Southgate Family Adoption
by Dawn Southgate 1 Lives Impacted Sierra Leone
About Our Adoption Fundraiser. We are excited to share our Adoption Fundraiser to “Bring Katie Home”. Katie is our beautiful 10-year old newes...
We are excited to share our Adoption Fundraiser to “Bring Katie Home”. Katie is our beautiful 10-year old newest family member waiting for her adoption to be finalized in an African country. We hope that with your generous support she will join her forever family by spring next year.
In 2016 we were matched with Katie through an accredited adoption agency. At the end of 2016/early 2017 all the families and children in the country program found out that the agency was no longer able to operate in the country due to issues created in part by the agency program manager. It was a very traumatic time for everyone as we were not longer sure if we could continue with our children’s adoption and added to this stress, all families in the program lost significant amounts of money – in fact all the fees we paid to the agency.
Once we appointed our own lawyers in-country we found out the agency had not even had the basic paperwork in place and children’s investigations and paperwork was incomplete leaving families to start the process over again.
Fortunately, everything went well with Katie’s paperwork and in March I was appointed by the in-country court as her foster mother. Since then we have had to adhere the country process of waiting 6 months before we could go to court to finalize her adoption with the country court. We get to speak to Katie every couple of weeks via WhatsApp and every time someone travels to the country we send over books, clothes and necessities for her.
We ask for your generous support to help us raise funds to complete court and move to the next phase of the process which is to have her adoption finalized by the US embassy. Then finally she can come home.
Every donation, not matter how large or small, helps bring our Katie closer
coming home to her forever family.
About Us
We are Dawn & Mali Southgate, an in the
midst of our second adoption journey. As a single mom, I have been blessed
with my daughter Mali, age 8 (adopted from Uganda in Dec. 2014). She is a
bright light, who has thrived and blossomed since arriving in the US that cold
December afternoon. It’s amazing that with love, a safe environment and
security of family, adopted children can blossom in so many wonderful ways.
Mali has also been to blessed with attending wonderful schools which has been
amazing for her social, emotional and academic growth and development.
In 2016, I’ve found myself being drawn to adopt again, especially as Mali was
asking daily for a sister. I started looking at ‘Waiting Children’ on some
adoption websites and came across Katie’s photo. As soon as I saw her sweet
smiling face, she pulled at my heart strings. I made some inquiries with the
adoption agency and after hearing her story felt even more driven to find a way
for Katie to join our family.
Many adoptive parents hope for infants and younger children and it is the older
children like Katie, age 10, who can easily get left behind in a children’s
home or orphanage and age out at 14 with no real prospects for the future.
Given that her country is one of the poorest in the world, her prospects would
be very bleak. Our biggest gift to Katie is to become her family and shower her
with love, support and security and the opportunity for a brighter future.
In October 2016 we finally got to meet Katie on
our match trip and know that she is a perfect fit for our family.
Thank you to everyone who made it possible. Despite the setbacks we
have had with the agency we are determined to complete her adoption and finally
have her home with us.
Please Support Our Fundraiser
It is with much gratitude that we ask you to contribute to, and share our
fundraiser with your family and friends. We deeply appreciate any amount
that you are able to donate and would like to thank you in advance for all your
encouragement, prayers and financial support, and for being a part of our
adoption journey!
The funds we raise will be used as follows:
PLEASE HELP US MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN ONE CHILD'S
LIFE, AND MAKE TWO GIRLS VERY HAPPY!
With much love and gratitude,
Dawn & Mali
Sierra Leone
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