Episode 38 - Adoption Series: First Trip Home w/ G.O.A.'L.

G.O.A.'L. (Global Overseas Adoptees' Link) is the only organization by adoptees for adoptees to assist in everything from requesting birth records to providing psychological assistance to helping you move to Korea. With First Trip Home, they remain the only non-religious sponsor for adoptees to return to Korea and the only program to specifically center around doing a Birth Family Search. While it involves trips to adoption agencies and your city of birth, it also includes sightseeing adventures typical of other motherland tours exclusively with other adoptees and native volunteers. In this episode, AK Salling, G.O.A.'L's Secretary General and tour guide extraordinaire, walks us through First Trip Home as well as G.O.A.'L.'s founding, mission, and future. We discuss the birth family search process (DNA testing, the Korean media, tips for adoption agencies, international legal issues, etc.), information about reuniting with birth families, and the relationship many adoptees have with Korea after coming back. To donate to G.O.A.'L.: Paypal: donations@goal.or.kr Bank transfer: Kookmin Bank 375301-04-00076 Special thanks to Caleb Yee for his artwork, Kevin Shea for his standup, and Kalyna Rakel for permission to use her song So Removed. Visit philoofhealth.org to support this podcast and my path to healing by donating or using my ebay or amazon links, or to set up a personal consultation with me. "The test of the morality of a society is what it does for its children." - Dietrich Bonhoeffer