share their individual challenges and stories with the families they were surrounded by.”

Therapy Training

Physical therapists showed parents feeding techniques for children with disabilities like cerebral palsy or genetic malformations. These disabilities often impact a child’s ability to chew and swallow properly — increasing their risk of aspirating on a piece of food. Now, those children are safer at home during mealtimes.

The therapists led sessions about how to loosen the joints in children’s hips and legs. These joints can become tight, uncomfortable and can impact a child’s mobility if not properly and regularly stretched and massaged.

Both kinds of therapies benefit children in the long-term by improving their mobility, feeding ability and often their nutrition status. When parents are equipped with knowledge about how to meet their children’s complex needs, the parent-child bond and the family’s integrity as a whole benefits!

Family Bonding

Paul got to visit one session of this summer therapy camp last year. He was moved to see how invested the parents were in learning how to better care for their children, and by the spirit of love and joy fostered by this special camp.

“It’s not really a tangible thing, but sometimes you walk into a place and you get a sense or feeling. That’s what visiting this summer camp was like. When you walked in there was not a feeling of sadness, but of joy. You could feel the happiness enveloping you as you walked in from both the parents and the staff.”

Paul Kim, Holt’s director of programs in Mongolia and Korea

As children and parents interacted, away from the stigma and difficulty of their everyday life, they bonded and grew closer together in a new way.

“You could see the brightness in their faces and also the burden they’ve been carrying,” says Paul. “What stuck out to me was the genuine love and pride they had in their children.”

After camp, families drove back to Ulaanbaatar in their cars, refreshed and rejuvenated by this summertime reprieve. Camp is coming up again this summer, and our hope is that it will become an annual tradition to uplift these wonderful children and families.

Learn more about Holt’s work in Mongolia!

See how sponsors and donors create a brighter, more hopeful future for children and families in Mongolia!

view mongolia programs

The post Therapy Camp in the Mongolian Countryside appeared first on Holt International.

Happy New Year! As we embark on a new year ahead, I have such a thankful heart for all sponsors and donors do for children and families in need around the world.

Last year you helped us reach more than 1.5 million children and individuals, many of whom are children with disabilities. These children face significant challenges in their daily lives, experience discrimination and are often excluded from society and school. But with your help, thousands of children with disabilities are getting the care, attention and education they deserve — children like Quynh.

Quynh is 8 years old and attends a Holt-supported daycare for children with disabilities in Vietnam called the KiAnh Center. Quynh has attended this special day care for 5 years now, since age 3 when she was diagnosed with autism. At the time, she couldn’t communicate or interact and had challenging behaviors. Her parents couldn’t find a daycare facility that was willing to accept her due to her level of need — until they found the KiAnh Center.

Staff at the KiAnh Center shared that, “The early months of Quynh at the school were difficult. She was hyperactive and did not stop running around, ceaselessly running and jumping, shouting and crying at the school. She would not sit down or sit still for even a minute, and certainly would not lie down to nap during the noon time siesta which is customary in Vietnam. She required continual one-on-one assistance from staff to make sure that she did not have any accidents and harm herself.”  

But Quynh was welcome there. She began receiving the physical and speech therapy, nutrition, academic support and more that the KiAnh Center provides. And over time, she has made tremendous positive changes.

Today, Quynh can communicate and speak in sentences up to five words. She tells her parents and teachers what she needs and what she sees, and will ask questions when she wants to know or is interested in something. She patiently waits her turn. These are all hard things for any autistic child to do!At home, Quynh helps with setting the table for meals and helping with laundry. She cares and pays attention to the others’ feelings, and will independently comfort her friends when they are upset by rubbing their head and wiping away their tears. 

Quynh’s parents say the support they’ve received is life-changing, and they are able to function as the family they always longed to be. They can now take her to a café, or a supermarket, or any place they want to go — and it is now a pleasant event for all of them, and not something that causes apprehension and distress like they used to experience.

This is the incredible help that you provide to children with disabilities and their families around the world. From improved nutrition and medical care to low-cost daycare and education, you are providing life-changing support to so many children with special needs and their families or caregivers through Holt programs around the world. 

Thank you for supporting these children, and giving them the opportunities they deserve and need to thrive!  

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The post A Heart for Supporting Children With Special Needs appeared first on Holt International.

Holt International’s Child Nutrition Program (CNP) supports children in our international programs through critical training for caregivers, growth monitoring, and nutrition and feeding interventions. Started in 2014, the program is designed to support caregivers to ensure children in their care, especially those with disabilities, are receiving optimal nutrition so they can grow and thrive.

In December 2022, Holt’s CNP published a study in the high-impact journal Children. This research examines program implementation in Mongolia and the Philippines, countries that have had remarkable success with the CNP. It highlights triumphs and challenges with implementing the CNP at sites in these countries. The study is called Learning from the Implementation of the Child Nutrition Program: A Mixed Methods Evaluation of Process, and it’s available in full online.

If you don’t have time for the whole article, we also spoke to Emily DeLacey, director of Holt’s Nutrition and Health Services. In the Q&A below, Emily explains the impact of this study and the CNP program — helping thousands of children grow and thrive to their fullest potential!

What is this study and why is it important?

I started conducting research with my department at Holt, Nutrition and Health Services, in the fall of 2018. We were looking for resources to better support the programs that Holt was running, and we were finding that there just wasn’t a lot of really good information on the populations of children we were aiming to serve. So, to address this information gap, we started conducting research. Conducting research examining Holt’s work has been amazing because we’ve been able to provide evidence-based, peer-reviewed research that shows the impact of the work that Holt does. This specific paper highlights lessons learned from successfully implementing the CNP and what the implications are for other sites, programs and future growth of the CNP.

Additionally, Holt has made a commitment to conducting disability-inclusive research. This is important because children with disabilities are routinely excluded from research that could really benefit their lives. So our research helps to better address the needs of all the children we serve.

What is the biggest goal of this publication?

One main focus of our research is to better highlight the needs of vulnerable populations. By describing their needs we can better serve these vulnerable groups and raise awareness.

I really think that our research is helping to move the global conversation forward for vulnerable children, including children with disabilities or children living within institution-based care.

This particular child nutrition study is an in-progress look at how the program is working, correct?

Yes, this paper specifically looks at CNP implementation in Mongolia and the Philippines. These two countries were selected because they’ve had so much success with CNP. We wanted to take key insights with how they’ve been implementing the program to better improve programs in all countries that currently operate CNP. CNP started with two pilot sites in 2014 and since then we’ve grown to over 70 sites. As we continue to grow, we want to optimize this program so that we can ensure that our interventions are having the desired impact on children’s lives!

Some of the reasons why Mongolia and the Philippines were so successful have been really helpful to share as we work with other programs or as we look to expand our programs. Some of this research has been of big interest to government partners, many of who want to move forward to grow evidence-based programming and scale up programs.

Other insights were just about the importance of the relationships we have, and Holt has such wonderful, strong relationships with so many of these sites — sites we have often partnered with for many years. Those relationships between sites, governments and Holt are essential and key to ensuring successful implementation and strong buy-in. And then there’s the training! Once caregivers go through the training, they see the direct benefit in their work every single day! Caregivers seeing the value of the interventions has been very helpful for sustained, high-quality implementation.

How does the teamwork and information-sharing at project sites contribute to success in Mongolia and the Philippines?

Both countries reported that peer support was key. One of the ways that we ensure standardization of the CNP is by sharing the information with staff at every single level within the organization. We have kitchen staff that attend the training as well as caregivers and site leadership and nurses, and so they’ve all learned the information and then they can share information confidently with their colleagues. The program has a training-of-trainers approach, so once trained, staff can share the information with others, including new sites or new staff.

What are you most excited about right now with the CNP program?

I’m just really excited for the future Holt programs! They really have such an impact and so our ability to better share about these programs, such as the CNP, will help us to better serve children and families around the world. Other really nice things about the research that we do is that we’re able to involve partners and field teams and students in the experience so they’re able to also have opportunities to learn about the research process and provide valuable insights that only staff in the field really know.

How do you anticipate sharing insights from this work to other countries?

Dissemination has been a key aspect of our research goals and plan of action. It’s one thing to do this, but it’s really important to share information like the child nutrition studies we do with audiences that will benefit! Holt has committed to open access publication, so that anyone who wants the information can access it, thereby removing cost as a barrier.

Additionally, we’ve presented at several conferences and universities to better disseminate our findings. We are also moving forward to translate this research into local languages so our partners are able to read and share it with others. Research helps us to open conversations with government officials and other organizations about our programs and our work. We’re also starting to pick up citations by other major players such as UNICEF! When they start to cite our work, we also get a bit more traction and more readership. Another way is through social media posts about this work from our lovely Holt team and network of other professionals around the world!

Is there anything else you want to add?

I think that the biggest reason why CNP has been so successful is that caregivers and families see the impact of even small changes in the lives of children they care for. When children are happier and healthier, they have the opportunity to live their lives to the fullest!

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Your gift to Holt’s child nutrition program will provide life-changing nutrition and feeding support to children living in poverty and in orphanages around the world.

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The post Learning From the Implementation of the Child Nutrition Program appeared first on Holt International.