KoRoot and reunions
For more than 20 years, KoRoot has helped adoptees from around the world and biological families in Korea reunite. It is an exciting but often difficult process.
Each reunion can be preceded by decades of deprivation and futile searching, and when it finally succeeds, it is important that the meeting be a success for all parties involved.
It is KoRoot's experience that very many reunions are not successful or after a short time end with the parties involved losing contact with each other.
There can be many reasons for this. Language barriers are often blamed for breaking contact between the adoptee and the biological family. But often it is completely different reasons that are the real reason.
It can be feelings of shame and guilt, difficulty in expressing thoughts and feelings, lack of alignment of expectations on the part of the adopted person about the relationship and cultural differences in behavior and traditions.
That is why KoRoot has created a reunification program for adopted and biological families. Reunification is not simply about putting two parties in a room, and then the reunification is done.
Reunion is relationship building. It happens gradually and takes time. Many years of separation means that it is strangers who meet and often it is only the ties of blood that bind the adopted and the biological family together. Everything else can seem alien and different.
KoRoot's reunion program is about relationship building - both before, during and after the reunion itself. The adopted and the biological family live apart from each other and often several thousand kilometers from each other, so it is important to build a relationship with each other that goes beyond an annual tourist trip to Korea.
At KoRoot, we have both Korean and adoptee experts who can help you and your biological family before, during and after the reunion.
KoRoot and the adoptee's embassy in Korea both work to help and support the biological family in Korea, but KoRoot helps and the adoptee in the country where the adoptee lives.
KoRoot's Korean experts help the biological family understand the adoptee's situation and the culture in which the adoptee was raised and influenced. KoRoot's experts also help the adoptee in their own country to understand the biological family's relationship and Korean culture.
KoRoot's relationship building reunification program is based on years of knowledge and experience, and the work is conducted by professionals and experts approved by KoRoot.
If you want to know more, you are welcome to contact KoRoot - Adoptees' Embassy in Korea.
Use KoRoot and the Adoptee's Embassy in Korea
As a Korean adoptee, you have your own place in Korea at KoRoot. Reunifications often take place at the adoption agencies, and this can have major disadvantages because the adoption agencies are not neutral and often want to manage and control the reunification - and in some cases even censor the subsequent contact between the biological family and the adoptee.
KoRoot is 100% on the side of adoptees and biological families, and adoptees and biological families can use KoRoot, located in the heart of Seoul, for reunion with biological family.
KoRoot provides neutral translators who are professional experts in adoption, and who both the adopted and the biological family can draw on in the further relationship-building process.
For KoRoot, family tracing and reunions are a serious matter. KoRoot's network consists of professionals and specialists who work with and research adoption every day. Reunions must not be used for commercial purposes and are not entertainment, but must be done on the adoptee's and the biological family's own terms.
