Alex Gilbert | |
---|---|
![]() Gilbert in 2023 | |
Born | Gusovskoi Alexander Viktorovich (Changed to Sasha Alexander Gilbert) 1 April 1992 Arkhangelsk, Russia |
Nationality | Russian New Zealander |
Years active | 2011–present |
YouTube information | |
Channels | Alex Gilbert |
Years active | 2014–present |
Genre(s) | Adoption Vlogs |
Subscribers | 30.3 thousand |
Total views | 5.4 million |
Last updated: July 24, 2024 | |
Website | alexgilbert.co.nz and imadopted.org |
Sasha Alexander Gilbert (Russian: Саша Александр "Алекс" Гилберт; born 1 April 1992) is a Russian-born New Zealand adoption advocate, writer and media presenter, and is the founder of the organisation I'm Adopted [1] [2] [3] which he established in 2015. [4] [5]
Gilbert, whose name at birth is Gusovskoi Alexander Viktorovich, [6] was born in Arkhangelsk, where he was placed in a local orphanage for the first two years of his life until 1994, when he was adopted by his New Zealand parents. In 2013, Gilbert started searching for and located his Russian genetic parents, with whom he had no connection; his genetic father did not know about Gilbert's existence until Gilbert contacted him in 2013. [7] [8] [9]
In 2015, Gilbert established the organisation I'm Adopted, a support network for adoptees. [10] Gilbert has been nominated for several awards for his adoption work, including Young New Zealander of the Year in 2018 and New Zealander of the Year in 2020. [11] [12]
Gilbert has made several appearances on television shows and documentaries about international adoption, and has written two books. [13] [14] Besides advocacy, Gilbert has worked in media and television, and regularly publishes videos to his YouTube channel. [15]
Alex Gilbert was born Gusovskoi Alexander Viktorovich on 1 April 1992 in Arkhangelsk, Russia, to Mihail Viktorovich Kovkov and Tatiana Taimurazovna Gusovskaia. [16] [17] [18] Gilbert's mother placed him in an orphanage in Arkhangelsk after he was born. [19] [20] His genetic father Mihail did not know of Alexander's existence until 2013 after hearing through a series of online messages Alexander was searching for him. The father's name on Alexander's birth certificate and adoption papers had been falsified. [21]
In 1994, New Zealand couple Mark and Janice Gilbert adopted Alexander and his brother Andrei. [22] His name was legally changed to Sasha Alexander Gilbert in 1994. [23] The Gilbert family lived in Whangarei, New Zealand, and Alex lived there until he was 18 years old. In early 2011, Gilbert moved to Auckland to study and work in television. [24] [25]
After an unsuccessful attempt in 2009, Gilbert recommenced his search for his birth parents in 2013. [26] He used Russian social networking websites to locate them. In November 2013, Gilbert travelled to Russia to meet his birth parents for the first time.
Gilbert's trip and his meetings with his birth parents was filmed for New Zealand's TV One's current affairs show Sunday , and the report was broadcast in 2014. [9] In the same year' Gilbert wrote and released his autobiographical book My Russian Side, along with an autobiographical documentary film. [27] [28]
In July 2015 Gilbert established an online community and registered charity I'm Adopted to allow adopted people to share their stories. [2] [29] [30] The project is a platform that helps adoptees around the world to share their personal experiences with adoption through social media. [31] [32] The project also holds meet-ups and events, and is available in several languages including English, Russian and Spanish. [33] Since 2019, I'm Adopted also produces a podcast. [34] [35] [36]
At the end of 2015, Gilbert appeared on Russian television station 1TV's programme Let them Talk , where his biological parents met his New Zealand parents for the first time. The show highlighted the early impact of the organisation I'm Adopted. [37] In February 2017, Gilbert was a key speaker at an event at the New Zealand Parliament to help raise awareness for I'm Adopted and its projects, where he was joined by Wendy Hawke, the director of Inter-Country Adoption New Zealand. [1] [38]
In October 2017 Gilbert went to Russia to visit the orphanage in Arkhangelsk [39] for the first time since he left in 1994. [40] [41] He returned to the orphanage the following year. [42] Gilbert also talked with adopted teenagers and parents in Moscow for the adoption charity Arifmetika Dobra. [43] [44] Gilbert also met Anna Kuznetsova, the former Children's Rights Commissioner for the Russian Federation, which was headquartered in Moscow. [45] [46]
In November 2017, Gilbert shared a video of his first meeting with his birth father on the social media platform Reddit; the video went viral and was published on the LADbible Facebook page. [47] [48]
In early 2018, Gilbert independently released his second autobiography I'm Adopted. A full-length interview that was based on the book was released in late June. Gilbert collected and hand-delivered supplies for his orphanage in Arkhangelsk, Russia, in October 2018. [49]
In January 2018, Gilbert appeared in the Russian documentary "The Man from Nowhere" [50] which was directed by Russian journalist and documentary writer Katerina Gordeeva. [51]
In July 2018, Gilbert spoke via video link at the International Conference on Adoption Research 6 in Montreal, Canada, and hosted the first I'm Adopted overseas meetup in Galway, Ireland, on 1 August 2018. [52] [53]
Also in 2018, Gilbert teamed up with the charity Arifmetika Dobra for another presentation with parents and adopted children. He was joined with Russian author Diana Mashkova. The event was held at Elektrostal inside of the Moscow region of Russia. [54] [55]
In January 2019, the Russian version of his autobiography titled «Я – приёмный сын» (I'm an Adopted Son) was released with a physical limited release with support of the Timchenko Foundation in Moscow, Russia. The book is published by Alpina Books, Russia, and a copy is held at the Russian State Library in Moscow. [56] [57] [58]
In September 2020, Gilbert contributed to the Rudd Adoption Program for the University of Massachusetts Amherst with his work with I'm Adopted. [59]
The following year, Gilbert was nominated for Young New Zealander of the Year for 2019, as well as a nomination for New Zealander of the Year. [11] [60]
Gilbert appeared in the Stuff documentary film Emma (2020), in which he helps a girl named Emma find her birth family in Russia. Emma then visits to Russia to meet her birth parents for the first time. [61] In 2021, the documentary won the Best Documentary award at that year's Voyager Internet Media Awards. [62] [63] [64]
In the beginning of 2021, Gilbert temporarily moved to Russia, living mostly in the Moscow region. [65] Gilbert documented his time there by publishing videos to his YouTube channel. [66] He also again met with his birth mother Tatiana in Rybinsk, [67] as well as his birth father Mihail and his family in Saint Petersburg. [68]
He had also visited Arkhangelsk, a village in Vladimir Oblast and Altai Krai in Western Siberia. Gilbert also completed filming for Reunited during his time there. After almost six months, by the end of July 2021, Gilbert returned to New Zealand. [69]
In September 2019, TVNZ announced Gilbert would be hosting a television series called Reunited . [36] [70] The show focuses on his work with I'm Adopted and the help with adopted people finding their birth families. [35] [65] [71] Filming for the series finished in 2021. [72] Gilbert also served as a writer and narrator for the series. Season One aired in February 2022 on TVNZ 1; it had a positive reception, noting Gilberts compassion towards the adopted person. The series was noted for its cinematography. [73] [74] [4] [75]
From November 2022, Gilbert began to publish his first online ongoing series An Adoption Story through his YouTube channel. [76] The series follows Alex as he meets other adoptees to share their stories. The series has been filmed in New Zealand, the United States and Italy. [76] [77] In September 2023, the 2023 season was released on Amazon Prime. [78] The second series for An Adoption Story began in June 2024. [79]
His documentary short film, My Kazakhstan Connection which follows the story of Gilbert searching for his biological family links in Kazakhstan is due to be released in 2024. [80] [81]
Alex Gilbert is of East European, Russian, Baltic and West Asian ancestry. [82] Gilbert noted on his Facebook page the impact of the 2022 Russian invasion on his family in Russia and his relatives living in a village north of Kyiv, Ukraine. Gilbert's relatives in Ukraine are the brother and niece of his birth mother Tatiana. [83]
In May 2023, Gilbert went to the Kazakh village Tulkibas to trace his family origins in a search for his biological grandmother. [84]
Gilbert is currently in a relationship. [85]
In 2018, Gilbert was nominated for Young New Zealander of the Year as part of the 2019 New Zealander of the Year Awards, as well as for New Zealander of the Year. [11] [60] He received a certificate of achievement from the Ministry of Health of the Arkhangelsk region in Russia for his orphanage initiative in November 2018. [86]
In November 2020, Gilbert became a finalist in the Global category for the 2020 New Zealand Impact Awards. [12]
Year | Title | Title in Russian | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
2014 | Sunday | ||
2014 | My Russian Side | Documentary film | |
2015 | Anatomy of the Day [89] | «Анатомия дня» | |
2015 | Let Them Talk | «Пусть говорят» | Season 15, Episode 68 [90] |
2015 | Sunday | ||
2016 | Breakfast [91] | ||
2017 | TV Rain | TV special about adoption | |
2018 | The Man from Nowhere [92] [93] [51] | «Человек из ниоткуда» [94] | Russian documentary, Directed by Katerina Gordeeva |
2018 | I'm Adopted - The Interview w/ Meg Andrews [95] | «История моего усыновления Интервью с Мэг Эндрюс» | |
2018 | Live on Air | «Прямой эфир» [96] | |
2019 | Seven Sharp [97] | ||
2020 | Emma - A Stuff Circuit documentary [98] [99] | ||
2021 | The Search [100] | «Поиски» | Russian documentary |
2022 | Reunited (Season One) [36] [101] [4] | TVNZ Series / Host and Writer | |
2022–present | An Adoption Story | ||
2024 | My Kazakhstan Connection |
Adoption is a process whereby a person assumes the parenting of another, usually a child, from that person's biological or legal parent or parents. Legal adoptions permanently transfer all rights and responsibilities, along with filiation, from the biological parents to the adoptive parents.
The international adoption of South Korean children started around 1953 as a measure to take care of the large number of mixed children that became orphaned during and after the Korean War. It quickly evolved to include orphaned Korean children. Religious organizations in the United States, Australia, and many Western European nations slowly developed the apparatus that sustained international adoption as a socially integrated system. As of 2023, South Korea still sent 79 children overseas, making it the country with the longest running international adoption program.
Closed adoption is a process by which an infant is adopted by another family, and the record of the biological parent(s) is kept sealed. Often, the biological father is not recorded—even on the original birth certificate. An adoption of an older child who already knows their biological parent(s) cannot be made closed or secret. This used to be the most traditional and popular type of adoption, peaking in the decades of the post-World War II Baby Scoop Era. It still exists today, but it exists alongside the practice of open adoption. The sealed records effectively prevent the adoptee and the biological parents from finding, or even knowing anything about each other. However, the emergence of non-profit organizations and private companies to assist individuals with their sealed records has been effective in helping people who want to connect with biological relatives to do so.
In the United States, adoption is the process of creating a legal parent–child relationship between a child and a parent who was not automatically recognized as the child's parent at birth.
The Adoption Information Disclosure Act, formally An Act respecting the disclosure of information and records to adopted persons and birth parents, also known as Bill 183, is an Ontario (Canada) law regarding the disclosure of information between parties involved in adoptions.
Interracial adoption refers to the act of placing a child of one racial or ethnic group with adoptive parents of another racial or ethnic group.
New Zealand lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights are some of the most extensive in the world. The protection of LGBT rights is advanced, relative to other countries in Oceania, and among the most liberal in the world, with the country being the first in the region to legalise same-sex marriage.
Sealed birth records refers to the practice of sealing the original birth certificate upon adoption or legitimation, often making a copy of the record unavailable except by court order. Upon finalization of the adoption, the original birth certificate is sealed and replaced with an amended birth certificate declaring the adoptee to be the child of his or her adoptive parents, "as if" born to them. Many states, provinces and countries adopted this practice in the early to mid-20th century with the aim of protecting the adopted person from the shame of an illegitimate birth. Sealed or closed birth records are generally associated with closed adoption. Open records is generally referred to as the practice of opening original birth records to adult adoptees, and should not be confused with open adoption, which can occur with or without sealed records, depending on the laws of the state or province in which it is carried out.
Alex Raphael Meschini, simply known as Alex, is a Brazilian football coach and former player who played as a midfielder. He is the current assistant manager of Corinthians.
Tāmati Gerald Coffey is a New Zealand broadcaster, politician, and former Member of Parliament.
Adoption in France is codified in the French Civil Code in two distinct forms: simple adoption and plenary adoption.
In accordance with the law, citizens of all countries require a visa to enter Turkmenistan unless they have special passports. To obtain a tourist visa for Turkmenistan, all foreign citizens must supply an invitation letter issued by a travel agency licensed in Turkmenistan.
Wendy Ruth Hawke is a New Zealand adoption advocate. She has been the executive director of Inter-Country Adoption New Zealand, also known as ICANZ, since 1995.
Sergei Trofimov, also known under the stage name Trofim, is a Russian songwriter, musician, singer.
Katerina Vladimirovna Gordeeva is a Russian journalist, documentary writer and author. She is most known for the work involved with Russia's NTV Documentary films from 2003 until 2012. Since 2005, she has directed and released several documentaries. Gordeeva's documentaries cover a list of different topics including health, family and social issues. Her first documentary Ruble's Wives was released in 2005.
Reunited is a New Zealand television series. Presented by adoption advocate Alex Gilbert, the series follows six Russian-born adoptees on their own personal story of re-connecting with their birth families. It first aired on TVNZ 1 in February, 2022. Gilbert also serves as the narrator for the series and as one of the writers.
"Ukraine" is a 2022 song by Russian rock band Nogu Svelo!. The song was released on 12 June 2022 on Russia Day to voice the band's opposition of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Russian New Zealanders are New Zealand citizens are residents of Russian ancestry, which may include Russian immigrants 1870s and their descendants born in New Zealand.
Alex Breingan is a UK born New Zealand television executive producer, television writer and former radio producer and host.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: others (link)Alex is now looking at tracing other children from his orphanage who were adopted into New Zealand, visit imadopted.org to learn more.