Introducing... The Fayye Foundation

Wow, yesterday was quite a media storm for my girl Jamie and her controversial Time Magazine cover!  If you're offended by the title, I implore you to read Jamie's Q&A with Time Magazine, to see that while she has chosen extended breast feeding for her family, she has the utmost respect for mothers who don't.  In fact, she's one of the most non-judgmental people I know.  She did not pick the title of the article!  Unfortunately her personal blog has been down due to traffic, but they're working hard to get it back up.  In the meantime, reporters and news media have been contacting me through our Mommy Hates Chemicals blog, to try and get in touch with Jamie.  Thankfully Time Magazine is helping her out by assigning her a PR person to handle all the media.  She will be on the Today Show (today!) at the 9:ooam hour, being interviewed by Matt Lauer and will also be on Dateline tonight, discussing Attachment Parenting and her decision to choose extended breast feeding for her family.  Yay for Jamie! I didn't do extended breast feeding with my kids, but I fully support Jamie's decision to go public about a topic she is very passionate about!

So speaking of Jamie, the big news is that she and I (and several other amazing people) have started a non-profit organization to help the Sidama people of Ethiopia.  There are over 70 different ethnic groups in Ethiopia, each with their own customs, languages and food.  Jamie and I both adopted a child from Ethiopia, and both of our children (her son and my daughter) are from the Sidama ethnic group.  As adoptive parents of Sidama children, we feel a responsibility to our children's people.  We've been working on this for a long time, so we are especially excited that our site has finally gone live.

Click Here to visit our site.

 

That's actually a picture of my daughter at the orphanage, being held by a nanny who is also Sidama.

This is my beautiful daughter now, six years later.

Though Jamie and I are adoptive parents of Sidama children, we do not feel that adoption is the solution to the orphan crisis in Ethiopia and among the Sidama people.  We feel the solution to the orphan crisis is to help prevent maternal mortality, and improve access to health care to help keep families together.

In Ethiopia, the culture is that an Ethiopian's last name is their father's first name.  My daughter's original last name (and current middle name) is Fayye.  It was the name of her now deceased father. It's a traditional Sidama name meaning, "to be well/to be made well", often given to a child that was sick and then became healthy.  Jamie and I felt that the Fayye Foundation was the perfect name for our non-profit organization, as that is our goal with the Sidama people. 

Our current goal is to raise money to help fund projects that are already in place in the Sidama region of Ethiopia, but eventually we hope to have an office in the Sidama region so we can have a more hands-on participation in helping the people there.