Businesses > Family & Adoption
Vietnamese Adoptee Network (VAN)
The Vietnamese Adoptee Network seeks to maximize the Vietnamese adoptee experience in a caring, supportive environment by networking them to other Vietnamese adoptees and community resources.
How does VAN propose to achieve its Mission?
- By creating and maintaining a network of Vietnamese adoptees;
- By building and fostering connections with those who affect our lives--by facilitating birth family searches and by collaborating with other Vietnamese adoptee resources--the greater Vietnamese community, and the Asian Pacific American community as a whole;
- By sharing experiences and support:
- By cultivating tolerance of individual and ethnic differences;
- By recognizing individual self-worth;
- By promoting understanding and awareness of our native culture;
- By nurturing the growth of other Vietnamese adoptees adolescents and adults, e.g. mentorship;
- By organizing future reunions and motherland tours;
- By serving as a resource to parents considering adoption, to agencies who work with adoption, to social workers, and to the media, e.g. collecting and disseminating information relating to the adoption experience;
- By culturally enriching our community.
VAN was established following a 25-year Vietnamese adoptee reunion in July 2000. For the first time in many Vietnamese adoptees' lives, we were reunited with other Vietnamese adoptees in April 2000 at the first-ever Reunion of the First Generation of Vietnamese Adoptees, sponsored by Holt International Children's Services, Tressler Adoption Services, and the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, in Baltimore, MD, USA. Following this reunion was another event held in July 2000 in Estes Park, CO, USA. Reunion 2000! was the catalyst that several adoptees used to start VAN. Many of the founding members realized through our networking that the time had come for the torch to be passed on to the adoptee community, and that the stewardship of our history, and the direction our adoptee community would take, was now in our own hands.
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