Last fall Unja Hayes '96 founded the Dartmouth Alliance for Transcultural Adoptees, a volunteer organization that provides support for adopted African-American and Latino children in the Upper Valley.
Although still in its developing stages, the program has already enjoyed great success and may be on its way toward becoming an official Dartmouth volunteer program, Hayes said.
Hayes said she was inspired to start DATA after attending an information session for adopting parents in the area during her sophomore summer.
After speaking to some of the families involved, she noticed that in a time when the number of transcultural adoptions was rising, there appeared to be no support group for such families in the predominantly white Upper Valley community.
The adopted children did not have many role models from their own racial backgrounds and were often the only minority students in their classes, Hayes said. She made it her goal to create an environment that would acquaint these youngsters with minority students at Dartmouth.
This year, Hayes spoke with Erin Murphy, a volunteer coordinator at the Tucker Foundation, in hopes of finally getting DATA underway.
Together, they contacted Casey Family Services, an adoption agency in White River Junction, Vt., to get in touch with the families.
DATA has since been established and has begun to interact with adopted minority children and their parents. Its main goals have been to introduce these families to Dartmouth's Afro-American Society and La Alianza Latina.
Throughout this year, it has sponsored several events for the children and paired them up with African-American and Latino Dartmouth students as "big brothers" and "big sisters."
At the end of the fall, DATA organized a day at the gym, where the children and their student mentors played basketball and other games.
During Martin Luther King weekend, the group held a day of storytelling at Shabazz, incorporating characters of color into traditional fairy tales in an effort to emphasize multiculturalism.
On another weekend, the children made collages which will be showcased at an AAm dinner this week.
"We've had an amazing response so far," said Hayes. "It was great to see the surprise on the kids' faces when they got here and saw other kids who looked like them."
The parents seem equally satisfied with the DATA's progress. The Drummond family of White River Junction has been involved in the program since its founding. The have an two-year-old adopted daughter from Honduras and a seven-year-old son from Paraguay.
"DATA offers the Upper Valley a wonderful opportunity," Molly Drummond said. "It's great to have contact with Dartmouth students who are interested in working with children of diverse backgrounds ... It makes the kids feel good."
The student members of AAm and Alianza who have participated in DATA seem equally enriched by their experience. Damian Crowder '97, one of next year's DATA coordinators, said he enjoys spending time with his new four-year-old friend Martin.
"Growing up black in a community [like the Upper Valley] can be hard," Crowder said. The children "begin to ask themselves: 'Why doesn't anyone around me look like me?' "
Next year, Crowder plans to further DATA's role as a support network for the children. He said he would also like to widen the program's scope to address the problems of the parents, who seem to want to learn more about how to better address their children's needs as well as how to deal with problems of racism they occasionally face.
Some of the program's other plans, according to Hayes, involve expanding DATA to include other races as well as non-adopted minority children. Hayes said she would also like to get other Dartmouth minority organizations involved with the program.
DATA has already applied through the Rockefeller Center for the Social Sciences for a Bildner grant, which funds multicultural group interaction programs. In a meeting this past Sunday, the student members of DATA also discussed the option of making the program an official volunteer service under the auspices of the Tucker Foundation.
This move would provide DATA with more continuity and stability, Crowder said.
Other members, however, raised the question of whether becoming an official Tucker program would detract from its autonomy as an entirely student-run organization.
According to Murphy, the problems associated with DATA's establishment at Tucker are mostly logistical. She said she is trying to determine whether Tucker has enough resources and personnel to sustain the program and whether the community itself will offer the program the support it requires.
Nevertheless, Murphy seemed optimistic about DATA's success. It "sponsors an awareness of issues in the community outside the College," she said.
