Since 2008, Holt has provided the tools and resources to keep vulnerable children with their families in Ethiopia. We've partnered with schools, community leaders, local governments, medical professionals and social workers to holistically fight poverty and child abandonment. We also partner with and support care centers for children waiting for families, and over the past seven years, we've found adoptive families for 525 orphaned or abandoned children.
Holt has excellent partnerships with family strengthening organizations and community leaders in Ethiopia. We support the most reputable care centers for orphaned or abandoned children and we work closely with local advocacy groups and government officials.
Holt's superb reputation in Ethiopia developed from our extensive work with children and families in the community, and has enabled us to form strong relationships with partners that will benefit families adopting a child through our Ethiopia program.
Holt's in-country staff is of the highest quality. They work to streamline adoption cases, provide updated child reports and communicate with our partner orphanages and local government offices. They will also assist adoptive families traveling to Ethiopia.
Holt's U.S. staff will work closely with you throughout the process from beginning to end. We want you to feel informed and prepared to adopt, every step of the way, and will go above and beyond to provide education tools, resources, travel coordination and more.
Explore the average length of the adoption process, fees and expenses, parent eligibility and the needs of children waiting for a family.
Generally, it takes families about 4-6 months from first applying to Holt's Ethiopia program until their homestudy and other dossier documents are ready for submission. After that, timeframes are difficult to estimate.
MOWCYA, Ethiopia's government agency responsible for adoptions, has recently modified the adoption process to be more transparent, but there are still many kinks in the system causing process delays. The wait time for a child referral is unknown. Our current prediction is that families could wait anywhere from 12-36 months for a referral. Once matched with a child, it will take between 6-8 months for the case to reach the Ethiopian courts. The court process can take anywhere from 3-8 months. Then, time from court approval to receiving your child's visa is typically 1-2 months. So, in total, once the dossier is submitted, the timeframe could be anywhere from 19 to 49 months (or 1.5 to 4+ years). We realize this is a large time range and highlights the need for families to be patient and flexible when adopting from this program.
Whether you are still gathering information or you feel ready to apply to adopt, we have many free ways for you to explore our programs or get started.