SUN SENTINEL NEWSPAPER ARTICLE

THE GIRL OF HER DREAMS

Pines woman finds daughter of her dreams in Cambodian orphanage

By Margo Harakas
Staff Writer
Posted October 20 2003

Yassin Young was in the grocery store with her sons and her Cambodian-born daughter Yamisha when a woman, a stranger, asked if the girl was adopted. A conversation on adoption followed and then the woman inquired, "Would you have another child?"

Before Yassin could answer, her 9-year-old son A.J. piped up. "No," he said. "That's it for us. No more. Our family is complete."

And so it is.

Yamisha, with her assertive personality and giggly nature, balances and enriches a household heavy on the male side. That, of course, was the intent. What was unexpected is that Yamisha, now 2 1/2, would be the catalyst for Yassin becoming an entrepreneur, selling culture-inspired handmade clothing and other items online.

No one could have anticipated that. Not Yassin, a former systems analyst for Broward County, nor her husband, Mark, management information systems director for two Broward County drug rehab centers.

Still reeling from the swiftness of it all, the Yassin, 32, sits in her sunny Pembroke Pines living room trying to figure out just where to begin.

Maybe with Yassin as an only child living with her maternal grandmother and paternal uncle in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, and yearning for a sister.

When she grew up, Yassin told herself she'd have a daughter and provide for her the picture-perfect family of two loving parents and a number of siblings.

Yassin moved to the United States in '94 to attend college. She earned a bachelor's degree in computer sciences, married and began a family. Through three pregnancies, the girl chromosome remained elusive.

Yassin, while delighted with her sons -- "I love them with all my heart," she says -- yearned still for a girl. Even her sons noticed the tears when Mom passed by the girl's department on their shopping expeditions.

It was after one such outing that Mark, 35, heard his wife crying.

"She was on the phone talking to her grandmother," he says. With doctors advising against another pregnancy, she knew she would never mother a daughter.

"I went to her and said we could always adopt," says Mark.

The search

With that the journey began. Their idea was to adopt domestically. "We went to four agencies," says Yassin. "We were quoted the price of $36,000 for a newborn." And that's if one could be found.

Even more off-putting was the attitude toward adopting "outside our race." On their application, the couple indicated that race didn't matter. Yet, says Yassin, race was the first thing all four agencies brought up.

"Why wouldn't you just want an African-American child?" they were asked.

Then they were hit with a speech about how it was better, healthier, emotionally for the child to be in a household of the same race.

"We didn't like that," says Yassin, who would counter with, "Do you know what race I am?"

Yassin is proud to call herself multi-racial. Her mother is black. Her father is white and black Hispanic.

As the couple explored all possibilities, Yassin concluded that as needy as the parentless children in this country are, even more desperate are children orphaned abroad.

"At least kids in the system here wake up to food, clothing, shelter and schooling. They may not wake up to loving parents, but they do have the basic necessities," she says. Which is a far cry from the plight of orphans in many countries abroad, she says.

She went online searching for agencies that handled international adoptions. On the Web site for A New Arrival was an announcement about the availability of children from Cambodia.

"Where is Cambodia?" she asked her husband.

When A.J., Roumell and little Marik accompanied their mom to the library to help research Cambodia, they had no idea what she and Dad were up to.

In their research, they learned of the terrible poverty and the scarcity of schools in that village nation in Southeast Asia.

"If you could help an orphan in Cambodia, what would you do?" Yassin asked her sons.

Without hesitation Roumell, now 16, and A.J., now 9, responded in unison, "We'd bring that child here to live with us."

That was it.

"On March 19, 2001, we decided to adopt," says Yassin. "May 19 we got our referral, and Aug. 19 we picked up our baby."

March 19 was the day Yamisha was born.

While not an overriding factor, the couple discovered that adopting from Cambodia would cost, with travel and all additional expenses, about $18,000.

The meeting

During the five-month wait, Yassin began designing and sewing clothes for her daughter. "That's what kept me sane," she says.

Active in an online chat room run by the ANA adoption agency, Yassin formed close friendships with several other women adopting from Cambodia.

When Yassin posted photos of the outfits she'd designed, she was deluged with requests to purchase the same. Soon, moms were suggesting other items for Yassin to make, tote bags, vests and picture frames.

Weeks before the Youngs were scheduled to travel to Cambodia, Yassin's friend Karla Essner, of New York, called to say she was on her way to pick up her adopted baby daughter, Jade, at the very same orphanage. It was Karla who named Yassin's business Yammi Wear.

Karla promised to check on the Youngs' baby, to feed, cuddle and kiss her.

After picking up Jade, "Karla e-mailed pictures to me from the hotel," says Yassin. "I sat there with tears just flowing from my eyes. She told me all about Yamisha, her experiences with her. It was very emotional."

In August 2001, the excited couple flew to Phnom Penh. Little did they realize how fine was their timing. Less than two weeks later, the State Department would shut down adoptions from Cambodia amid complaints of child trafficking.

Yassin and Mark knew nothing of that, but they were shocked by the number of child beggars that crowded the streets. "We bought a case of water and bananas to hand out to the children," she says. "There was this one little girl about 3 years old, who had this scrawny, lifeless baby tied to her. I'll never forget that sight. I thought the baby was dead. I told my husband, I couldn't take it. We had to get out of there."

The scene convinced the couple they had made the right decision.

The orphanage itself was clean, but minimal. "There was one large room, with two wooden walls, and the other two sides were just chicken wire." Despite the meager surroundings, the youngsters appeared healthy and well cared for.

Yamisha was brought to them in an outfit Yassin had sent.

Unlike the other children, Yamisha spent her nights at the home of the head nanny, not in the orphanage.

"Yamisha is special," says Yassin, who learned that her child's Cambodian mother had walked 45 days from a tent city on the Thai border to Phnom Penh to deliver her baby. Instead of abandoning the baby on the streets, as was the norm for orphaned children, she brought her newborn to the head nanny at the orphanage, saying she wanted her child to have a better life. Yassin believes the nanny's personal interest in Yamisha stemmed from that contact with the mother.

The mother cared so much, says Yassin, that she left with the baby a family picture, on the back she wrote, "I love you."

Once back home, the Youngs exchanged letters with the biological mother, who is married and has two older children. But the family has since moved, and the Youngs have lost contact with them. Despite the reports of baby trafficking, Yassin says she's certain "because of the letters and the photos and all the information we had," that their baby was legitimately given up by a mother seeking to improve her child's future.

Says Mark, "The people we dealt with throughout the process seemed very earnest and honorable ... I don't think about it anymore. I just want to have good memories of our time in Cambodia and meeting the people."

The new family

Yassin assembled a scrapbook detailing her daughter's journey to America. Most importantly, says Yassin, "We've kept the letters and the photos and Misha," as the family calls her, "will know her mother loved her."

For now, the outgoing Misha knows only one family.

"She's always been this happy-go-lucky child. She's just glowing. But she's been that way since she was 5 months old," says Yassin, catching hold of her daughter long enough to put a tissue to her nose.

After a three-month family leave, Yassin returned to her computer job. But by noon of that first day, she knew what she needed to do.

She went into the boss, and told him she was resigning to become a work-at-home mom. "With my sewing I felt I was doing something that meant something," she says.

She had already begun expanding her product line. When she couldn't find a Cambodian flag for her daughter, she made her a Cambodian flag blanket. That sparked a flurry of orders for blankets with flags representing other countries of adoption. In addition to the traditional ethnic clothing, Yammi Wear offers country-shaped cookie cutters, dolls, teddy bears, purses and gift baskets. All provide tangible reminders of the adopted child's birth culture. About a year ago, Yassin launched her own Web site, www.yammiwear.com.

Yassin donates 15 percent of her profits to orphanages in Cambodia. Last year she split $3,000 among three orphanages.

She also sponsors dance and English literacy programs in the orphanages. And she donates blankets as raffle items to U.S. adoption groups raising money for orphans in other countries.

Yassin, who has converted her garage into a workroom, now has three seamstresses and two adoptive mothers in other states working with her. To help finance their own adoptions, two additional mothers have made items that Yassin lists on her Web site.

Where it all will lead is anyone's guess. For the Youngs, the real reward, the only one that truly matters, is the little girl with the perpetual smile who has added a new joy and girly dynamic to the family.

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CULTURAL EXTRAVAGANZA GALA

Yammi Wear held it's Cultural Party in South Florida on October 11, 2003.

"Celebrating Cultures from Around the World"

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JOIN THE YAMMI WEAR TEAM!

Yammi Wear is looking for SALES ASSOCIATES to sell their Blankets of the World Collection.  Earn as much as 20% profit!

Email:

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GO TO CLUB YAMMI!!!

It's a fun zone for FREE gifts, discounts, picture contest, multicultural shopping mall, fund raising product board and much, much more. 

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Yammi Wear is looking for you!

If you have products you are selling for a fundraiser or raising funds for your adoption we are looking for you to add to the site.  Yammi Wear is committed to helping if we can.

Email: i

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Lovin' Blanket project

Yammi Wear is donating 50 blankets to various adoption chapters throughout the United States the blankets can be used for the chapters to raffle, or raise funds for any desired project.

WE DONATED 50 BLANKETS THIS YEAR!

See if your chapter is on the list

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Yammi Wear interview

 Check out the interview on About.com