3 new houses

Blue Dragon has just finished building 3 houses for families in central Vietnam; take a look at the change!


Hoang's house before...

... and after:

Thai's house before... 

and after:

 And Van's house before...

... and after (painting still to be finished!):

Each of these houses cost between $2000 and $2500 to build, with all the money coming from Rally Indochina 2012. (If you haven't heard about the Rally yet, take a look at their website for the April 2013 rally).

This weekend, some kids and parents are sleeping in a secure, well built house for the first time in their lives.

Dragon House

Monday was the day we've been building up to for the past 2 years: the opening of a new centre for Hanoi's street kids.

 

The Blue Dragon team is exhausted but running on adrenaline - and we still have plenty of that!

Our new centre has opened its doors, even though the builders haven't quite finished their work. I don't want to post a photo of the front of the building just yet, because there is still construction work being done, but this time next week we'll be fully ready to go.

Regardless, our first day was wonderful. Finally the kids have a huge space to play, with endless sunlight streaming through the windows. Because of construction work, we decided to not open up the ground-floor drop-in centre, but instead create a temporary centre on the second floor.

The kids loved it; even though it's temporary, it was still more spacious than the centre we've occupied for the past 5 years! The sense of open space led the kids to spread out, find spaces with their friends and relax. 

Several of the older kids, who now live independently and have their owns jobs (and, in some cases, their own businesses!) came along to visit or help. It was lovely to see the older guys hanging out with the younger kids. 

Lunch was great, even though the kitchen is also not quite ready to use. We ordered in 'bun cha' and had a feast - nobody went hungry, that's for sure! 

So the centre needs a few finishing touches.... like doors, windows, and gates. But we're nearly there!

And after much discussion and deliberation, we're proud to announce the name for our new centre:

Dragon House.

The various Blue Dragon centres over the years invariably end up being named after the house number: 66, 32, 18, 51... It sounds a bit too much like we've been playing bingo! So this time, the house has a name.

We're honoured to be borrowing this name from author John Shors, who published a novel named Dragon House back in 2009. John and I have been great friends since then; John used the book to raise support for our work in Vietnam, and even though the story is completely fictional, I always recommend Dragon House to anybody who wants to know what life is really like for Vietnamese street kids.

So life is now imitating art, and the Blue Dragon kids have a centre that shares a name with John's novel.

Dragon House is already an awesome place. In coming weeks, as we add the finishing touches and really make it our home, it's going to be even more amazing.

Re-booted

We're back!

Blue Dragon United has its fields back!

After about 5 months of not having access to the 3 fields we have played on over the past 9 years, today was the first game of the Blue Dragon soccer team.

And a record number of kids came: 85!

The countdown

Blue Dragon's new centre for street kids opens in 2 weeks... and here's how the renovations are looking!

(Click on the pictures to get a larger view). 
  

 

The main building now has an extension to give the kids a much larger space to play. The ramp leads to a parking area for the children's bicycles!

As for the inside of the building, the bad news is that we asked Bluey to do it...

Not long now... We're counting the days! Moving starts Thursday September 13th.

Massive Interventions

A few years ago, my team at Blue Dragon set out to write our mission statements.

This was not just an academic exercise; we wanted to capture the spirit and essence of our work with Vietnam's street kids. We wanted to be sure that, no matter what may change in our organisation in the future, our spirit and philosophy would carry on.

Among the various philosophical statements we came up with, one was just a little controversial:

Massive interventions, not quick fix solutions.

We added to this an explanation:

We tackle the problem of poverty from every angle, rather than focusing on one obvious cause or effect. Our interventions may take years, as we persist until we are successful.

 Some friends who looked over our drafts felt uncomfortable with this. "Massive interventions" just sounded too brutal; it had a whiff of wanting to conquer and dominate.

However, we kept it in the list of statements (I'll put the whole list below) because it summarised our view that to really help someone out of poverty, and really make a lasting change, our work had to be comprehensive, all-encompassing, and lasting.

Over the weekend I caught up with one of the Blue Dragon boys from Hue, named Cuong. He strikes me as a perfect example of the sort of "massive intervention" we had in mind when we wrote that.

He's 16 years old, and when we met him back in 2009 he lived in a tin shack with his family. Cuong had dropped out of school, which was hardly a surprise; it's unbelievably hard to live in a hot tin shack with no electricity and no place to study, then take yourself off to school every morning.

Cuong's old house...

And with his family's only income from fishing - which is poorly paid, dangerous, and seasonal - Cuong could hardly see any hope for a better tomorrow. What's the point of going to school when there's no future anyway?

Cuong's life today is incredibly - massively - different.

In 2011 we built Cuong's family a new brick house, replacing the tin shack with much greater comfort and protection from typhoons... and with electricity.

... and the new one being painted!

We then invited his mother to join an income generating activity we had started in their village. Today, Cuong's mother raises fish in a set of cages in the nearby lagoon. The money she makes has more than doubled the family's income in just one year.

As for his studies, Cuong is now studying in an internationally certified motorbike repair training program. He's about two thirds of the way through his course, and just loves it.


On top of all this is the mentoring he and his family have received over the years; the social activities we organise every week; and the encouragement Cuong gets just from being part of Blue Dragon.

Through these few interventions designed not only for Cuong, but also his family and community, Cuong has reason to hope for the future. His family is not rich, but they are no longer living in poverty, hungry during the off-season for fishing, and vulnerable to child trafficking.

"Massive interventions." I'm glad we kept that phrase, because I've really grown to like it.

Legalities

Just a week, and hundreds of lives have been changed.

The big news of the week is that the Blue Dragon team succeeded in finding a young woman who had been trafficked into China, and brought her home. She's safe and well, but once again I can't say much more until the police work is done. It's quite a story, and I hope I can tell it soon.

The handover 

Just out of interest, the photo above is of the 'handover ceremony' held at the crossing between China and Vietnam. The red line on the road is the international border. Each time we bring a girl back from being trafficked, a small ceremony like this takes place as she returns to Vietnam.

On the anti-trafficking front, we had another reason to celebrate this week, although to most of the developed world our reason must seem a little odd. Our staff worked in Loc Tri commune of Hue province to register all the 'unregistered' citizens we could find. In total, we registered 399 children and adults. So the population of Loc Tri went from about 9,000 to about 9,399 in 2 days! 

Sign me up! 

What does this have to do with trafficking? Quite a lot, in fact.

Throughout Vietnam, tens of thousands of people are unregistered. This means they have no birth certificate, no ID card, no driver's licence - nothing to 'prove' that they exist. Without such paperwork, they cannot access government services, like school and healthcare.

We've known for a long time that kids who drop out of school are at the highest risk by far of being targeted by traffickers. But what we have also learned along the way is that, without paperwork, the rescue of trafficking victims is much, much harder. How can police open a case file on a person who doesn't officially exist? How can the police in China or Cambodia - or England or Australia - facilitate the return home of someone who has no documentation at all?

So our staff worked with the Hue government, focusing on just one commune, to ensure that everyone has the paperwork that they need. It was a busy 2 days, but 399 people now have extra protection against trafficking, and can access all the services that it is their right to do so.

Weekly roundup

What a whirlwind this past week has been!

My own week started in Hue, where Blue Dragon is fighting against child trafficking. However, I was there for a different purpose: I was catching up with one of the street kids from Hanoi has been... well... 'recovering' in Hue for the past few months. He's a young guy (let's call him "Minh") who has a good heart but was finding himself in all sorts of difficulties in the big city, so headed to the quieter environs of Hue to work and study. The change has been fantastic for him.

Despite the fresh start, Minh has been having some difficult times, and as it was his birthday I went down on a surprise visit to spend a couple of days with him.

Back in Hanoi, much of the week was taken up with meetings, supervising the renovations and construction of our new centre, and planning for the BIG MOVE on September 15. We even transported our first truckload over, although renovations have a few more weeks to go.

This new centre is a great step for us. After 5 years in our current centre, we've well and truly outgrown the building and need a whole lot more space for all the kids. There are so many facets of our work that we either didn't have, or were very small, 5 years ago. The new centre should be big enough to see us through the next 10 years. And thanks to some skillful negotiations by my staff, the landlord has agreed to not increase the rent for the whole 10 years that we will be there!

The end of the week saw one of our friends, a 20 year old named Hai, undergo heart surgery. Hai had a stroke some months ago, and on investigation doctors found that his heart had an abnormality which needed to be corrected. As I write, Hai is recovering from the operation, which took almost 10 hours on Thursday night.

Blue Dragon's main role through this has been to provide guidance and advice for Hai and his family. Before coming to us, they had not been told that Hai needed to exercise in order to recover some strength from the stroke: they believed that no recovery was possible.

Hai, in the trendy green hospital outfit, with his cousin. 

They were also expecting to wait until February for the operation to take place, even though there has been some urgency about correcting the problem quickly. Our staff were able to help the family, who have no experience of Hanoi bureaucracy, navigate through the hospital system and get much better care for no extra cost. 


While Hai had his surgery, 2 Blue Dragon staff set off on an operation of a different sort: looking for a young woman who was trafficked from Vietnam into China to be sold as a bride. The young woman is with them now, but they are still a long way from home so I can't say much. Until they are back, it's hard to rest. Every such trip has an element of danger, and while this trip has been relatively simple so far, I'll be very happy to see the 3 of them safely home.

And to top the week off, Hanoi delivered up a typhoon on Friday evening. Fortunately it has worn itself out sufficiently to allow us to get back to work on Sunday with a meeting for all of the families of the children we work with in Hanoi.

As always, there's much to hope for. More news to come soon.

... and closer...

Work at the new Blue Dragon centre is switching now to extending the drop-in centre, where the kids will play and join in activities. The foundations have been put down, and soon the frame will be put in place... 

Closer...

With just over a month to go before the new Blue Dragon centre opens, preparations are coming along fine.

Internal renovations are more than halfway done, and the next step is to build an extension of the Drop-In Centre. If the rain holds off in coming weeks, we will get there on time!

Where have all the street kids gone?

It was about 10 years ago that I first arrived in Hanoi, fresh from the south of Vietnam to teach English to post-grad economics students.

On the surface, Hanoi was a very different place then. There was much less conspicuous wealth at that time; people were stashing their gold under mattresses, afraid to 'flaunt it' as they do now. But the wealth was there, it was just hidden.

The situation of street kids has followed an opposite pattern. Ten years ago, street kids were very visible in Hanoi. The photo above, taken in 2003, shows a few shoeshine boys from Hung Yen province, working on Hang Gai street, famous for its boutique silk shops. Such scenes were typical at the time. Street kids were pretty much everywhere.

Today, I often hear people commenting that Hanoi "doesn't have street kids." And on the surface, the city does seem strangely void of children begging, selling, and cleaning shoes. Just as often, people ask me: Why don't you work in Cambodia, where there's 'real' need?

Comments like this miss the point that, as with so much in Vietnam, there is always more than meets the eye. Far, far more.

Street kids in Hanoi try to camouflage themselves to fit in and hide among the mainstream. Standing out means discrimination, and possibly even detention in a "Social Protection Centre" or Reform School.

The camouflage takes many shapes. Street kids now try to dress like everybody else; they have learned that dressing in the cheaper, simpler clothes of their countryside makes them easy to identify.

The kids have also learned that certain times and places are safer to work. Safer, because the chance of being caught is considerably less. What times are safest? The kids have found that late at night is their best chance to earn money. Problem is, what kind of work can they do at night? Legitimate ways of earning money are much more difficult, so many kids have turned to theft and prostitution. These "jobs" also yield much greater income than the traditional jobs like shining shoes and selling bread.To avoid getting in trouble with the law, many kids have turned to breaking the law.

And finally, the kids are masters at finding places to sleep where nobody can find them. For those who hit the jackpot with a big income one night, they may head off to a hotel for a few days, often inviting their friends to join them until the money runs out. Others become expert tree climbers and hide out right under the noses - or, more accurately, above the heads - of tourists around Hoan Kiem Lake in trees like these.

It's been fascinating to watch the development of Vietnam these past 10 years. I find it hard to say that the lives of street kids are any better than they were when I first arrived, but there's no doubt that things are very different for them.

Bluey gets busy

Blue Dragon is moving. We're opening 2 new centres, relocating our classrooms and offices, and expanding our services.

It's all very serious business.

And that's why we've given the task of showing our renovation / construction process to Bluey.

Be warned: prepare to smile.

Bluey gets busy.

And now for the wedding

For 4 years, Diu and Duyen spent every day, every hour, together. Not because they wanted to, but because they were enslaved in a garment factory in the south of Vietnam.

On July 4, Blue Dragon staff took part in a police raid on the factory - the culmination of weeks of detective work by our legal advocacy team.

Now back home in north western Dien Bien province, high up in the mountains away from the bustling cities, Diu and Duyen have decided that they want to spend the rest of their lives together. With a very humble ceremony in their village over the weekend, they celebrated their wedding. As is the local custom, Duyen's hair is now tied up in a bun, symbolising that she is married; no longer does she wear her hair long, as the unmarried girls do.

It was a beautiful honour that they asked our staff back to take part in the wedding; and they were thrilled at the prospect of their photo being on the Blue Dragon blog! 

This is a beautiful young couple who deserve the best in life. The last few years have been terrible to them, but for now they are excited about their future together.

Things I don't believe in...

I don't normally link to other people's blogs, but I came across a great post today that made me say "Yes!"

For some reason, there's a general belief around that handicrafts are a good industry for disadvantaged people (especially trafficked women) to get into. I've always been perplexed by this. There's nothing wrong with handicrafts, and I am sure there are people all around the world who are interested in careers in the industry. But some trafficked women would prefer to go to university. Or get into hospitality. Or marketing. Or work in a factory. Or finish high school. Or...

So while there's nothing inherently wrong with handicrafts, there's also nothing inherent about people in poverty that makes handicrafts a good career choice for them.

Today I stumbled across this blog post - Things I don't believe in: Handicraft projects and wanted to share it, as it's the first time I have found someone who I agree with on this topic!

This is how it begins

Renovation and construction is underway. Thanks to our friends around the world, Blue Dragon is preparing to open a new, much larger, centre for Hanoi's street kids.

Before the workers could do anything, a ceremony had to take place... Not really 'the norm' in western countries, but construction cannot take place in Vietnam without some kind of ritual first! 

And then, the work begins...

We're starting on the ground floor, adding some bathrooms (yes, with disability access) to the space that will soon be the drop-in centre. 

We believe the work will all be finished in 5-6 weeks... so the next thing for us to do is prepare the opening party!

We can end it here, too

I recently came across an article in the Huffington Post about this photograph, taken in 1912 in the US:

 

The 11 year old boy pictured has just lost 2 fingers, and had his toes crushed, in a workplace accident... in a garment factory. More of the story is here.

The resemblance between this little boy 100 years ago, and the conditions faced by Vietnamese children in garment factories today, is startling.

In one way, that's a bleak assessment: the exploitation of children in American garment factories was a problem 100 years ago, and is still a problem today in Vietnam. But it's also a reason for hope.

If the US could get rid of this problem, so too can Vietnam. 

Still linked

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the importance of providing ongoing support to victims of human trafficking rather than just the initial 'big bang' of the rescue trip.

Since then, I have been thinking about some of the street kids who have been with Blue Dragon over the years. There are kids at our centre, now in their mid to late teens, who have been around for 5 years or more.

One particular group of kids have been familiar faces at Blue Dragon since 2006. I met them when they were living on the streets: some had been there for years already, while others were new to Hanoi and had joined up with the group only recently.

These same kids are mostly unrecognisable now.  In 2006, they were dirty and barefooted; one of the boys once told me he preferred to go without shoes because he could run away from the police faster that way.

Their behavior was wild; other kids feared them, and even some of the staff were afraid to get involved.

 2007: The Link kids in a cooking class at Blue Dragon.

Reaching out to the boys - there were 8 altogether - was not only difficult, it was also controversial for us. Local police wondered what on earth we were doing working with kids they considered among their 'most wanted'! Some staff objected to the boys being around: they were often in fights, they were demanding and loud, and they refused to 'fit in' with our expectations of kids at the centre.

After about a year, we developed a program which we called "The Link." In a way, it was to create a new group for the kids to join - it was an alternative to the gangs running wild on the streets. I wrote about them here, back in October 2007.

I could write a book about the adventures, trials, joys and disasters that took place over the next few years with the Link boys. Much of it is only amusing in hindsight! Some of the boys have come and gone; 2 are in prison now, and 1 has vanished but is probably in prison somewhere. When they come out, we'll catch up again and maybe even help them get back on their feet.

So they certainly have not all done spectacularly well. But some have.

One has recently finished an apprenticeship as a trainee motorbike mechanic, and has just returned to his countryside to help out in the family business.

Two are working in restaurants; one is doing particularly well as a barman and comes in to the centre to study English several times a week.

And even those kids who are not employed right now are still in contact, still linked in to Blue Dragon in their own ways. The door is always open to them, and they connect with us at least a couple of times each month.

Perhaps the real success of Blue Dragon is something that can only be properly measured in years to come, when we look back at the thousands of street kids we've brought in to our family and see how they've progressed over time.

Until then, there are plenty of indications that our work is all worthwhile.

Brothers

Here's a rare shot of the massive divide between Hanoi's urban development, and the vast majority of the country which has been untouched by the supposed 'economic miracle' of the recent years.

These boys are brothers.

One lives with Blue Dragon in Hanoi; he spent some years surviving on the streets but now resides in our Shelter. He goes to school, loves playing on the internet, and is in every way a 'typical' modern kid.

His brother has never been to school, has never left the immediate district where he lives, and has never seen a computer. Sadly, for the province in which he lives, this too is typical.

This is not a drive by

Seven youths, aged about 15 to 20, have made it home to their families in the remote mountains of Vietnam after up to 4 years in captivity in a garment factory.

Some are illiterate and innumerate, with no understanding of what money is or how it is used.

Some have never seen a bowl of pho before.

None know their date of birth.

Extremely vulnerable, desperately impoverished, and living in ethnic minority villages off the electricity grid, these kids were deceived by a trafficker offering them training and an income. Instead, they were locked into a factory, refused permission to go home, and paid absolutely nothing.

They worked 18 hours a day, eating nothing but steamed rice and instant noodles. Beatings and physical punishment were routine.

Now they're home. But Blue Dragon is not finished yet.

Having found the building where they were enslaved and garnered the support of police and local officials to raid the factory, we now have 2 more commitments to fulfill.

First, the trafficker needs to be prosecuted. Not out of revenge, but according to the law. He and his wife put these 7 young people through hell. He assumed that, because they were poor and vulnerable, nobody would care. That is not acceptable, and the kids need to see that the law is there to protect them.

And second, these 7 young people will need ongoing support, care, and education. It's not enough for us to give them their freedom; we cannot expect a fairytale ending. They need significant assistance to get their lives back on track.

We are proud to have rescued these kids out of slavery, but the true worth of our work will be in what we do over the coming months and years. Like the hit song says: This is not a drive by. We're here for the long term.

... And just in case you didn't see this on the Blue Dragon Facebook page, we've just created this short film documenting the story of one girl from Hue, Diep, who was also trafficked to a garment factory.

Independence Day

In early June, my team from Blue Dragon went searching through the garment factories of Saigon to find 10 kids who had been trafficked from Dien Bien province.

These kids are all from ethnic minority villages, which means they are vulnerable to exploitation. In ethnic minority areas, levels of education are lower; many villagers have no experience of the 'outside world'; and indeed many do not even speak Vietnamese.

Our trip was only a partial success; we found 7 of the kids, and were very happy to take them home. But 3 remained missing.

These rescue trips are emotionally demanding, yet almost always end on a high note. There's nothing more satisfying than giving children back their freedom.

However, the June trip wasn't a 'high'. We were thrilled to have the 7 kids back - but the thought that there were more young people waiting for us to find them was painful. Their families, too, were worried sick.

Because they are from remote rural areas - at least 16 hours drive from Hanoi, or 3 hours from the nearest airport - and because of language and cultural differences, we found it hard to get clear information. How old were the kids? How long had they been gone? Many things were uncertain.

One of the kids in this particular factory had managed to secretly get hold of a mobile phone. If he was caught with it, the consequences would be severe. So he could use it only for a few minutes at a time, late at night... usually well after midnight, and sometimes as late as 4am. He'd been sending messages to his mother in Dien Bien, so she gave us the number and Blue Dragon staff started making regular late-night contact.

The group of kids were being held in a factory on the outskirts of Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City). It's a semi-rural area, so there were no signs or landmarks to give away the location. They simply didn't know where they were.

Over a couple of weeks, we put together all the information that we could to work out where they might be, and on Sunday last week our lawyer, Van, traveled to Saigon to look for them one more time. Another of our staff headed up to Dien Bien to take statements from the families and find out more information. Our goal was not only to find the kids, but to provide the police with enough information that they too would take an interest in the case.

Through a LOT of determination and a little bit of luck, on Monday we located the factory where the kids were being held. On Wednesday July 4, while the US celebrated Independence Day, Blue Dragon staff worked alongside Vietnamese police, government officials, and journalists, to raid the factory and set free the 7 young people enslaved there.

The 6 boys and 1 girl are aged from 15 to 20. Some have been in captivity for 4 years. All are from ethnic minority villages in mountainous regions of Vietnam.

The factory owners, a husband and wife team, thought that they could trick and exploit these vulnerable young people, and that nobody would ever find out. The neighbours in the surrounding homes were genuinely shocked to learn of what was happening right under their noses; they've already dug deep to give the 7 youngsters some money for their journey home.

In coming days, the police will decide the fate of the husband and wife. They definitely have to pay compensation to the kids, and that's due immediately - the kids will have it in their hands when they return home.

For now, the 7 kids are with Blue Dragon staff, having some much needed rest and making statements to the police about their ordeal. Soon they'll be heading home, back to their families, with the rest of their lives ahead of them.

Happy Independence Day, kids.

Tripping

Blue Dragon kids are enjoying the summer holidays; it's sweltering hot, in between massive rainstorms, and our centre near the Red River is packed all day. (We are so glad that we'll have a much bigger space for next year!)

As part of our summer plan, we've taken 2 groups of kids out of the city for an overnight stay at Halong Bay. We've been incredibly fortunate to have the support of the Ha Long Pearl hotel, which not only sponsored the trips but also treated our kids like kings and queens! Buffalo Tours, meanwhile, provided the buses - so we were well taken care of.

Our first trip was for both kids with disabilities and their family members: a huge undertaking to organise more than 80 people for a trip out of the city! But everyone had a great time; both the activities inside the hotel, and the games at the beach, were a welcome treat for everyone.

 

Our second trip was focused on the kids at Blue Dragon who have done particularly well at school this past year - whether through effort or achievement. Even some older kids, who have left school but are in jobs or training, went along as a reward for their great work.

Both events finished with the hotel manager, Eddie, and his team delivering gifts to the kids.

So much of Blue Dragon's work is serious and urgent - it was nice to have a change of pace and give the kids a trip they'll surely remember forever.

(And special thanks to photographer Michael Fountoulakis for coming along on both trips!)