8) Preparing the First Adoption Dossier (Before Matching)

After being issued with our Home Study Report, we set about creating our adoption dossier as something we could approach RIPAs in India with. Our first adoption dossier contained the following documents:

1. Copy of our Home Study Report performed by Touch Community Services, our EFAA
2. Original joint photograph of the two of us on the Touch letterhead
3. Copies of 4 reference letters written by our parents and friends
4. Letter of Motivation for Adoption written and signed by the both of us
5. Letter of Undertaking by MCYS - Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports, Singapore (This was eventually required to be re-issued with the child's name; so in retrospect, we might as well have waited until after being matched, to request this document from the ministry)
6. Copies of relevant pages of our passports
7. Copy of our marriage certificate
8. Copies of our birth certificates
9. Copies of our Singapore NRICs
10. Copies of our tertiary educational certificates
11. Copies of our Certificate of No Criminal Conviction issued by the Criminal Records Office, Singapore
12. Our medical examination reports and laboratory reports
13. Letters from our employers certifying salary and duration of employment
14. Copies of latest salary slips, Income Tax assessments, property deeds
15. Copy of MCYS's accreditation to Touch Community Services

We got the entire set stapled together with a cover page listing the component documents, each individually attested by a public notary and the entire set affixed with a notarial certificate. We then had the set attested/authenticated by the High Commission of India, Singapore.

Later we came to know of several other documentation requirements, which we compiled and submitted as a second notarized dossier. In retrospect, we might have put together a plain un-notarized, un-attested set initially (since it is just for the RIPA's review, not for CARA or the courts), waited until the complete list of requirements was known, then compiled the whole lot into a single notarial set and saved ourselves a little amount of money on the notary's and embassy's fees.