HOULTON – The efforts of a locally based adoption agency to help children orphaned by the civil war in Sierra Leone has drawn the attention of a national news magazine television show.

“CNN & Time,” which runs on the Cable News Network, plans to include the efforts of the Maine Adoption Placement Service as one of the segments on its broadcast set for 9 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 26.

MAPS was founded in Houlton in 1977 by Dawn Degenhardt, to serve special-needs children who needed adoption. Today it is one of the largest adoption agencies in the country, and it is the second-largest in New England in terms of the number of children placed in adoptive homes. The agency also is operating adoption and care facilities in 14 countries.

In December 1996 Degenhardt and Jennifer Sylvester, director of the office in Houlton, traveled to Sierra Leone to see if there was something the agency could do for children who were victims of the violence that had rocked the country on the west coast of Africa.

“The nine-year civil war had ended in November [1996] and we went there in December,” recalled Sylvester. “We went over at a relatively peaceful time, but by May of the next year, it all fell apart.”

At the time of their visit, there were already hundreds of children who had been left orphaned by the conflict and, “there are tons and tons more now,” she said.

Based on their previous experiences with Third World countries, the two women decided to help as many orphans as they could.

They hired an adoption program director and set out to find homes for 15 of the orphans. That number eventually swelled to almost twice that number.

In August 1998 MAPS officials were able to have the first 12 orphans flown out of Africa through Ghana.

The remaining 17 children faced a much greater ordeal before they were safe in the United States.

“Many times the children had to evacuate the orphanage – which MAPS supports – because the rebels were pillaging and raping,” said Sylvester. “Even the refugee camps were overrun.”

“It was just ghastly,” said Sylvester, describing beheadings and limb amputations that were carried out by the rebels as punishments and warnings. “And the deprivation was acute.”

Eventually, the 17 children literally had to be carried out of the country through the African bush for 25 hours to Guinea, all the while keeping as quiet as possible to avoid detection by the rebels.

From Guinea, they were flown in June 1999 to the United States.

Two of the children, both girls, were adopted by a Boston family.

Because they had medical problems, their mother, a physician, sought medical help for them. Sondra Crosby quickly became frustrated by the bureaucratic hurdles she had to overcome in the process.

“She got to see the medical community from a different side, as she was getting her children treatment for all their different ailments,” Sylvester said. “She was frustrated by the insensitivity for her needs.”

Crosby wrote about her experience in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The Boston Globe followed up with a story, which in turn was picked up by CNN.

This June, a CNN crew filmed a reunion at Sebago Lake of 16 of the Sierra Leone children that was organized by their adoptive families.

CNN then came to Houlton later that month, “to experience where it all began,” said Sylvester. They spent two days filming staff, the office and interviewing agency officials, all for a 10-minute segment.

The broadcast, Sylvester said, will be exciting because it will draw attention to both the plight of the children in Sierra Leone as well as the efforts of the Maine Adoption Placement Service, including its humanitarian efforts to maintain the orphanage there.

At the end of the CNN broadcast, call-in numbers will be displayed on the screen, as well as the MAPS Web site address, for people to call in to get more information about adoptions, the adoption service, or to pledge support.

“We’re committed to this project in Sierra Leone, with or without this show,” said Sylvester. “Even if we can’t get more kids out, we’re going to continue our humanitarian work.”