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Important News on Cancellation of Belarus Hosting for summer of 2010
Submitted by basilsprig on Sat, 01/30/2010 - 21:28
PLEASE NOTE: The following notice, sent out last night to our host families, applies to the Belarus hosting for 2010 only. We still have children from Ukraine available for hosting. Please click the "Available Children" link at the top banner to view the available children.
For The Children Of The World
PO Box 58694
Renton, WA 98058
January 29, 2010
Dear host family:
We are sorry that we are writing today with some very sad news. We regret to inform you that For The Children of The World is going to have to cancel our support for families to provide private invitations for previously hosted Belarusian children for the summer of 2010. We know how much it means to you to be able to bring back the children you have hosted before. However, based on information from Belarus and from Children of Chernobyl US Alliance (CoCUSA), we have now come to believe that not encouraging families to initiate the private invitations this year is an unfortunate necessity. The FTCOTW Board has discussed this situation a great deal prior to its decision to take this unfortunate and unexpected step.
With our hearts set on finding a way for the children from Belarus to visit the US again, we investigated opportunities early on with the U.S. Embassy in Moscow and with our partners in Belarus. From a processing standpoint it seemed that nothing stood in the way of hosting the returning children under the umbrella of a "rest visa", which is by private invitation, instead of as a "health respite visa" as part of an organized program, which has been banned by the Belarusian government for now. We have been acting on this premise for several months now, fully intending to provide assistance to host families who wished to bring back the children from Belarus. However, new information from the U.S. Dept of State and from the CoCUSA has convinced us that it would be unwise to attempt this. It is for the sake of the very children we are hosting, and those who work with them in Belarus in partnership with us, that we have decided to cancel our hosting support efforts for Belarus this year.