Thank you Relationships Australia SA ICAFFS Grant for the grant to hold a very special open dinner event in NSW on 28 Sep 2024 for Vietnamese adoptees. Visit to RSVP here: https://vietnamfamilysearch.com/nsw-50-year-anniversay/? and see https://vietnamfamilysearch.com for more national events across Australia

Meet Sue Yen from Vietnam Family Search https://vietnamfamilysearch.com and Dr Indigo Willing https://indigowilling.wordpress.com from Adopted Vietnamese International https://www.adoptedvietnamese.org and other Viet adoptees.

This event will auspice under Viet Nam Family Search (VNFS) was established in 2017 to assist Vietnamese adoptees search for biological family and exploration of origins. The group establishes and maintain networks within Australia and globally to support Vietnamese born peoples who have been adopted internationally. VNFS also partners with other groups and government to facilitate a better understanding of the lived experience of intercountry adoptees.

2025 marks the 50th year since the end of the Vietnam war. It is a pivotal time for Australian/Vietnamese adoptees to meet together face-to-face to support eachother in our continued adoption journey. It is acknowledged that visiting Vietnam may not be possible or desirable for some adoptees, which makes the meeting together for a day and meal essential. The event will facilitate the sharing of stories, resources, exploration of origins, peer networking and professional support.

This is Vietnamese adoptee community led peer support event.

The event will assist in developing support for fellow adoptees to nuture a sense of community and validation in their adoption journeys stradling both their Vietnamese and Australian identies. The event will create a safe and accountable forum for promoting funding support avenues, health and wellbeing services, origin searches and other adoptees events.

Beneficiaries are all Australian Vietnamese adoptees and their families in NSW, SA and Victoria.

Organising team:

Sue Bylund Sue-Yen Bylund (Luiten) – Director of VNFS will be the national facilitator as she is overseeing similar event in South Australia and Victoria where the larger Vietnamese adoptee communities reside.

Indigo Williams will be the NSW co-host for the NSW dinner.

Hello AVI members!

Our beloved website was planned to be updated throughout 2020 but delayed due to covid-19. In the next five years incremental updates will still be added by Dr Indigo Willing OAM, Dr Bert Ballard and a team of volunteer research assistants.  To keep in touch the AVI public FB community page and private FB discussion group on social media are still posting in regularly with content and information relevant to what we do.

As you know we’ve been operation since April 2000 and moved from the good old days of Yahoogroups and AOL Chat to using Social Media platforms like Facebook (see menu for links to our community page and private group with over 1000 members still active weekly).

There’s a lot going on in our FB Discussion group every week! We’ve circulated news about Vietnamese adoptee get togethers, meetings with Operation Babylift pilots and others involved, shared written research and other writings, assisted and supported our friends search for birth/first parents, some successfully, and shared regular news and events going on in Vietnam, USA, Canada, Australia and Europe.

So thanks for keeping our community buzzing with information, good will and knowledge.  Keep in touch on FB!

Dr Bert Ballard is a Vietnamese adoptee and Communications Researcher who is currently on sabbatical visiting Australia. He has been visiting the Gold Coast, Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney doing interviews with adoptees and is also collecting data on their experiences once. His research also extends to first parents in Vietnam and others. See his recruitment notice below:

He writes – For those interested in my research project with:
– Older Australian adoptees (especially VADs, but all welcome)
– Birth parents in Vietnam
– Adults who were separated from family during the Vietnam Conflict (1965-75) but not adopted and still living in Vietnam

The form is here: https://goo.gl/forms/hRCvdQuWHVmc1FpK2

If you would like to see the full call for participants or are having issues with the form, PM me or email me at bert.ballard@pepperdine.edu and I will forward it along.

Please share with anyone who might be interested or anyone who might have connections. Much appreciated!

Dr Bert Ballard visit to Australia 2018 – Photo on the Gold Coast where he is a visiting researcher at Griffith University hosted by Dr Patricia Fronek and collaborating with Dr Indigo Willing OAM from the Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research.

Dr Bert Ballard (VN adoptee and communications researcher), Dr Indigo Willing OAM (VN adoptee, social researcher and AVI founder), Anna Princess Kopeikin (Jigsaw Rep and Social Work degree candidate), Hinanyi Scanlon and her partner, and Tamru Leckenby (Ethiopian adoptee) at recent adoptee catch up. Many of us met through Adopted Vietnamese International (AVI) and Intercountry Adoptee Voices (ICAV) founded by VN adoptee Lynelle Beveridge.

Dr Indigo Willing, Founder of AVI. Greetings 2018 / 2019 plans ahead.

Hello and long time, no posts! The AVI website and blog has been in archive mode for the past couple of years as the rise of social media and smart phones rapidly changed how we communicate. Our activities have mostly moved to our AVI FB Community Page and AVI FB Discussion Group where there are over 1000 members, new posts by members almost weekly. On the discussion group especially, there are lots of fun Vietnamese adoptee tips on travel, historical orphanage photos, tips on searching and current news, events and research shared by VN adoptees from around the world. However, in 2019 we will be working towards updating this website incrementally and progressively when windows of time are available. If you have info you would like to share or ideas join our discussion group or ‘like’ our community page and create a post or send us a message.  Thank you everyone for your active involvement and support for over 18 years now (AVI was founded in April 2000 on the 25th anniversary of Operation Babylift and the end of the Viet Nam / American War).

Best wishes
Dr Indigo Willing OAM

Founder – Adopted Vietnamese International, Social Researcher, Community Volunteer and Vietnamese Adoptee.

Sending warm and supportive thoughts to all our friends and peers who were part of Operation Babylift, April 1975 and adopted from the Vietnam War era and the following period immediately after. It’s a very meaningful and important historical month for everyone adopted from Vietnam, before, during and after OBL, as it marks the close of the Vietnam War era that shaped all our lives forever. Peace, respect and supportive energies to you all this month.

The AVI website is in need of a big update when time permits but there’s a range of archival material for people interested in reading about some of its history and if you are a Vietnamese adoptee, here is:-

– An Archive AVI Page Dedicated to Operation Babylift

– A private FB group for all Vietnamese adoptees (from the War and post-war era), for us and by us to connect Adopted Vietnamese International (AVI) Facebook Group and our public AVI FB Community Page

– A special AVI collection of international essays and poems by Vietnamese adoptees written on the 35th Anniversary and still relevant and moving today here

As part of the OBL Exhibit, Presidio and Adoption Museum Project, San Fran, AVI were proud to be involved and wish to thank the organisers and everyone involved for their consideration, important dialogues and more. Special thanks to all the adoptees for continuing to represent.

Includes research by Vietnamese adoptees, editors include Dr Bert Ballard, a Vietnamese adoptee in the USA and with a co-written chapter by Dr Patricia Fronek, Prof. Denise Cuthbert and AVI’s founder Dr Indigo Willing OAM who is an Australian researcher and Vietnamese adoptee:

The Intercountry Adoption Debate

Dialogues Across Disciplines

Our adopted Vietnamese occasion for speaking – edited by Adam Chau and with various Vietnamese adoptee authors from around the world (including Indigo Willing, founder of AVI)

Vietnamese.Adopted: A Collection of Voices is a group of writings each in their own form and style, un-censored in content or subject matter, allowing each person to speak on what being a Vietnamese Adoptee, Adopted Vietnamese, or Vietnamese War Orphan, is to them, as well as in relation to the greater Vietnamese and World communities. Shaped by their own experiences, observations, country, and language, it is the goal of this book to make these narratives, opinions, and perspectives available to the greater Adopted and Vietnamese communities.

http://www.amazon.com/Vietnamese-Adopted-Collection-Voices-Various-Authors/dp/0988585863

The AVI team would like to send their thoughts to everyone who was part of Operation Babylift in April 1975 which refers to a series of airlifts of thousands of children from Vietnamese orphanages to the West. April 1975 also marks the close of the Vietnam War era adoptions, and the end of the war so it is also a profoundly meaningful time for all individuals who were adopted because of the war and its social consequences both before, during and after 1975.  Indeed, many such children were adopted from Vietnam into Western families from 1955 up to the ‘boat refugee’ migrants in the 1980s.  AVI would like to acknowledge all these individuals at this time.

AVI plans to feature a series of photos from 40th anniversary reunions of adoptees, and some of their thoughts in the near future.

For more regular and current updates on media articles, events and more related to the 40th anniversary of the Vietnam War’s end and Operation Babylift please visit our AVI public FB Community page at: https://www.facebook.com/AdoptedVietnameseInternational

We acknowledge and welcome the newer generations who follow as well into the Viet adoptee community. Connect, empower, renew.

If you are adopted from Vietnam, the ABC’s Foreign Correspondent is keen to do a story featuring your voices. There is also a range of other posts and info to check out. Our AVI FB group now has over 700 members. This group is set up by Vietnamese adoptees, for Vietnamese adoptees. Membership includes people from Australia and globally. Visit the official website web, go to:
http://www.adoptedvietnamese.org/

EXCERPTS FROM THE UPCOMING VIETNAMESE ADOPTEES 2.0

(predicted 2014/15 release)

Read more here: http://gazillionvoices.com/excerpts-from-the-upcoming-vietnamese-adoptees-2-0/#.U_2Vi1YWHwI

Operation Babylift guy in The Big Issue vendor profile – respect:

https://www.facebook.com/bigissueaustralia/photos/a.93908684938.84117.92090554938/10152664267689939/?type=1&theater

Congratulations to Matthew Rooke (Australia) and David Nguyen (USA) who were the winners of the Vietnam Volunteer Network fundraiser draw. $850 was raised to go towards VVN projects for children in the Go Vap orphanage, and impacted by Agent Orange and land mines.

Fundraiser winner Matthew with MEOW skateboard