Operation Reunite: Providing Support and Understanding to Vietnamese War Babies

Operation Reunite was featured in a recent article. Fundraising has been ongoing to make this project a success.

The nonprofit was in Vietnam taking DNA samples. “Vietnamese people whose children were evacuated on flights by the US in April 1975 when the Vietnam War was coming to an end had samples taken for DNA tests on Monday with hopes to find their kids.

Luyen Quoc Hai, director general of Hanoi-based Bionet Vietnam Biotechnology Joint-stock Company, said the non-profit Operation Reunite will send all the samples of lost children from the US to Vietnam for DNA comparison.

Once there are matches, they will conduct more tests for confirmation, according to Hai.

The Operation Reunite was founded in 2003 by Trista Goldberg, who was also brought out of Vietnam under the US-initiated Operation Babylift and found her birth parents in 2002.

The organization works to build a bank of DNA data of Vietnamese families looking for their lost children and “babylift” babies so they can re-unite.”

Their website includes a the newsclip video that was played in Vietnam in 2010 about their project which can be found here.

Last year in commemoration of the 35-year anniversary of Operation Babylift, Operation Reunite organized a tour that gathered ” dozens of adult-Vietnamese adoptees returning to their homeland to discover their birth culture, many for the first time, and to search for the birth families.”

“Operation Reunite is not just an organization assisting adoptees with finding their families,” says Trista Goldberg, Founder of Operation Reunite, “we seek to create an awareness and understanding of the whole process, from locating your family, and learning to speak the language, to going to Vietnam. This is an immersive experience and this trip is the culmination of years of work,” she continued.”

Parents take DNA tests to find children lost in war
[Thanh Nien News 5/3/11 by Tuoi Tre]

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