The homeless humanitarian and a turning point in adoption

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Free-Press-Release.com) October 11, 2009 -- This week, we learned from Ukraine that for the first time, adoption of orphans by Ukrainians had exceeded those made by foreign visitors

3 years ago, social business pioneer Terry Hallman started to examine the root causes of poverty in Ukraine. He realised that foster parents were paid only half what the state paid institutions where children, particular those disabled, were often neglected.

Terry is the American founder of a social enterprise based in the Forest of Dean who'd once been homeless.

He spoke out in an insightful and shocking article 'Death Camps for Children', which explored and exposed the key reasons behind the issue, such as a lack of funding, limited medical knowledge and large-scale corruption.

Exploring the issues in full public view by blogging, Terry then proposed the increase of adoption payments, creation of 400+ rehab centres and a policy of homes for all children. This became part of a strategy paper calling on US government for support in childcare reform, microfinance lending, affordable broadband access and a social investment fund to promote social enterprise

Within the next 2 years these childcare recommendations became government policy and USAID provided a new foundation to promote CSR and support social enterprise. The tide in adoptions then began to turn.

For Terry this was familiar territory, in 1999 just after Russia's economy imploded, he'd called on the US to support the creation of an economic development initiative in Siberia which led to the creation of 10,000 new microentrepreneurs.

It was back in 1996 when invited as an honorary researcher for President Clinton's re-election committee that Terry conceived the idea of a business with social objectives and delivered it as a white paper to the committee. It proposed an alternate economic paradigm, capitalism with compassion.

Shortly after, he lost his home through divorce and lived 2 years on the streets, until the situation in Russia offered the opportunity to apply his theoretical model, bottom up economic development to replace the top down efforts which preceded it.

For most, the concept of changing capitalism was beyond imagination prior to the credit crisis of 2008. A notable exception perhaps being Bill Gates who took the world by surprise at Davos by announcing that capitalism could be deployed creatively to address poverty.

In Ukraine, this turning point is far from a solution. Just 2000 domestic adoptions from a total of around 100,000 means more than 40 years to adopt those currently institutionalised, without considering the invisible who are disabled, or perhaps as many as 200,000 living on the streets.

Increasing the overall wealth of the people of this nation is what Terry offers in his solution, a 'Marshall Plan' directed at "hunger, poverty, desperation and chaos"

More information can be found online at http://www.p-ced.com

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