Charity helps adoptive families and adoptees in Asia

When Mina Weight and her husband, Guy Facey, found they could not have children, they knew exactly what they wanted to do - adopt from China. It was a country they knew and loved; both had travelled extensively in the country on business and spoke fluent Putonghua. But they had to break down walls of bureaucracy and incomprehension in their native Britain before they could make that dream come true.

The mainland was not on Britain's list of accepted adoptive source countries when Weight and her husband began their adoption battle 20 years ago. Joining other would-be adoptive parents in a lobbying campaign, they eventually convinced the British government to add to the register and, in 1993, the couple became the first people in Britain to adopt legally from China. Their two mainland-born daughters, Alice and Louisa, are now in their late teens.

But as Weight discovered, being at the head of a pack was not necessarily a good place to be. "You feel so alone, you don't know what's going on ... And then once your child arrives [there's] the shock of suddenly being a parent after waiting so long," she says of those early years. Raising her daughters in Britain was difficult without a support network, especially at a time when overseas adoption was viewed with misgivings by some in the community.

So after she and her family relocated to Hong Kong four years ago, she soon became an active member of Adoptive Families of Hong Kong (AFHK), the only charity in Asia that connects adoptive families, adoptees and professionals. Now serving as chair of its committee, Weight, a homeopath, is eager to spread the word about the help and encouragement fellow adoptive parents can give each other.