Anna Dombkins

to keep their babies and so that would look like 12 months of formula milk if they needed it if they weren't able to breastfeed and some training in hygiene and nutrition caring for their babies and then the startup of a business to support their family that might be just selling fruit and vegetables at the local market where they can keep their babies with them or whatever

business was going to work in their community and their local staff who know their own community so well would help those women set up an income stream.

And so she had piloted this and it had worked and they had had a number of women who were able to keep their babies instead of relinquishing them or abandoning them.

But she had no funding for it.

And so Mark and I knew, okay, this is a way better solution to this problem than going through an insane adoption process.

And so we began just telling those stories and raising money.

And that led to the setup of our charity called Forever Projects, which...

um aims to keep babies in their biological families through that 12-month program at the end of 12 months these women are completely independent they don't need any more support they have their baby in their home their babies keep their mothers and they can carry on with their life in the family they were born into which is a way better solution

Yeah, well, we're now up to our 3,000th baby that has come through the program, which is incredible.

So Mark and I alone could adopt three, and that felt like a lot, but now there's 3,000 that didn't need adopting, and they all have that story of...

you know, a mother who just desperately wants this baby and has been provided with the opportunity to keep that baby.

So we have just had story after story come through of those women.

They're incredible women.

They just, they work so hard.

Lots of them might walk for an hour or two in the rain carrying twins or triplets on their backs to come once a week to the baby home where they have their training.

They get their formula milk for the next week and then they get to go home and

They're going back to their village and telling the other women in their village the skills they're learning in business.

So it's really incredible to watch the transformation that can happen.

And those babies are in their home.

Yeah, very much.