Letter from Joan

Greetings IAN Families,

I wanted to take a moment to update you on some of the exciting happenings here at IAN.

I will be leaving tomorrow morning for a short trip to Ethiopia to check on IAN’s program there. I look forward to seeing how things are going, meeting with our in country staff, making sure the care center has made all the necessary changes and is meeting our standards, and of course to spending time with our children!

I also wanted to address the feedback I’ve received on the Addis View Guest House. When choosing our guest house for families to use, we based our decision on a number of criteria. These include priority for IAN families, cost, location, comfort, amenities, play areas for children, food, as well as many others. Addis View met all of our criteria. With any change, there is always room for improvement. I appreciate all of you who have taken the time to share your thoughts about areas for Addis View to improve. We have been in close contact with AV’s management, and they have agreed to make some immediate changes. Some of these will include: limiting smoking to a designated area, providing ample play room for children, providing rooms on the lower floors for IAN families to avoid restaurant noise, informing IAN of scheduled weddings or events, providing internet access for families who prefer to use laptops rather than public computers, providing a cell phone for IAN families to share, providing more accommodations for families with young children and ensuring bottled water is available in every room. Every comment IAN has received about AV – positive or negative –has been communicated to the management of AV, and I have been pleased to see how willing the AV staff is to make changes to better serve our clients. We appreciate your willingness to allow AV a second chance and please continue to share your thoughts with us to keep moving in a positive direction!

We have posted some beautiful photos here of some of the improvements being made at our care center. Thank you to all of the families who made this possible and keep your eye out for more updates on our Care Center Improvement Project!

I’m also excited about the eleven families who received their referrals this month!! Providing loving homes for these children is why we all work so hard!

Thank you for your support of IAN. I hope to see as many of you as possible at Family Journeys Culture Camp in August! Don’t forget to register: FJCC@adoptioninternational.net.