Margaret Fleming is a 73-year-old single mother of 12 children and a passionate adoption advocate. She is also the driving force behind an effort to ensure that HIV-positive children find loving homes.

A Jan. 6 Chicago Tribune article by Jennifer Grant provided the following insights into Fleming's work on behalf of HIV-positive children throughout the world:

Fleming is the founder of Adoption-Link Inc., an agency in Oak Park [Illinois] through which she has placed hundreds of children since 1992. During a 2002 visit to Vietnam to meet her now-9-year-old daughter, her eyes were opened to the crisis of children and HIV.

She returned to the U.S. and established Chances by Choice, a program that helps place children born with HIV.

To date, close to 60 such children have found adoptive families.

According to a UNICEF report, about 370,000 children younger than 15 around the world became infected with HIV in 2007. Most infections occur during birth or through breast-feeding. Many of these children are orphaned when their parents die of AIDS.

Labels: adoption_agencies, HIV, international