Leena returned to her native India: 'Grateful that I grew up here'

In this summer column, six people tell us which summer will forever be etched in their memory. This week: Leena de Wilde (33) was seven months old when she flew from her native India to her adoptive family in Groningen. Twenty years later, she visited the children's home where she lived for the first time. "If my disability had been discovered then, I would never have been adopted."

You might already know Leena de Wilde (33). At the age of nineteen, she participated in the Mis(s) Verkiezing, an initiative by former presenter and CDA MP Lucille Werner, for women with a physical disability. Since then, Leena has made her job of posing for the camera and goes from casting to casting. As a result, she regularly appears in commercials, videos and campaigns.

"I want to make a positive contribution to the image of people with disabilities. I've been in a wheelchair since I was three, so I've been doing everything sitting down my whole life. I don't know any better. I don't experience many disadvantages, I want to show that," says Leena cheerfully.

When Leena was one and a half years old and had been living with her adoptive parents in Groningen for almost a year, she was diagnosed with cerebral palsy (a posture and movement disorder caused by damage to the brain, ed.). This disability was said to be a result of oxygen deficiency at birth.

"I was born on the streets of Mumbai, India. As far as I know, my biological mother took me to the Bal Anand orphanage shortly after I was born, because she was unmarried and did not have the financial means to take care of me. My parents never put much emphasis on my physical disability and always looked at what was possible in my upbringing. I inherited that positive attitude from them."

Never left Groningen again

After seven months in the orphanage, the adoption procedure is completed and baby Leena flies with the director of the orphanage Bal Anand to the Netherlands, where her Groningen parents are waiting for her. "I still live in Groningen, I never left." 

After a few years, her parents adopt her 3.5 year younger brother Frank from the same orphanage and the family is complete. "We have a very good bond. We come from the same nest, we are both colored: we have said that from a young age to each other and to anyone else: we are brother and sister."

When Leena is 20, she decides to make the trip of her life: back to her birthplace Mumbai and to the orphanage where she spent the first months of her life. Together with her good friend Janick and her father, she makes a travel plan for three weeks in India.

"I didn't know what to expect. What would it be like? What would it smell like? What would it feel like? How would I feel about it? It was also very special for my father: my parents had me in the Netherlands. Of course, they had seen some photos of the place where I come from, but to see it all with your own eyes is something else."

Looking at poverty from a Western perspective

Not only Leena and her father are amazed by India, Leena herself is also a sight to behold. "I was the only one there in a hand-propelled wheelchair, that was noticeable." Leena herself is amazed when she sees the busy streets of Mumbai, the sacred cows that walk across the street without being chased away. Those sweet people who seem to be happy with very little.

"But the orphanage in particular made a deep impression on me. All sorts of things went through my mind. On the one hand, I thought it was wonderful to see how all those little children were being cared for as well as possible. On the other hand, I also looked with my Western perspective and saw the poverty and what they didn't have. That really left me speechless."

'That's how I was too', Leena thinks when she sees the babies in the home. She immediately feels a bond with the little ones with a disability in particular. "I realized: if they had known at the time that I also had a disability, I would never have been adopted. Then I would have stayed here and my life would have looked completely different. It made me extra grateful for the luck that I was allowed to go to the Netherlands for adoption and to grow up here."

After Mumbai, Leena, her girlfriend and father head south, first to Goa, where they stay in a house on the beach and 'really have a holiday', and then on to Bangalore. Still, the visit to the orphanage and meeting the director top Leena's list of fondest memories. "We have a special bond now. We are in regular contact with each other and video call every now and then."

During Leena's stay in Mumbai, the Umang care farm is being built for older children with disabilities who come from the orphanage. "Before my visit to India, I had already been an ambassador for the Bal Anand foundation since 2006 , which is committed to the disabled children and other children who live in the orphanage. Now that I had seen it with my own eyes, I can talk about it more easily here in the Netherlands and can provide the director with more specific advice. Such as? Not placing thresholds at the entrance to the building, for example. Simple things, but so important."

Mother of a son myself

When Leena gives birth to her son Silvan two years ago, the realization about her own birth hits her extra hard. "I was born on the streets there. And I've seen those streets in Mumbai... Here you go from check-up to check-up, from ultrasound to ultrasound and finally you give birth with the best care around you. My own mother didn't have any of that."

Moreover, the arrival of her son has intensified the long-simmering need to return to India once more and search for her biological mother. "The need to find her has become stronger. I am currently trying to mail my adoption papers to India, in order to possibly obtain more information about my biological mother. I do not know how far I will get, and whether I will ever find her, but if I do, I want to tell her that she did the right thing by giving me up."