Two documentaries are produced for each child.  The two documentaries on two DVDs have been given their own titles. The documentary on the background of the child has the title “Your Child’s Birth History”, while the documentary that shows the activities of the child once he/she arrived at our care center in Addis Ababa is entitled “My Story”.

"Your Child's Birth History"  contains essential information and scenes of the child's birthplace and birth family; if a child is an abandoned one, the documentary shows how the person/s who found the child have found him/her. "My Story" includes information regarding the child's personal, social and developmental behavior during his or her stay at CHSFS Ethiopia foster care center; the activities of CHSFS Ethiopia and an introduction to Ethiopia.

Why the documentary [video lifebook] and the lifebook are important?

• Adopted children want to know about their birth family and birthplace
• Adopted children don’t want to feel abandoned. They want to be certain that adoption was the last resort for them. The film and the lifebook are believed to ascertain this fact
• For CHSFS Ethiopia, the film production serves to further investigate a child’s background
• It helps the child to be proud of his country 
• Adoptive parents can easily answer question raised by the children
• “My Story” shows the child’s different activities once he arrives at our care center in Addis Ababa. It is entertaining for the child to watch it as he/she grows up. It also helps adoptive parents to understand some of the behavior of the child.

Adopted children want to know about their birth family and birthplace
Adopted children have a natural curiosity to know who they are, and where they come from as well as who their birth family and relatives are. If they don’t have that information, they are likely to feel abandoned. They even sometimes worry. They have a natural curiosity to know more about their background no matter how comfortable they are living with their loving and caring adoptive parents. These children will have their questions answered if the information is available.

Most adoption organizations have very little or in few cases, no information at all about the background of the children they help to be adopted. That has become history in the case of CHSFS Ethiopia. Even when a child is abandoned CHSFS Ethiopia goes to the place where the child was found abandoned and interviews the people who found the child.
 
Justifying the reason for adoption
The documentary on the background of the children helps them to see and understand the situation their biological family members are living in. They are seen in old clothes, barefoot, sleeping on the floor, living in a one-roomed thatched roof house. The pictures and the first-hand information the children get from their birth parents’ interview are believed to convince the children that the decision of their birth family members or birth parents to have them adopted is the right decision. 

To further investigate a child’s background
Besides gathering information on a child’s background, the CHSFS camera crew also investigates some hidden or ignored facts and realities concerning the children. When CHSFS Ethiopia started its adoption work in April 2004, it planned to exclusively help children that are orphans (children that have lost one or both birth parent) and those that are abandoned by their desperate birth parents.

Few parents, who are too poor to raise their children, but who desperately wanted to give up their children for adoption, have lied to our social workers that they have found the children abandoned or they are orphans. Surprisingly, in most cases, local authorities have cooperated with such parents seeing the desperate situation they were in.

CHSFS Ethiopia was forced to change its policy of accepting only orphans and abandoned children in mid 2006. Currently, the organization admits children who live in extreme poverty although both their biological parents are alive.  The future of such children of very poor families is as bleak as that of the orphans and the abandoned children. People have stopped lying since decision was made to accept such children. The CHSFS camera crew had helped a lot in investigating the truth behind some children and their families before such decision was made. Most such parents admitted that they had told lies when they are interviewed.

Once the organization has begun to accept children of poor families, there was no need for journalists to find out whether the birth parents are real parents or not.  The journalists have rather been able to focus on investigating and revealing certain important but ignored facts about the child, the child’s birth parents and birthplace as well as his/her culture. If no documentary was produced the child would have known very little about his birth family or his birth place.

To help the child to be proud of his/her country
Some facts about Ethiopia have been included in the “My Story” documentary. The documentary is colorful and informative. We believe that it helps the child know his/her country's cultural and natural heritages as well as other key historical facts.

Adoptive parents can answer questions raised by the children
It is advisable that adoptive parents shouldn’t show the documentary to their adopted child until he/she is old enough to accept and live with some bitter or shocking facts about his/her birth family and himself/herself. But while the child is growing up, he/she may ask several questions about their background. Particularly, during inter-country adoption the children know that they are different from their parents when they are young. As most of the adoptive parents are white Americans, the children begin to ask why they are black as soon as they have realized that they are different from their parents. The documentary and the lifebook to a greater extent help adoptive parents in answering most of their questions.

My Story helps to know some of the child’s behavior and it is entertaining
The major part of “My Story” shows the day-to-day life of a child that is filmed by CHSFS cameramen. It shows the social behavior of the child which helps parents have some knowledge about the child in advance until they know the child well.