‘Anthem for the Unheld’ a Poem for National Adoption Month
"We learned orphans are easier to ignore before you know their names. They are easier to ignore before you see their faces. It is easier to pretend they are not real before you hold them in your arms. But once you do, everything changes." -David Platt
Orphan.
Orphan is a word we seem to have stopped using and in the process stopped seeing an entire group of human beings.
I was teaching a class on poetry and a middle school girl asked me why I choose to write mostly about sad subjects. For me I choose to write mostly about what we often don't talk about. The sad part in my opinion is not talking about what we see.
Look at these numbers in the United States from a chart on the Together We Rise Facebook Page showing how many kids in each state are waiting for a family.
I was first asked about my thoughts on orphans seven years ago, and I had to be honest with the gentelman. I hadn't thought about them. The man then asked why I thought it was that some of the things that are supposed to be at the top of our attention list, seem to get so little of our time.
My conversation that day led to a journey of meeting incredibel people, meeting kids I will never be able to forget, stories I'll never be able to unhear or carry on with life like orphans don't exist.
When you research the statistics of the life for a kid who grew up in the system never finding a forever family you will find stats, and stories you wish you had never seen.
"There can be no keener revelation of a society's soul than the way in which it treats its children" -Nelson Mandela
I don't believe adoption is for everyone, but I do believe action could be.
Awarness, action, pooling resources, and contacts is always a great way to get momentum moving towards change.
A couple months ago I had a conversation with Jason Davis from Starhaven Films about colaborating on a project to help bring awarness. The timing and meeting all ligned up as I had just had a conversation with my friend Eric Mills about his organization Faces with Names, and how they were gearing up for November being national adoption month.
In early November I went to an inspiring Adoption Celebration Day event put on by an organization called Loving Mothers. At the event one of the performers was cellist Jamin Biteler, and I immediatley knew he would be perfect to team up with us on this project.
The Olde Towne Dinner Theatere in Worthing South Dakota allowed us to use their incredible space to pull this off. I share that string of events only to engourage you to look around and see if there is anything in your personal utility belt you could use on behalf of these kids.
Their are plenty of people and organizatoins out there doing great work, here are links to three of the organizations mentioned above.
We have to stop pretending like orphans don't exist.
We can all do something wither its bringing these kids and their situations up in conversation, raising awareness, and taking action.
November is adoption awarness month, and November 19th is National Adoption Day.
"National Adoption Day is a collective, national effort to raise awareness of more than 100,000 children in foster care waiting for permanent and loving families." NationalAdoptionDay.org
Sources: FacesWithNames/ Loving Mothers/ Together We Rise/ and NationalAdoptionDay.org
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