Tuesday 14 February 2012

Libby's UK adoption update

Libby became our daughter by a Liberian Court's Decree of Adoption on 30th November 2005, but as that adoption order isn't recognised by the UK we are having to re-adopt her now we are settled in England. We are having regular visits by a social worker, and yesterday I posted the application to the County Court for an adoption order. We are nearly at the end of a very long road, and hopefully we'll get a court date and the UK adoption order before her visa expires at the beginning of May.

All this chatting with Social Workers has made us dig through our old photos. In early 2007 Sally went to Libby's birth village with Patti, the director of Acres of Hope adoption agency & orphanage, and commissioned a new hand-pump that had been installed by AoH. Quakor Village in Grand Cape Mount County is a incredibly poor village, as you can see from the photos below. The people live in mud and leaf shacks, and try to grow and hunt as much food as they can.


Below, Patti and Sally at the newly opened hand-pump which will save hundreds of lives over the next few years (1 in 5 children die in this region from mostly waterborne disease).


Below, Sally at the village's old source of water. No wonder so many children died.


The new hand-pump, costing only a few hundred dollars, provides clean and safe drinking water, and will last decades if properly used. Olly

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