I just posted this note to Jeff’s blog and thought I would contact you as well. I would love to hear any feedback or ideas you have regarding my interest in collecting stories and interviews with Kazakhstani’s for the benefit of children and families with children adopted from Kazakhstan.

I live in Oakland, CA and my daughter Jiana was adopted from Kazakhstan (Ecik baby house near Almaty in 2004). She was 8 months old at the time and 3 1/2 now. (see below for a link to our full story).

Before our adoption, I spent a lot of time online trying to glean insight into the culture of Kazakhstan. But, as you’ve probably discovered too, there isn’t a whole lot available in English about day to day live of Kazakhs and Kazakhstanis. This is a huge missing gap for the tens of thousands of families with children from Kazakhstan in English speaking countries.

I’ve recently been ponding the possibilities of starting a blog or wiki as a means to collect stories/interviews of people thoughout Kazakhstan conducted by Peace Corp volunteers. My ultimate purpose is to help children adopted from Kazakhstan increase their awareness about their heritage, enable them to understand their past and feel pride and confidence in themselves. More immediately, I hope to give families and parents of children adopted from Kazakhstan more context for the lives their children came from and to raise awareness of culture and societal values.

I was wondering what you thought about this idea and if you would be willing to help me promote this project among the current class of Peace Corp volunteers in Kazakhstan.

Thanks for considering.

Genice Jacobs
genice@profluence.net

For a bit about Jiana and my story, here’s a link to my story/blog on Tango Diva.
http://www.tangodiva.com/index.php?page=features&j=1&cat=4&story_id=000336