Belonging & Birth Country Travel

Belonging. It’s a basic human need. We all crave it, and many kids find it among their peers as they visit their birth country. Remember Maslow’s famous hierarchy of needs theory? If you’re a little rusty on that, here are the Cliff Notes. Maslow held that people must have basic needs like food, water, safety, BELONGING and self esteem met … Read More

Korea Adoption: Ties Family in the News

Korea Adoption & Homeland Visit By DANIELLE HATCH of the Journal Star Colin Flavin didn’t have any memories of the bustling city of Seoul, where he was born, or the foster mom who cared for him during the first months of his life. But the Metamora teen, who was adopted when he was 8-months-old, recently got some insight into his early … Read More

My Journey of Self Discovery By Guest Author Elizabeth Mija Stanley

About the author: Elizabeth, aka Mija, traveled with The Ties Program when she was 15 years old. She wrote this essay for her college entrance exams, and recently updated it for a college English paper. She is currently 28 years old, attesting to the fact that the trip is a “beginning” or a day of birth as Mija states in … Read More

Family and Community

“[When I think about Peru] I think about how friendly the people are there and how they treat you like family even if they don’t know you, and I wish that it could be like that here in the USA.” – Two years after my first birth country trip, 14 years old, 2003 I first went back to visit my … Read More