Haitian Earthquake Relief and Both Ends Burning

“ Craig Juntunen, author of Both Ends Burning: My Story of Adopting Three Children from Haiti (published by Outskirts Press) and founder of Chances for Children, on a campaign across the nation to improve international adoption. ”

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(ePrintWire.Org) – As the images of destruction and desperation come out of Haiti, one Outskirts author knows all too well the effects the natural disaster will have on the poverty-stricken Caribbean nation.

"In Haiti, there isn't a FEMA," said Craig Juntunen, author of Both Ends Burning: My Story of Adopting Three Children from Haiti, published by Outskirts Press. "They don't have tools, they don't have machinery. They are digging bodies out of rubble with their bare hands."

Most heartbreaking are the pictures of Haiti's orphaned children. Before the quake, 15 percent of Haiti's children were orphans; that percentage now will surely rise, Juntunen said. According to the United Nations Children's Fund, Haiti was home to about 380,000 orphans before the earthquake. As reports of destroyed orphanages come out of Port-Au-Prince, many of those orphans are homeless.

Juntunen is the founder of Chances for Children, a foundation that produces adoptions from Haiti and which maintains an earthquake relief fund. His book has a chapter titled, "The Hell-Hole Called Haiti" which describes the vast poverty and crime plaguing the country. It presents quite a contrast with the life Juntunen was living before he traveled to Haiti for the first time.

Juntunen sold his company and set out to live the good life of retirement at the age of 40. Hanging out on golf courses and enjoying a country-club lifestyle, he began to feel "chronically empty." After a friend told him about adopting two girls from Haiti, Juntunen became fixated on visiting the Western Hemisphere's poorest country.

The book tells the story of how Juntunen, at an orphanage outside Port-Au-Prince, met the three children he and his wife Kathi eventually adopted. An emotional story of hope and redemption, Both Ends Burning is a powerful reminder of our responsibility to reach out and help children.

"Kids are kids -- all they need is a home and a chance," Juntunen said. "That's what Chances for Children is about, that's what my book is about, and that's what our family is about.

"It's about blending these cultures together and creating a wonderful family so kids have a future," added Juntunen, who is now on a campaign to improve international adoption and give the world's orphaned and abandoned children a chance at a better life.

Juntunen praised the U.S. State Department's recent decision to grant humanitarian visas for orphans in Haiti, but he noted that red tape and high costs are fueling an alarming decline in intercountry adoption.

The tangle of bureaucracy has created barriers for families interested in international adoption, and led to an increase in the number of children in the world without homes, Juntunen said.

"There are many wonderful families who actively want to adopt a child, and millions of children who need a home, but governments and special interest groups have made things so restrictive and so ridiculously expensive that practically we can’t put the two together," he said. "It’s really a tragic situation."

In 2004, overseas adoptions to the U.S. hit an all-time high of 22,824, according to the U.S. State Department. Since then they have plunged by nearly 50 percent, falling to roughly 12,500 in 2009. That decline is unthinkable in light of the children now orphaned by the Haiti earthquake.

This week Juntunen is taking his message to major media outlets in New York, Chicago, Washington, Philadelphia and Los Angeles. He also is meeting with major congressional and international policymakers to push the need for change.

"There are 100 million kids who are orphans in the world today. They need homes and they need a mom and dad -- someone to tuck them in at night," he said. "I wrote the book to inspire people to go out and reach out to orphaned kids all over the world."

Both Ends Burning is available on amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com or directly through Outskirts at http://outskirtspress.com/bothendsburning. Juntunen can be reached at craigmjuntunen@yahoo.com or 480.502.2393 is available for scheduling interviews through Tripp Baltz, media contact, at 303.358.3371 or ab3@comcast.net.

For more information on Chances for Children, go to http://www.chances4children.org/