Register for an Ethiopian Family Visit and Letter Delivery
Beteseb Felega offers personal letter delivery throughout Ethiopia. We have dedicated social workers in various regions of Ethiopia. You will receive photo verification of letter/photos receipt, a social report on your or your child’s family’s life, a message from the family with photos, and usually a short video. Use our brief form below; you can do part and save it for 30 days if you need to come back to it. We will send your payment quote by email.
If this is our first time working with you, we require adoption documentation with the family’s location stating the address (Region, Zone, Woreda, Kebele, Village).
We do not do soft quotes. To provide a quote, we need the address of the family.
Not sure what to say in your letter? See our tips below.
Important: You will be uploading TWO documents through the website:
1. One PDF file containing your letter and/or photos. Limit questions to 10. In our experience, small details are best obtained over a period of time rather than in one communication. The family is likely to be emotional at receiving your letter and this can make it hard to get answers to very detailed questions. Our favorite question is, “Tell us my/our child’s adoption story.”
2. One PDF file containing names, contact, and other information necessary to deliver the letter.
There is a spot to add additional information if necessary.
To sign up for letter delivery services, please fill out our brief form, upload your letter, and we will provide a quote via email. Register for a family visit and letter delivery and upload your information now.
WRITING A LETTER TO ETHIOPIAN FAMILY
Tell the family about your/your child’s life. Keep your sentences simple and direct to avoid misunderstandings in translation. Include basic information such as age, grade in school, hobbies, family members names and ages, a little information about where you live (is it mountainous or warm, for example).
Tell them about school – education is important to Ethiopians because many people there never make it through school. Include photos of schoolwork and of you/the child at school if possible.
Include photos of you/the child at different ages, closeups and whole body so they can see that you/the child are healthy, and include photos of the entire family. Ethiopian families may want to understand how you live, so including a photo of the outside of the house would be nice, though it could be awkward if your house is enormous.
Include information about what kind of contact you would like to have with them in the future, especially if you do not plan on having contact often. The Ethiopian family will be excited and happy to receive your letter and it’s important that they have reasonable expectations about future communication.
It is best to avoid the topic of money in a letter. The social report you receive will tell you how the family is doing socially, economically, and educationally. Absolutely do not promise to give or do things you are not sure you will follow through with.
QUESTIONS TO ASK ETHIOPIAN FAMILY
To help you determine what to ask, ask yourself: are you imagining a one-time event or is this the beginning of a long-term relationship? If you think of it in terms of an ongoing relationship, each individual question is not such a big deal.
Keep your questions simple and direct. Instead of “If you don’t mind, what can you tell us about the circumstances around little Johnny’s/my adoption?” Just say, “Tell the story of Johnny’s/my adoption.” Don’t ask a huge number of questions in a first letter. Assume you will not get all the information you want in one communication and remember that there is no hurry to get every detail right away. It is common for family history to come out over long periods of time and multiple visits.
