New year roundup

Greetings from Ho Chi Minh City! I've escaped to the warm south for a few days to kick off the new year. Back to the cold, cold north soon.

For now - a quick roundup of Christmas and new year at Blue Dragon.

All the kids at our shelter in Hanoi had a festive "lau" at Truc Bac lake in the lead up to Christmas. Lau is a food along the lines of hotpot - and it's a real treat for our kids. They went off for karaoke afterwards, but I didn't join them for that!



On Christmas day, I went to the Sofitel Plaza with a couple of staff and a lot of kids for a meal in their Chinese restaurant. This was completely on the house - the Sofitel management went out of their way to give us a good time. A very new experience for our kids!



A rowdy Christmas party at the drop in centre...



At the Hoi An Children's Home, a huge party lead by our wonderful staff...



In the days after Christmas, I traveled north to the mountains with Huong, one of our social workers, to visit a family of orphans. We had some gifts to make their lives a bit easier - including study desks and lamps, and money for them to pay for lunch at school each day.



The next day, Huong and Giang (another of our staff) traveled south of Hanoi to meet up with a family whose son has been living with us for the past 18 months. That trip was not so positive - seems the family have refused to let the boy, who is 15 and tiny, continue at school. He's only in Grade 2, but now he's being sent off to work, probably on the streets of Thanh Hoa city. We have some more work to do on that case.

Meantime our lawyer Van was in Ho Chi Minh City looking for kids who work in garment factories. He and the government representatives from Hue were able to secure the release of 6 kids; they'd been hoping for more, but with Lunar New Year coming up in February the factories are desperate to keep the kids working. A journalist traveled with the rescue team, and we'd been hoping for a write up but so far there's been none. There was this, however, so we can't say that there's nothing important in the newspapers over the holiday period. (Just read the photo caption - that says it all!)

Hopefully I'll have an update within the week of the kids who were rescued from the factories.

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The search

With Christmas barely behind us, the pace continues...

I've often blogged in the past about our work of finding children who have been trafficked from rural areas to factories in Ho Chi Minh City. These kids, sometimes as young as ten, slave away for little or even no pay while their parents believe they are learning a trade. In reality, they're just factory fodder.

Up til now, we've rescued close to 60 kids - both boys and girls - from such situations. And today, Blue Dragon staff are back in the industrial neighbourhoods of HCMC looking for kids whose parents have asked for our help to get their children home.

But a new development: somehow, the traffickers knew we were coming. They've turned off their phones so we have no way of calling or tracking them down. At the end of a whole day of searching, we've managed to secure the release of just one child.

In the next few days, progress is likely to be slow; but it's not all bad. We'd prefer to be able to find the kids and get them out, but there's some value in knowing that the traffickers are so scared. We're making their industry difficult. If we can keep up the pressure, it might just be easier for them to go and - well, get a real job.

This happened to us a couple of year back, when our anti-trafficking work was focused on children who had been forced to sell flowers on the streets. There are still a few kids doing that, but in nothing like the numbers who we first saw in 2005. Eventually, our constant harrassment of the traffickers lead them to simply give up and do something else.

Could we be heading the same way with the factory traffickers?


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Christmas party in Hoi An!

Here are some pics from the Christmas party at the Hoi An Children's Home last night... They even had a visit from multiple Santas!





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Christmas fun, and a cat

Today we've been learning juggling and circus acts - yeeha, and so far no broken bones!





... and... one of our boys found a stray a kitten outside the Blue Dragon centre. The cat - now named Tom - is in pretty shaky health, so after spending a couple of nights at our centre and residence, Tom is now convalescing at a local veterinary hospital. We're hoping that Tom will be back with us, in better shape, very soon.



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I made this!

A pic from the Hoi An Children's Home, where one of the boys has put his artistic talents to a Christmas endeavour...

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It begins: Beardless Santa Strikes

Christmas is coming!

Hanoi is abuzz with Christmas trees, Santa Claus, and fake snow!

The kids at Blue Dragon's Sunday soccer game had a special visit yesterday - Santa himself (aka Binh, Blue Dragon's rather unique tap-dancing, cheer-leading IT teacher) put in an appearance, laden with gifts, much to the delight of the 50 or so boys and girls who turned up.

Happiness all round...





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Angels and Dragons

We're having a real rollercoaster of a week...

...One of the former Blue Dragon kids, Binh, has just gotten married...

...his youngest brother is in hospital with a serious head injury from a motorbike accident...

...one of the original Blue Dragon kids - Minh, now in his 20s - has announced that he's getting married in January...

...our staff have taken the runaway boy Tiep home to his family - although it seems pretty clear that he won't be going back to live with his mother ever again...

...another runway boy, who has been living on the streets for many months, also went back to his family with the Blue Dragon staff - but again, there's not much prospect that this family is going to stick together...

...and one of our friendliest neighbours died unexpectedly. (When you have a drop in centre and residential home on any street in any country, friendly neighbours are hard to come by!)

... and it's not even Wednesday yet!

Meanwhile, the Sofitel Plaza in Hanoi is helping us to raise money for the street kids we work with. They've set up a huge Christmas tree, and are selling Blue Dragon dolls in their lobby. They even have an angel working there to sell the dragons! It's nice to get a helping hand like this - it all helps...



In response to Terynn's comment - here are the dragons!




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