Ethiopia Dossier Authentication Process 

With assistance of CHI Adoption Consultant, families will gather documents and have them notarized, certified and authenticated. 

1. Have each document notarized. 

2. After notarization, families should have their case worker/social worker review their dossier prior to submitting it for Secretary of State certification to insure that there are no mistakes on the dossier. They can walk the dossier in or fax it to the case worker for review.

3. Each document will have to be certified by the Secretary of State in the state where the document originated.

4. Families should make copies for themselves of the dossier before sending it to the CHI home office. CHI charges $25.00 for dossiers that we copy for families.

5. After the CHI home office receives your original dossier, we will process the documents through the US Department of State and the Embassy of Ethiopia.

6. A $350 documentation fee paid directly to CHI will cover courier service fees, certification and authentication fees, and Federal Express mailings of your dossier. This in addition to the families individual notary fees and state certification fees.

7. Once the documentation process is completed, the dossier will be returned to CHI, processed in our office and express mailed to our CHI Coordinator in Ethiopia.

8. You will be notified when your documents are on their way to Ethiopia.

9. Our coordinator will have them quickly translated/printed into Amharic, and present them to the proper officials at the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs office (MOLSA).

10. We recommend that families allow CHI to process the final certification and authentication of their dossier as noted above (instead of doing it themselves). In this way CHI will be better able to assess any problems with the dossier. Once the dossier becomes bundled into one document, if there is something that is incorrect in your dossier, it could possibly call for the entire dossier to be authenticated again or have the one incorrect document authenticated for the same fee that the whole dossier was authenticated for. There in no reduction in fee for one page, versus a whole dossier.

Families can have the dossier authenticated themselves without using a courier. They are only really saving $60 and it may take a little longer for their dossier to be authenticated.  For example: any items that are mailed to the State Dept. have to go to a separate facility to be checked before opening due to the Anthrax scare a few years ago.  It will then take a couple of days to process the mail.  At the Embassy, things are done according to priority.  So a lone package waiting for authentication will probably not take precedence over some other business that might need attention at the Embassy.  The courier has relationships with the people at the government level and can make appointments so it really is in the best interest of the family to use the courier.

DOCUMENT COURIER

Ray Howar
2200 Columbia Pike
Unit #1005
Arlington, VA  22204

office - (703) 912-7099  cell ? (703) 283-6668

$60.00 plus Fed. Ex. mailings

DEPARTMENT OF STATE - WASHINGTON, D.C.

U.S. Department of State
Authentication?s Office
State Annex 1
518-23^rd Street, N.W.
Washington, DC  20520

Tel: 1-800-688-9889 or 333-4636

www.firstgov.gov

$7.00 per bundled document or each individual document

ETHIOPIA EMBASSY AND CONSULATE

Embassy of Ethiopia
3506 International Drive, NW
Washington, DC 20008 USA

Tel: 202-364-1200

Fax: 202-587-0195

Email: info@ethiopianembassy.org
Web: www.ethiopianembassy.org

$94.80 per bundled document or each individual document plus, Fed Ex. mailings