In Between Cultures, Fully Myself: Jonah Bobongie on Belonging, Stigma, and Owning Your Experience.

In this open and reflective conversation of A Home and Healing for Every Child, Board Member and Adoptee Gabrielle Stricker-Phelps sits down with Ambassador and fellow Adoptee Jonah Bobongie for a conversation about growing up, identity, and the many sides of adoption.  

Jonah shares what it was like to grow up in Brisbane with a loving adoptive family while feeling disconnected from his Papua New Guinean roots and how that shaped his understanding of culture, identity, and belonging. Together, Gabi and Jonah explore the support they found in their families and friends, the early awareness they had of being adopted, and how stigma can linger even in the most positive of adoption stories.  
 

From Launching Led By A Heartstring and finding the time to live life as a young adult, Jonah is able to reflect on the power of storytelling, the nuances in family, the strength that can come from healing in a way that can come in a way that doesn’t fit with society’s expectations of what an adoptee’s journey “should” look like.  
 
This is a conversation about connecting, choice, and the importance of making space for all adoption stories.  

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Show credits:  

Host: Gabrielle Stricker-Phelps, Adopt Change Board Member 

Guest: Jonah Bobongie, Adopt Change Ambassador 

Audio Producer: Fernanda Dedic, Adopt Change  

Executive Producers: Emily Hikaiti, Adopt Change, Ashton Kobler, Adopt Change, Renée Leigh (Carter), Adopt Change