Project Hopeful for HIV Adoptions Video

Project Hopeful for HIV Adoptions Video Transcript

Reporter: In a quiet subdivision on an unassuming street, there's a house that is very much a home. How many kids?

>> 13.

>> Reporter: 13 kids. It's not just the size of carolyn and kyle tweetmyer's brood, it's the makeup to their seven kids they've add six more, all atop thed from ethiopia.

>> It's such a miracle if you think about the fact our family is built from across the world.

>> Reporter: But it's not just the makeup. It's also the medical history. One of their ethiopian children has aids, a second is hiv positive.

>> If your child had some terrible disease, would you not do everything you can for them?

>> Reporter: Originally the tweetmyers were looking to adopt one special needs child but soon found in ethiopia aids had wiped out entire families, so when they adopted sam, with hiv, they adopted his brother and sister too,. Then unable to forget a little girl at the orphanage, they returned to adopt sala. Even though she was very ill. That's her arm when she was 11. Today, sala's 13 and her aids is controlled. So tell me how you're feeling?

>> I feel very good here.

>> Reporter: And, yes, to keep sala's family together, the tweetmyers adopted her brother and sister. Where does everybody sleep?

>> In this house.

>> There are burchls in the bedrooms.

>> Sam, hank, and seth.

>> And bedrooms in the baixment. And no special precautions are needed, just the same common sense, they say, parents use for all kids. Indeed, to overcome ignorance about adopting kids with treatable aids and hiv, the tweetmyers launched project hopeful. An estimated 2.5 million children worldwide are infected infected with hiv, the virus that causes aids.

>> It's all about educating, encouraging and enabling families.

>> Reporter: When we visited this week, their house was full of children. Many of them were hiv positive, all adopted by other project hopeful families. The tweetmyers are not wealthy and they have a long road ahead of them, but they also believe each step will be imliewminated by the light in the eyes of their children. Dean reynolds, cbs news, joliet, illinois.