Research and information

Just to pass the time while we wait for official word on our dossier, I thought I'd post here my favorite links to Ukrainian news, Ukrainian adoption articles, and video and photos of orphanage conditions in Ukraine:

Ukraine News in English:
http://blog.kievukraine.info/
http://en.for-ua.com/

Ukraine is going through an huge power struggle right now, their government is a complete mess, and it is likely that there will soon be another "revolution" of sorts to oust the exact same corrupt politicians that were the root of the problems that started the "Orange Revolution" in 2004. Basically its the Ukrainian nationalists against the Russian loyalists. Business men are being assassinated, journalists kidnapped and murdered, top officials being guilty of crimes yet not going to jail....

Ukrainian adoption information:
Angela does an awsome job writing up articles about Ukranian adoption and finding links to photos, videos, and people's adoption blogs (like this one - which she listed in one of her articles on blogs). Reading her articles will give a person good, trustworthy information on the various aspects of Ukrainian adoption - what laws are being voted on that affect adoptions, what is going on at the Ukrainian Adoption Center, dossier news, links to photos for filling in gaps in your child's LifeBook...She even tags all the articles so you can browse her posts based on topic categories.

http://ukraine.adoptionblogs.com/

Orphanage links:
In my searches on the internet for information on my 3 girls, I actually found some interesting websites - usually of charity groups doing mission work in Ukraine - that had video and photos of these kids lives.

http://www.crossrdsfoundation.org/
Cross Roads has some photos and videos of street kids in Kyiv. These are kids who are homeless and parentless, yet have not yet ended up in the orphanage system - or they have run away from the orphanages.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFF_IJvmYvk
This is a PeaceCorps video of my youngest daughter's baby house - she lived in this place before being moved to the nearby Preschool home, and now she is in the Boarding School type of orphanage.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reTJ_28J6K0

This is a video about Ukrainian orphanage statistics and general images.

Life 2 Orphans has tons of photos of various orphanages across Ukraine and here is a blog some of their volunteers wrote up about daily life of kids in a boarding school in Western Ukraine.

Go to this link, then to "Photo Feedback" to look at the photos
http://www.life2orphans.com/

Here is the 6 part trip report about life at Mykolaivka internat
http://www.life2orphans.blog-city.com/mykolaivka_internat_ukraine_orphanage_trip_report_sept_2006__4.htm

Boarding Schools/Internats in Chernihiv region where my youngest is living:
http://www.britishhumanitarianaid.co.uk/page15.html

The Colker Family does alot of missionary work in Ukrainian orphanages and they have tons of great photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/colkerfamily/

This guy has some great B/W photos of Ukrainian orphans and street kids
http://www.flickr.com/photos/26629476@N00/