Road to Roots

     Welcome to the official website

The intercountry adoption agency FIAC-Horizon has a well-developed program on Roots & Searches for Origins for several years now. An increasing number of Flemish adoptees in their teens or early twenties and/or their adoptive parents find their way to our adoption service with questions about their adoption, origin, background, roots ...

In some cases, it may lead to a roots journey to the homeland of the adoptee or a 'Homeland Visit'. Through its 'Road to Roots' program, FIAC tries to assist them in their personal search for their roots and origin. With the financial support of the Flemish Adoption Support Centre, the existing roots-related operations could be extended in 2011, including with the creation of its own Road to Roots hotline and mailbox so that adoptees and their families could get in touch with Road to Roots when having questions about their adoption and roots or looking for a listening ear or perhaps assistance in preparing for a search or a motherland visit.

Going through our website, Flemish adoptees come across information on the program's genisis, its views and used methods & approach giving them an idea how their own individual process guidance may look like. Next to that, they are provided with useful information and insights on their respective birth countries, its intercountry adoption processes, ways of working and regulations when it comes to roots and searches. 

They are informed about upcoming events organized by and for adoptees, root-related meetings that might interest them and partners they could address as well. 

Key words to the Road to Roots Program are guidance & preparation, of all parties involved, side by side, in a setting where adoptees are invited to set out the course, on their terms, and thus remain in charge of their own project having all the support they need to make their journey as successful as it can be and the strength to overcome any hurdles on their way. 

FIAC-HORIZON non-profit organization is an accredited Flemish inter-country adoption agency, founded in 1976 and licensed by the Flemish Central Authority for mediation services in international adoptions. FIAC-Horizon facilitates adoption placements of foreign children in Flemish families and has working agreements with the following countries of origin: Chile, The Philippines, Thailand, India, Bulgaria and South Africa. FIAC-Horizon is also in the process of setting up additional working agreements in Honduras and Ghana.

When birth parents and birth relatives are not able to take care of a child, when good and long-lasting solutions, a dignified and safe childhood in the birth country cannot be ensured, when children have been abandoned or given up for adoption by their parents... only then an inter-country adoption can be justified as a less ideally solution offered to a child in need of a safe and caring home. Finding solutions for children in their birth countries first is only to be applauded as its serves the children’s best interest.

As a Flemish adoption placement agency in the receiving country of Belgium, Europe, FIAC-Horizon has served more than 1800 Flemish speaking families and has placed many children in warm and loving Flemish homes. The focus has always been on adoption mediation and providing both our Flemish adoptive families and our adoptive children and partners abroad with a thorough preparation and counselling program prior to the placement of a child as well as a supportive aftercare package after placement as FIAC-Horizon acknowledges the complexity of international adoptions. Our adoption mediation work is based on experience on the one hand and on relationships that have been established for many years throughout the world on the other.

Since the year 2008 and ongoing, FIAC-Horizon has registered an increasing amount of roots questions coming from our adoptive parents and/or their teenage adoptees, youngsters, adoptees in their early twenties or even pushing thirty. All looking for the same thing: some proper guidance, specific advice and counselling during their search for roots and origin. Therefore FIAC-Horizon created a roots program ‘Road to Roots’ that fits the needs and expectations of its users, being the adoptees and their adoptive families, the various adoption partners in the receiving and sending countries and not to forget the adoptee’s birth relatives in the countries of origin.

Our head office is situated in Geel, which is in the province of Antwerp, in the northeast of Flanders, Belgium. Next to that, FIAC-Horizon has international offices located abroad and accredited representatives and contacts in the various countries of origin it is working with.

Thank you for visiting our website and if the information provided above will not answer all your questions, feel free to contact FIAC-Horizon or its Road to Roots program directly through e-mail or telephone.