He learned that he needed others to get ahead in life, so now he wants to be of significance to others. Séun Steenken, born in Nigeria, is committed to the youth in his city, Almere.

'The role of the barbershop is seriously underestimated in the Netherlands, in the United States they see it much more. It is a place where young people come to chill, there is such a relaxed atmosphere that everyone talks to each other. We are friends, there is respect. You can have deep conversations with boys who would never go to a community center. 'It is a kind of men's therapy', our barber always says.'

During a haircut in the MotionFades barbershop in Almere, 23-year-old Séun Steenken gets the idea that more is possible with the informal community that the hairdresser's clients form. He is impressed by the stories of the barber, thirty-something Malcolm Power, who organizes all kinds of things for the young people: barbecues, football matches, discussions. 'He paid for it all out of his own pocket. With a few hundred euros he reached more young people than when the municipality organizes something in the community center for 10K (10 thousand euros, ed. ).'

With Power and a third partner, he started the foundation The Next Way six months ago. The goal: to offer young people 'concrete tools' for daily life, such as tips and tricks for job interviews, by helping them develop their talents.

For Steenken, The Next Way is part of his broader social engagement. In addition to his studies in public administration and organizational science, he works an estimated forty hours a week in various areas: as an employee at the interest group Cliëntenbelang Amsterdam ('for vulnerable Amsterdammers'), as a spoken word artist and now also as a director of the hairdressing foundation. 'With that, I mainly want to create something beautiful for Almere, but it will not be my future. I see that in three areas: policy, culture and practical work. I want to have a social impact in all three. Maybe I will become the first mayor who is also a spoken word artist, haha.'

Navi Mumbai: Four days after a two-day-old girl was found abandoned in a basket outside a girls’ orphanage in Panvel, another case of infant abandonment has emerged—this time on a Harbour Line local train. A 15-day-old baby boy was reportedly abandoned by a woman on Tuesday, and the case has been registered at the Vashi Government Railway Police (GRP) station.
Kiran Undre, senior inspector at Vashi GRP, said that a woman, aged between 30 and 35 years, boarded the ladies’ coach of the CSMT–Panvel train at Sanpada station, carrying an infant boy. As she sat near the footboard with the baby, two women commuters asked her to move away for safety. The woman then struck up a conversation with the two passengers—identified as Divya Naidu and Bhoomika Mane, both 19 years old—and requested their help.
 

She told them she had a lot of luggage and asked if they could hold the baby while she got off at Seawoods station, Inspector Undre said.
Although Naidu and Mane were originally meant to get off at Juinagar, they agreed to help and stayed on till Seawoods. Around 12:30 pm, when the train stopped at Seawoods, the two women alighted with the baby, expecting the woman to follow. But she stayed inside the compartment and let the train leave, leaving the baby behind with the two women.

Naidu and Mane waited for the woman to return but when she didn’t, they took the infant to Mane’s home in Juinagar. After consulting Mane’s parents, they approached the local police station and then Vashi GRP. An offence has been registered against the woman for abandoning the child.
Inspector Undre added, “CCTV footage shows the woman getting off at Khandeshwar station. We have formed four teams to trace her. Her image and that of the baby have been circulated among autorickshaw drivers at Khandeshwar and in nearby residential and slum areas.”

The infant, who appeared weak, has been admitted to the ICU at NMMC Hospital, Vashi. A DNA test will be conducted to confirm whether the woman is the child’s biological mother.

Meanwhile, the two-day-old girl abandoned in Takka Colony, Panvel, on June 28 is currently under the care of Vatsalya Charitable Trust in Alibaug. The Panvel City Police had traced a couple claiming to be the child’s parents within 24 hours of the rescue. The Maharashtra child welfare committee has summoned them for an inquiry. Since the couple has expressed willingness to take the baby back, their DNA samples—along with the infant’s—have been sent for verification, said Nitin Thakare, senior inspector of Panvel.

Collaboration with INEA 

The search possibilities for adoptees in Indonesia are strengthened by a collaboration between Ibu Indonesia and INEA. With this collaboration, Ibu Indonesia receives support to carry out more searches and to further professionalize its working methods.

James, manager of INEA came to Groningen especially for the start of the project to sign the cooperation agreement with Berber. Our board members Nani and Sonja and our coordinator Dadang Supardi from Yogyakarta were present online.

“Thanks to the collaboration, we can expand our work and make it futureproof. This way, no knowledge is lost and we can help even more adoptees and families.” – Berber, chairman of Ibu Indonesia

“We are pleased to support the work of Ibu Indonesia. Their knowledge of the local eld is essential for good search capabilities.” – James, Manager at INEA

More than 50 years after adoption, Jung Kyung-sook plans to sue the Norwegian government for human rights violations

For most of her life, Jung Kyung-sook, 57, lived with an unrelenting ache — a longing for people who looked like her and for the mother tongue she never had the chance to learn.

Sent from Korea to Norway in 1970 at the age of two, she was among the tens of thousands of Korean children sent to Western countries through a flawed adoption system operating from the 1970s to '90s.

Jung was adopted by a Norwegian couple who, she says, subjected her to years of abuse and neglect.

Now living in the rural town of Ramnes, Norway, Jung is among the 56 Korean adoptees who have received the results of a sweeping investigation by Korea's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). The findings, announced in March and sent to applicants in June, revealed significant irregularities in past overseas adoption processes.

Now your two hours begin.” The countdown started when Keira Alexandra Kronvold had just given birth in the early hours of 7 November 2024. Keira, 38, was originally granted just one hour with her daughter, Zammi, before her baby was to be removed from her and taken to foster parents – but the midwife begged authorities to give them more time. Before Zammi’s arrival, the midwife asked if Keira had any wishes. “I said, ‘I want hand and footprints. I want to grab her, I don’t want you to catch her when she is born. I want to catch her myself.’”

During labour – which lasted just an hour and a half – Keira kept checking whether her 20-year-old daughter, Zoe, who had never seen a birth before, was OK; and she was determined not to scream, to avoid waking up the other mothers and babies on the ward. But when Zammi arrived, everything else – the months of stress, worry and pressure – gave way to pure joy. “I just laid back,” she says, arms cradled and slowly reclining on her sofa, as she re-enacts the moment at home in the town of Thisted, northern Denmark, “because I had to keep her warm. She was so beautiful. That emotional feeling is indescribable. Right there: unconditional love, pure happiness, all that joy.” She wished Zammi a happy birthday and told her how much she loved her. She cried tears of joy, counted Zammi’s tiny fingers.

And then the mood shifted. “It feels like you come into the darkness,” says Keira, her body frozen. “Now I have to count the minutes. That pure joy was gone. And that moment I felt I could show my emotions.” She started to breastfeed Zammi. Even letting go for the midwife to do her checks was torturous.

Children adopted from China may have been the subject of human trafficking, the state adoption investigation has concluded.

Questions have been raised about what Ulf Kristersson knew about the alarms.

According to a board member, discussions were underway about what the money to China was actually used for.

– There was irritation that the fee was not transparent.

Quick version

The Better Care Network (BCN) is an interagency initiative that facilitates global information exchange and collaboration among the growing number of organizations, governments, community groups, and individuals working to strengthen children’s care. BCN’s core purpose is to inform and influence global action for children without adequate family care and, as a dynamic interdisciplinary global network of organizations and individuals, share learning from the global to the local level to generate momentum and drive systemic change.

Today BCN is recognized as the preeminent global information hub and convener to influence action for children without adequate family care. The BCN website (bettercarenetwork.org) is the largest global collection of key research, tools, events and other documentation on issues related to strengthening family care and alternative care, designed to support academics, policymakers and practitioners alike. BCN convenes the Transforming Children’s Care collaborative (TCC), established as the primary convening mechanism to facilitate sector wide and cross sectoral collaboration to advance children’s care. 

Role purpose:

The BCN Senior Advisor, Evidence and Learning, plays a lead role in supporting BCN’s work to identify, capture, and share learning and evidence on children’s care and care reform globally. The Senior Advisor works with members of the network and the Transform Children’s Care collaborative (TCC) to support data collection, learning, and collaboration on system level change, to facilitate shared learning through BCN’s knowledge platforms, and to ensure that BCN’s work is supported by a strong organizational learning strategy and monitoring framework that underpin its approaches and impact.

This position requires maintaining a strategic understanding of key global, regional, and country-level factors that support or impede the appropriate care and protection of children who are at risk of losing family care or are outside of family care, as well as identifying potential points of intervention. It also requires contributing to continuous learning and collaboration to support the generation and application of evidence to improve care systems, and to strengthen BCN’s capacity to deliver on its role as the global hub of knowledge and convenor for the care sector. As part of this role, the Senior Advisor takes a leading role on specific projects and representational and liaison activities, including inter-agency working groups, advisory panels and joint initiatives.

According to South Tripura Deputy Collector and Magistrate Sukanta Dey, the baby girl's parents didn't follow the legal procedure for adoption.

A 23-day-old baby girl was on Wednesday rescued from a couple to whom she was allegedly handed over by her parents at Hrishyamukh in South Tripura district five days ago, officials said.

Shambhu Malakar, a resident of Haripur in Hrishyamukh, gave the baby to Gourango Shil, when she was 18 days old allegedly because of poverty.

After receiving information about the incident, a team comprising Deputy Collector and Magistrate Sukanta Dey, the block development officer, and Child Line members went to Gourango Shil’s home and rescued the baby.

“We visited Gourango Shil’s residence and found the baby. When asked about the baby, they claimed that they got the baby from Shambhu Malakar but denied giving money in exchange. We also visited Shambhu Malakar’s house and he claimed they have three children and that is why they gave the baby up for adoption,” Sukanta Dey said.

Justice Sachin Datta noted that the adoption was lawfully completed in 2020 and found no valid reason for CARA to withhold the NOC.

NEW DELHI: In a strong rebuke to bureaucratic delays, the HC has directed the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) to immediately issue a no-objection certificate to an Australia-based couple who had been unable to take their adopted son abroad for over four years.

Justice Sachin Datta noted that the adoption deed was executed in 2020 and observed that the adoption had been lawfully concluded under the applicable legal framework. Hence, there was no legitimate reason for CARA to withhold the NOC.

CARA argued that, under the Adoption Regulations 2022, children adopted under the Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act (HAMA) require documentation from the receiving country’s authority under the Hague Convention, 1993. It further claimed the adoption deed was registered using a General Power of Attorney (GPA), allegedly invalid under Queensland law.

The Court cited a recent Supreme Court case where CARA was directed to issue an NOC to a UK-based single woman. Justice Datta also referenced Article 37 of the Hague Convention, stating that adoptions under HAMA must be judged by its provisions and cannot be subjected to retrospective international conditions.

Surrogacy con�nues to be used as a method of family forma�on around the world. Children born through surrogacy have the same rights as all children under the United Na�ons Conven�on on the Rights of the Child (UN CRC) and the Op�onal Protocol to the Conven�on on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children, child pros�tu�on and child pornography (OPSC). However, because of the way that the prac�ce of surrogacy has evolved, the fundamental rights of these children are at risk, especially in interna�onal arrangements.