Our story

Our story

It really all started in 1992 when Brooke was studying Chinese in Tianjin China. While there she had the opportunity to do some volunteer work at a local orphanage and she fell in love with so many of the babies --especially a very special boy baby named Wu Xiong. Too young, too poor and unmarried at the time, she knew she could not become Wu Xiong's mother but she decided then that she would adopt her future children as there were far too many in that orphanage who were in need of families.

Marco Barra Brooke with the children		We (Brooke and Marco) married in 1995 in Taiwan and in 2000 we adopted our first child, a 4 year old girl named Messay, who is from Ethiopia. A year and a half later we brought home our second daughter from South Africa; baby Elba was 7 months old when she joined our family. By then we had seen first hand the tragedy of HIV/AIDS in Africa and its aftermath of beautiful but homeless orphaned children. A chance encounter in Hong Kong with Brooke's former law professor, (a Tanzanian) Dr Bart Rwezaura in January 2002 evolved into a discussion about the needs of vulnerable children in Tanzania and just a few weeks later, we had dinner with Dr. Rwezaura at a Malaysian restaurant where we began plans for developing the Boona-Baana Center for Children's Rights. By July 2002, we had packed up and left our jobs in Hong Kong to move to Dar es Salaam Tanzania and began, with the support of Dr. Rwezaura, the Boona-Baana Center for Children's Rights.

If you have any questions or contributions. Please contact us.