Very Interesting Information

I met someone through an adoption forum about 3 months after J.R. arriving from Guatemala. She sent me a private message via the forum that asked me what my son's birth name was. She had recognized the referral picture I had posted. It just so happened that when J.R. was about one month old she had accepted his referral only to find out about one week after that another family had sent in their power of attorney and she lost his referral. Imagine her surprise when she visited a waiting child listing and saw his picture on it only now he was six months old?? Well, she had already received her referral and had her daughter home. She was trying her best to see how she could start on his adoption when he was then marked as no longer available because we had begun his adoption. She was able to send me his newborn pictures that I was never able to obtain and I was and am still so thankful to her.

She recently posted this on her Blog and I thought it was such interesting and true information!!!

She compiled some statistics based on publications
from the World Bank, the CIA, and other sources. From those numbers she was able to calculate the following facts:

Out of 100 children born in Guatemala:

1 has been or will be adopted by a US family
5 will not make it to their 5th birthday
16 will be born with low birth weight
22 will never see the inside of a school
28 will never learn how to read and write
54 will grow up in extreme poverty and malnourished
74 will never make it to the 7th grade
84 will need to travel over an hour to reach a health care facility

By eliminating adoptions in Guatemala the government has solved the
"crisis" for 1 out 100 of their children. What about the rest of them?