From the streets of San Fransisco

Today I am in another world.

San Fransisco - the weather is gorgeous, the streets are wide and the shops open at lunch time.

The flight over here was interrupted because of the latest conspiracy out of England... I lost my toothpaste in Hong Kong, lest that Colgate be used for evil.

I am now with two of my best friends: Hugh Adams, who invited me on this trip, and Pham Sy Chung from Vietnam. Back in the very earliest days of Blue Dragon, Chung was working with me - before there was even an intention to start an NGO (Non-Government Organisation), Chung was working alongside me to help street kids in Hanoi. (That's Chung in the photo. He won't be happy when he sees I've stolen his university photo).

And, by coincidence, it was Chung who introduced me to Hugh. Since then, Hugh has relocated to Fiji, and Chung has moved to Santa Monica where he studies at Rand. But today we are together again. Just like before, except in a different country. And the street kids here have MP3 players.

Back in Vietnam, as I sat waiting for the taxi to pick me up from our street kids' center, a new development arose that is playing on my mind.

Anyone who knows Blue Dragon - anyone who reads this blog - will know that our kids go through a lot. They are at the bottom of the social ladder. Everyone is out to get them.

We've been working hard to change that, though. Our local policeman, Mr Thang, is even about to start coming around to the center to have some informal workshops with the kids on how to stay out of trouble with the law. That kind of thing is extremely rare in Vietnam.

But on Wednesday, as I was about to leave, I learned something truly shocking. A new, all-time low, I think.

Some of our kids have reported being locked in a room and beaten, quite savagely, and they have the bruises, scars, and witnesses to prove it.

Why were they beaten? Somebody had been robbed, and they were beating the children in the hope that one of them would know who had stolen the money, and would confess the information.

So, the big question: Who was this? The police? No.

A local householder, a private citizen? No.

It was another NGO. That's right, another charity. A charity that's fully foreign funded, and claims to help street children.

Now, the NGO community tends to stay closed-lipped about each other's dirty laundry. Some pretty awful deeds are done in the name of charity, but usually nobody says anything.

But this action goes right against everything I believe in, and everything my staff and I have worked for over the past few years.

We won't stay quiet about this.

Van, our lawyer, has started talking to the kids to find out the details and verify if this is all true. While my first instinct is to believe the kids - or at least believe that there is SOME element of truth in what they say - we do need to confirm, to be sure, before we take action.

Of course, I am about to get on a boat and sail to Hawaii, so I won't be writing any more about this for a while. But if these kids are telling the truth, then there will certainly be some follow up to come.

As always, stay tuned.

It's time

... Time to go!

I plan to pack my bags this afternoon, at the last minute as usual, while the taxi is outside beeping for me.

Tonight I go to Saigon, and then on to San Fransisco. And then on to the sail boat!

While I am away, Blue Dragon's Arts and Theatre coordinator, Skye, will keep this blog alive by posting news of the kids. It may be a couple of weeks before I have internet access again.

Saying farewell to all the kids is incredibly difficult, but it's a selfish sorrow that I am feeling. Right now the kids at our center are doing amazingly well. And they will continue to do well while I am away - it's just that I won't be there to see them...

We've had some good news about funding in the last week or so.

World Vision is looking quite likely to continue the support of our Step Ahead program, and they have also offered a small grant to pay for school text books for over 300 kids.

And the New Zealand Embassy has offered to support our legal advocacy work - which means we can really make our work more professional and organised, and so reach many more children in need.

The NZ Embassy has also confirmed that it will fund a proposal by the Disability Forum to develop training packages and resources for staff involved with disabled youth. Blue Dragon will work with the Forum on the implementation of some parts of that proposal, as we have a HUGE need to develop our abilities in that area.

This is all exciting news, but there's more...

On Monday of this week, three of our kids started at a new school.

Most Blue Dragon kids attend a local charity school, which is OK, but as time goes by more and more of the children are aspiring to go to university. The charity school just doesn't have a high enough standard to get them there.

So Chinh, Hue and Can have started studying at a private school, a few kilometers away but only 20 minutes by bus.

Chinh and Hue are brother and sister; they were both forced to leave home in the countryside after their mother died and their father remarried. Chinh was shining shoes when we met him. He's one of the smartest, funniest, most likable kids I have met... And his sister, although much more shy, is a beautiful soul too.

Can is only 12 years old, and he is one of the kids we rescued from child traffickers a few months back. He's another very bright boy - after just a few days, he's thriving in his new school environment already.

Every now and then I meet somebody who tells me that I am wasting my time with Blue Dragon: street kids are lazy, dishonest, sneaky, stupid.

But as I set off on my sailing adventure I am already thinking about my return to Vietnam, and to the children's center. I am already filled with excited anticipation - what news will await me?

What progress will Hue, Chinh, and Can have made?

Which university will Hoang be enrolled in?

How many more children will have their births registered, so they can be officially recognised by the government?

But first, I have an ocean to cross.

Trailer Trash sets sail

From time to time, people (including my own sister!) tell me that I should include more personal info on my blog and in the Blue Dragon newsletters.

I don't write about myself, because - well, I don't aspire to being a celebrity. I am here for the kids, not for my own glorification.

But today I will tell you something that not many people have known up until now:

I used to live in a caravan. On a vacant block of land on a dirt road. With no electricity, telephone, or running water.

That's right - I'm trailer trash!

This was back when I was a teenager, and my family thought it would be a great idea to leave the city behind (I lived in Sydney for my first 12 years) and go rural.

They were tough times. Teenagers like to have - well, electricity and telephones, for example.

So why this sudden outburst of personal revelation?

In a way, I offer this insight into my own history as something of an apology, or at least an explanation. Because I am about to do something that, by my own standards, is incredibly self indulgent. Yes, I would say that I even feel a little guilty about it.

I am going sailing.

On Thursday morning, I will fly to America to meet Hugh Adams, a very good friend who used to live in Hanoi, along with his wife Susan. Hugh and Susan were among the very first supporters of Blue Dragon - even before we officially existed.

Hugh has bought a sailing boat, moored in San Fransisco, and must sail it to his home in Fiji, travelling via Hawaii.

He has asked me to accompany him on this journey.

I have never done anything like this before - unless you count a day trip on Halong Bay. I am under no illusion that this will be an easy trip, but I do expect it to be amazing.

The Pacific Ocean... peace and quiet... the sound of the waves slapping against the boat...

(To those of you thinking "Seasickness... storms... sharks..." CUT IT OUT).


Artist's impression

Believe it or not, this is not a simple decision for me to make. I'll be away from the kids for at least 2 or 3 weeks! We're a family now, how can I leave them like this?

And what about Wheels, my dog? She hates it when I go away!

And what about all the admin that I have to take care of? (Oh wait, that was one of the reasons I decided to take the trip).

But I am going. I've never done anything like this before, and most likely I never will have this chance again.

I'm going. I'm going. But I will be back.

The kids are taking over

Another week, another change at Blue Dragon.

Many of our friends will know our staff member Huong, coordinator of the Stay In School program. This week, Huong finished up with Blue Dragon, to move on to a teaching career in a university.

Stay In School is a fantastically successful program. From next month, there will be 350 children in rural districts supported through the program to (as the name suggests) stay in school. Our success rate is huge - in the past 2 years, only 2 or 3 kids have dropped out of school.

But staff-wise, SIS has not been so successful. Huong was our 4th coordinator in two years!

The problem is that Blue Dragon hires young people - mostly due to budget - and once they are with us, they learn so much that they are quickly snapped up by other organisations.

So I am not hiring another coordinator - four is enough!

I'm handing the job over to the kids.

Here in Hanoi, we work with well over 100 street kids, and a few are perfectly capable of learning the basics of the Stay In School administration.

The kids tend to be here for years, too. Many of the kids in the program have been around longer than any staff member (excluding myself).

We have already started the process of teaming up kids with admin staff to work together on Stay In School. Of course, the kids can't do all of the job themselves...

Not yet, anyway.

Friends

A brief post to let everybody know that the Blue Dragon newsletter, Friends, is finished and can be downloaded here.

And while you're downloading...

The whole Blue Dragon website has been refurbished - take a look!

www.bdcf.org

The new site has been designed by a volunteer, Iain Purdie. We owe you big time, Iain.

Mothers, swimmers, and dragons

It's midday Friday, and I am sitting in my office at the Blue Dragon center.

The last 24 hours have been quite full, and I am still processing what I have seen and done.

Thursday morning started in Hue, in Central Vietnam, where Blue Dragon has helped about 25 families whose children were trafficked to Saigon. Our lawyer, Van, met me there (I travelled north from my holiday in Hoi An, he travelled south from Hanoi) so that we could see the families and make sure they were able to enrol their kids for the coming school year.

As we travelled about, we came across a quite exceptional family living on the beach.

Their house was tiny and cramped, made of scrap and lacking electricity. We only saw the mother, as the father was out working as a fisherman.

The four children were home - including the youngest two, who were infant twins, born by caesarean.

Van and I were drawn to this home by an unusual sight: a huge frame, hanging near the door, filled with certificates of excellence from the school of the two older children - 10 certificates in all.

This mother was so proud of her children's achievements that she had given their certificates pride of place in the home. Her son and daughter study at night by tiny oil lamps - undoubtedly to the detriment of their vision - but despite all of their hardships, they are succeeding.

And that's not all. Here's the real twist to the tale: A trafficker named Phuc has come to buy the children, offering nearly $200 each. The trafficker has come five times to try to convince the mother.

Five times.

The family could use the money to pay off most of their debt.

Or they could get the electricity connected.

Or they could repair their tiny house.

But this mother wants her kids in school, and she refuses to succumb to the trafficker's pleas.

What a beautiful mum.

Now that I am back at work, I have a mountain of paperwork to see to - so I did the only sensible thing this morning, and went swimming.

While I was on holiday, our staff started swimming lessons for street kids. Each adult is responsible for teaching just 2 or 3 kids.

What a great thing to see: children who love the water actually learning how to swim, how to survive.

I had expected that the kids would be most interested in playing about rather than learning, but what I saw this morning was terrific - they were really putting an effort into practising their breathing, or strokes, and asking the teachers questions about technique. Well done, kids! You've given me a way to avoid my work while feeling that I am doing something good.


(Swimming photos by Adam Hurley - thanks Adam!)

And finally - some Aussie dragons. Sophie from the Shout! group at North Sydney High recently sent me a CD of photos of her school mates dragon dancing earlier this year to raise funds for Blue Dragon.

Dragon dancing is a common activity in Vietnam and China, loaded with symbolism and tradition.

The girls at North Sydney might not have captured all of that symbolism and meaning - but more than made up for it with enthusiasm and laughs!

Thanks, girls.

Where am I?

It’s been a while since I last blogged – but no, I haven’t been abducted by aliens (would you be surprised if I was?)

In fact, I’ve been on holidays in beautiful Hoian. I kept this off the blog until now, because last time I was away for an extended period, somebody took the opportunity to break into my office and steal the main Blue Dragon computer. We got it back, but it took a flurry of emails between Sydney, Sai Gon and Ha Noi; and my lead Social Worker had to pretend that he isn’t Vietnamese. Considering how much work that took, I thought I’d just shut up about being out of town this time. (And I really don’t think that Tung wanted to go through the ‘me no speak Vietnamese’ routine again).

So – Hoian. Fantastic beaches, the best food in Vietnam, and friendly people everywhere.

I’ve been hanging out at the Blue Dragon restaurant most of the time. This isn’t my restaurant, but a privately owned business run by some Vietnamese friends of mine. I helped them get started, and they help Blue Dragon by donating part of their profit every month. It’s a perfect arrangement.

As usual, I haven’t been able to stay away from work completely. Today while I was at Ha My beach, I got talking to some staff who are building a new resort right on the beach. The staff, Dung and Anh, were 15 and 13 years old respectively, and work 11 hours a day, 7 days per week, in return for less than $30US per month.

Naturally, I expect that this is because the owners of the resort are:

a) Very poor people, who have somehow scraped together a few million dollars to develop this new complex - or

b) Planning to make this a very inexpensive resort - $5 per night, children stay for free! – or

c) Greedy bastards who don’t mind exploiting children.

Take your pick. And where’s John Pilger when you need him?

This is not an unusual practice, though. My friend who owns the Blue Dragon restaurant once worked for Victoria Resort, where he too earned about $30 per month. I wonder if the people staying at these places realise how little the staff are paid?

Something to celebrate

We've had a few exciting events this week that are definitely worth sharing.

On Wednesday morning, Blue Dragon threw a party for 12 of our kids who have received Certificates of Excellence for their results in the 2005-06 school year. Although they've already been given their certificates, issued by their schools, we made up a special Blue Dragon certificate for them to hang on their walls as well.


Their achievement is truly something to celebrate. It would be so easy for them to accept their difficult situations and drop out of school, or perform poorly, and blame it on their poverty. But they haven't done that, and so the future is theirs for the taking.

At the same party, we awarded certificates to children who received bicycles from us last year... and who still have them!

It's easy for our kids to 'lose' their bikes - which may mean that they sold them, or gave them to a relative who demanded it. There's a lot of theft in our area, too, so the kids must take extra precautions to keep their property safe. Our small ceremony was intended to congratulate those kids who have cared for the bicycles, and so have shown that they value what they own.

Also this week, we have started a new program for our kids: a daily lunch hour for our most malnourished children.

A few years back, an Australian man living in Hanoi who works as a "development economist" told me in all seriousness that there is no malnutrition in Hanoi. I don't know who was paying him to believe that, but I see malnourished children EVERY DAY of the week.

Many of our kids are physically under developed, and their minds are much 'younger' than they ought to be, too. So of course, these kids are way behind in school, and every week we are dealing with the health issues that arise as a result: ulcers, infections, and all kinds of mystery illnesses that could be cured by some fruit and a healthy drink.

So, although we are focusing on longer-term goals such as education and training, as opposed to food handouts, many of our kids need to improve their diet in order to get ahead in life.

One of our kids (who now happens to work at The Vine) is the chef, and the meals are amazing. Brown rice, freshly made spring rolls, soup, fish, fruit, yoghurt... we've got all the bases covered. We're planning to measure the kids' growth over time, to compare with kids who do not attend the lunches, to see how effective the program is.

And one other achievement this week - a whirligig on a roof!

Countless houses in Hanoi have them; they are like an exhaust fan on the roof, sucking out hot air and creating a gentle breeze from bottom to top.

One of the boys in our program, Ha, lives in a tiny, stuffy house that is just hot all summer long. Ha's dad is severely crippled from polio, and so never, ever leaves the house.

Today, two volunteers, Eric and Andrew, climbed up onto Ha's roof, cut a hole in it, and installed the whirligig. The temperature is already a couple of degrees lower. So simple!

Another satisfied customer...

University, not brooms

Some weeks ago I mentioned that Blue Dragon was participating in the World Bank Innovation Day, competing for funds to run programs for disadvantaged youth.

Since then, a few people have written to ask me the result - we lost! Our two proposals failed to gain support.

This was kinda surprising for us, because we (obviously) believed that the proposals were very good. One was to help disadvantaged girls improve their chances of navigating through the education system; the other was to train people who work with disabled kids and youth.

So what were the winning proposals, if ours didn't make the grade?

They were much simpler proposals than ours - whereas we tried to be comprehensive (resource booklets for families, workshops with role models, training packages, a photography course and exhibition), the winning proposals were much 'neater' packages. One was simply to rent a room that children could visit; another was to teach poor children to make a video documentary about themselves.

In light of missing out on up to $20,000 in funding, my staff and I have to ask if we should have done things differently. Should we have made our proposals simpler, too?

And the answer to that is: no.

Many of the winning proposals will result in fun activities for poor children, but they'll do nothing to get anybody out of poverty.

Some proposals, in fact, were clearly aimed at keeping people IN poverty!

Activities such as teaching orphans to make straw brooms or to create paper flowers are the antithesis of anti-poverty programs. But these are the proposals that won.

Or maybe I am just naive! Maybe teaching children low-value skills, such as how to make a broom, really is a good idea. Forget computers and school, kids - the future is in straw brooms!

At the same time that we were competing for the Innovation Day funding, one of our kids - a boy named hoang - was heading to Sai Gon to sit an entrance exam to university. (Hoang is pictured below, standing with the bike).

When I met Hoang, he was a shoe shine boy. His parents had died a few years earlier in a flood, so Hoang had quit school to earn money for his elderly grandparents, and also for his younger sisters - so that they could go to school.

Blue Dragon got Hoang off the streets and into a motorbike repair course. He did really well in his studies, and then returned to the countryside where for the next two years he worked part time in a repair shop, while going to school during the evenings.

Now he's applying for uni, so that he can be a sports teacher.

Hoang is an inspiration to me, and everybody who knows him is amazed at his achievements. From shoeshine to university... it doesn't happen very often.

But if only I had persuaded Hoang to make brooms instead, I might have received that funding!

Two old ladies

This blog gives readers the wrong impression about my life.

Being the leader of a small charity is certainly exciting, exhilarating, and rewarding, but I must point one thing out: most of my time is spent doing administration.

All the stories that I put up on the blog are true, but what the stories don't reveal is that in between all the exciting bits are hours, days, and sometimes weeks of admin.

On a quiet day, I get only 15 - 20 emails; on hectic days I will have 30 or even 50 to reply to.

And it's quite normal for me to spend a day sitting in my office while there's a line at the door of people needing to talk to me about all sorts of things: the staff ("why haven't you paid me yet?"); the kids ("I need help!"); and sometimes complete oddballs ("I'm here to check that your fire extinguishers are hanging in the correct place").

Yesterday was a bit like that. Since coming back from the trip to rescue trafficked children, I've been running on a pretty low battery and the admin seems to be piling up around my ears.

But then, right at the very end of the day, a wonderful thing happened. Two old ladies dropped in to see me.

These women really were at the opposite end of the age spectrum to the people I usually talk to! And it turned out that they had walked here from their homes about 2 kilometers away.

One of them, I learned, is the grandmother of "Binh", our boy who has gone south for drug rehab. His grandmother has spent the last three months worrying about him; Binh didn't want his family to know where he was, and so his grandmother has been losing sleep night after night, wondering if he has been arrested, or if he has died...

Binh's grandmother and her friend are two of the most beautiful people I have met here in Hanoi. They were both so concerned, and yet also so polite and undemanding; they were even reluctant to accept an offer of a ride back to their homes when our meeting was over.

At the end of a long and tiring day, it was such a blessing to spend some time with the two old ladies. So good to know that when Binh returns, he will have such people caring for him.

Everybody needs a grandmother or two in their lives to dote on them and worry about them. If only all of the Blue Dragon kids had such people in their lives.

The low down

I've been keeping readers in suspense over the last week or so... I need to self-censor a little here, as many of you will understand. I'm treading the fine line between wanting to tell the world about what I've been doing, and knowing that it may be best to stay discreet.

So here it is: I finally got fed up with hoping that somebody would put a stop to the in-your-face child trafficking that goes on daily between Hue and Saigon. Hundreds of children are being taken to work 10-12 hours per night around the night clubs and bars of District One in Saigon. Many of these kids are illiterate; on Tuesday of this week I stood in a rural village surrounded by dozens of girls and boys who have never seen the inside of a school. Many of their friends have already been trafficked south, and all of the children I saw were potential victims of the traffickers.

If the problem is so obvious, why does nobody act? That's a good question, but there is no good answer. While I was in Saigon, I did see that some NGOs were involved, but their efforts were actually making things worse. One British organisation had 'helped' by giving the trafficked children a T-shirt with their logo. Terrific! Now when tourists see the kids, and recognise the logo of the charity, they will be inclined to give them more money... all of which goes directly to the traffickers.

Meanwhile, a well respected youth refuge in Saigon has been 'helping' by giving free English classes to the trafficked kids. The benefit? They can then talk more to the tourists, and so get more money out of them... And again, every cent goes immediately to the traffickers.

My own plan was twofold: get the children back to their families, and get the traffickers arrested. No fooling about with useless activities to impress the international community.

And did we succeed?

We won't know for a while just what impact our trip had. As a result of The Crying Day back in April, a big chunk of our work was already done. There are now about 20 trafficked boys and girls back with their families. They will never be trafficked again.

The other kids will be returned when the traffickers are arrested... and that part of the story isn't yet finished. It won't be long, though. Something's brewing, and there's no stopping it. But for now - more suspense and a few photos.

I'm back!

A super-quick blog tonight... Just to let people know I have returned safely to Hanoi.

Since that last entry, so much has happened - all of it good - and I look forward to telling people in coming days about our success.

One thing I can say is this: the last time I was in the backpacker area of Saigon, there was not a single trafficked child from Hue at work, and not a trafficker to be seen.

It's still too early to know the final result, but so far it looks GOOD.

(And Elizabeth! Thanks for your comment!!)

Phase 2

I have been unable to blog for the past few days, as I have been on the move and can't always get to the net.

I'm in Saigon now, with Phase 2 of our plan to free children from their traffickers. We've had a few setbacks along the way - the plan has not unfolded exactly as we had hoped - but we have very good reason to believe that the scum (that's what they are!) who are buying children in Hue and exploiting them on the streets of Saigon will soon be explaining themselves to the courts.

This is a demanding time... but the adrenaline keeps us going...

Crazy schemes

The plans I described in yesterday's blog are taking on a life of their own - 'evolving', I call it.

In a blog some months back, I described The Crying Day in a village that had learnt the truth about the fate of their children: that the traffickers were using them as slave labour, in dangerous and vulnerable conditions.

Now we know that, following that terrible day, nine families confronted the traffickers to demand that their children be allowed home. They succeeded.

But we also know that yesterday, one more trafficker was in the same village, and rounded up eight more children. This morning, the trafficker and the kids went to Saigon.

It's not all bad news, though, because we have good reason to believe that the trafficker, a woman, will soon be in prison. I'm looking forward to making that announcement soon.

Meantime I am still in Hanoi, with lots on the go here. I've just returned from seeing Narnia at the cinema with 9 of the Blue Dragon kids (compliments of Rachel and Phil - THANKS!) and the next two days will be taken up with the Vietnam Innovation Day. Our staff and vols spent this afternoon decorating booths at the Horison Hotel in preparation for two days of competing for some funding grants.

Hanging out at five star hotels competing for donations isn't quite how I like to spend my time... but fingers crossed for a good result. (If we succeed, we will receive grants to improve our services for girls, and to train our staff in awareness of disability issues).

So while my time is fully occupied here at the center, my mind is torn between here and the action surrounding the trafficked children. I am extremely fortunate, at times like this, to be working with such an amazing team here at Blue Dragon - everyone from the social workers to the accountant are on board with all the crazy schemes currently on the boil. I could never do all this on my own.

Something big

For a long time now, I have been writing and talking about the issue of children being trafficked from central Vietnam to Saigon in the south. (See here and here for some earlier posts).

Blue Dragon has so far helped just a few of these kids, and I have long been grumbling about the need to do something more.

So now I am.

A plan has been devised and has already swung into action.

Phase 1 is underway; two people are on a train, on their way to meet some villagers.

I'm going to be Mr Mystery for the next week or so, and not reveal too much about what's happening. That's partly so that nobody can anticipate our next moves and block us; it's also partly because the plan is not set in concrete... It will evolve, and it would be arrogant of me to boldly announce what's going on when, in fact, I am not so sure myself.

But something is happening. Something big, and potentially outrageous. Stay tuned.

The girls go home

They're home!

The five girls in the photo are from Thanh Hoa province, about three hours drive from Hanoi. They've been sleeping on the streets of Hanoi - and I cannot stress what an extraordinarily dangerous thing that is to do, for any minor, and especially for girls.

But no more... Today, Blue Dragon's chief psychologist, Khanh, and our lawyer, Van, drove with them back to their families.

How do we know they can stay with their parents now? Won't they just come back again to earn more money?

Maybe they will. But we signed a contract with their parents, promising ongoing support in return for the girls staying with their families and going to school. The parents were so greatly relieved. They didn't want their daughters to leave home in the first place - but they were desperate, and some of the girls had previously been trafficked to Hanoi to work, so they knew how much money could be made.

Hey, this looks like a happy ending...

Progress

I spent the weekend and Monday in Saigon, visiting our young guy in rehab, and meeting up with children from central Vietnam who have been trafficked to the south to work on the streets. It's such a frustrating experience to see the children, to see the traffickers, and to be so restricted in what I can do...

There was some good progress, though, with a few of the children who were keen to go home. So sad to see their long faces as they walk about the street, unenthusiastically trying to sell flowers and gum to tourists who just see the kids as trash. So many wasted childhoods.

Just by chance, I ran into some friends, Miriam and Robyn, who were en-route to Hoi An after being back in Australia. Robyn is starting up her own charitable organisation called CHIA - Children's Hope In Action - which will work with families of dieing children, as well as kids in need of urgent surgery and medical care. It was inspiring to see them, because I KNOW they are going to have a big impact. It isn't a question of IF they will be successful, just a question of HOW successful. Go girls!

And then today I met with Corey and Rose from an American NGO called HSCV, which stands for (deeeep breath) Humanitarian Services for the Children of Vietnam. Corey and Rose have been seeing street kids on the other side of Hanoi to us for quite a while, and last night they came across a crew of girls who have been sleeping, quite literally, on the street. I can't imagine a more dangerous scenario for 14-15 year old girls...

So we had a big meeting with three of the kids today, and two accepted our offer of some short term accommodation while we work out a longer term solution. For the rest of the week, our Social Worker Giang and the chief Psychologist will see what they can do to help these girls get out of their predicaments. Every case we deal with is unique, and this case is certainly different to any other we have faced. We'll work something out, though. Because we have to...

To Be

This morning I just have to boast of another Blue Dragon miracle.

Our volunteer lawyer, Van, has started a very important branch of work with us: obtaining birth certifates for the kids in our programs.

Why they don't have certificates is a bit unclear. Sometimes, their parents just didn't bother. At other times, their certificates have been lost (eg during floods) or the parents themselves never had birth certificates, and so could not obtain them for their children.

But without a birth certificate, how do you prove that you exist? This is certainly not a problem unique to Vietnam: anyone in Australia will know how difficult it is to prove their own existence when opening a bank account or getting a driver's licence renewed.

What our kids do find is that, the older they grow, the more difficult life becomes. Primary and junior secondary schools are quite flexible, but it becomes more complicated for kids who want to attend school beyond Grade 9, and sit for official exams. Getting an ID card is all but impossible - and without one, you can't get a real job, you can't open a bank account, you can't get a licence to ride a motorbike... You are, officially, nobody.

Today, three of our kids from one family have their certificates in hand. Two girls and one boy have, for the first time in their lives, official evidence that they exist.

This case was very important, as the oldest of the siblings, a girl named Quyen, was running into a lot of trouble with her school. She was being constantly asked for her identification papers, and had been told that she would have to leave school this month if she could not produce them. That would have been the end of Quyen's studies, and the 'lifetime poverty guarantee' that quitting school entails.

We are very proud to have helped this family; their mother is overjoyed. Just a week ago, she was crying into Van's shoulder, feeling powerless and worried that she could not help her daughter with something so simple.

In fact, the Vietnamese laws on birth registration are not complicated at all; if they have any drawback, it is that they are not well known. So the people responsible for issuing the certificates might not be fully aware of their responsibilities. But if this case is anything to go by, there is certainly hope that we can help the several dozen children we know who need to get their certificates urgently.

Another important step in the fight against poverty: Helping street kids to exist, officially.

A new drama unfolds

Two amazing events took place at Blue Dragon on Tuesday.

First, I worked out how to download photos from our new digital camera! (And a big thanks to Chu Hung in Australia for giving us that).

Second - and rather more importantly - Blue Dragon's AYAD volunteer, Skye, started our first ever drama club for street kids. Oops, that deserves an exclamation mark - !

Skye is working with our psychology team to introduce drama as a means of therapy as well as self expression. Yesterday really was the first time that ANY of our kids had ever done such activities. And you know what? They looked just like a typical bunch of teens in a drama class that you would see anywhere in the world. Beautiful.

So, to celebrate Tuesday's dual achievements... some photos for your viewing pleasure.

Around the next corner

One of the great things about living in Vietnam is never knowing what awaits you down the road.

Sometimes I get emails from people who want to visit us in 6 or 12 months time, and they ask what we'll be doing when they come. Frankly, I have no idea.

And so this week comes to a close, differently to every other week I have lived here. The one constant is the usual mix of highs and lows.

Hung, our young guy in hospital with TB meningitis, seems to be OK. (Anybody who knows about TB or meningitis will understand what a subjective term "OK" is. He's alive, and that in itself borders on miraculous).

The United Nations International School (UNIS) held a Bake Sale for us on Friday, raising over $1300! That was a huge effort. And all down to the hard work that the students put in. They deserve a BIG thanks for that: the funds will help us pay for Hung's treatment.

Also on Friday morning was the end-of-year Stay In School ceremony, where we got all of the 230 or so sponsored children in Bac Ninh province together to hand them certificates for completing their grade. It's just one of the small ways that we try to encourage children and families to stick with education. Vietnamese people generally do value school, but it occurred to me during the meeting that every single one of the 230 children in that room would probably be on the streets of Hanoi, or in garment factories in southern Vietnam, if not for our program. I have to confess that I am damn proud of keeping them in school. (And as soon as I work out how, I'll post some photos of Friday's ceremony).

Our kids had another trip to UNIS on Saturday, with a soccer match arranged by some Dutch friends. Our kids played last Saturday and didn't fare too well, but both teams won their games today. Well done, guys! The Blue Dragon soccer team is made up of street kids, and teens who used to work on the streets, so it really is a great thing for them to win a game of sport every now and then.

With school holidays coming up, some of the young people we have helped over the past few years to return to their countryside are coming back in to Hanoi to visit. It's simply amazing to see how they've grown and matured; another reminder of how worthwhile our work is.

There was one sad farewell, too: Dung, a young guy we met as a shoeshine boy and who went on to enrol in the KOTO training course, has headed south to Saigon to work in a pub that's opening soon. Dung has had a tough life, and was lucky to get a placement in KOTO. This next stage of his life takes him far from his mother and brother, and all his friends in Hanoi; but he still has good support and I'll be seeing him soon myself. (I'm hoping to go to Saigon next weekend to check up on some of the street kids we are working with down there).

So, what does the coming week hold? I can only guess. But I am sure it will be something great.

No time to catch a breath

I'm back in Viet Nam, and already it seems like months since I was in Australia. People keep asking me what it was like to go home, but after 4 years in Nam, well, this is my home.

My first week back has been hectic and insane - which is nothing unusual, and certainly no complaint, but wow, was I dead by Friday afternoon.

The Blue Dragon staff and vols did incredibly well while I was away. They dealt with some extremely difficult events, and as always they came up with spectacular results.

(Try this for a challenging task: At one point, the staff had to recover a computer that was stolen. The thief took it and sold it to a computer store which promptly dismantled it and sold everything in individual parts to different buyers. But the staff got it back!! All of it! Data included! They really are an amazing team).

They did have some difficulties, too: one foreign volunteer suffered a knee injury and was hospitalised in a local hospital - which meant that she needed Vietnamese colleagues to stay with her almost round-the-clock; and another had some terrible news about her mother's health and has had to return to Australia, a full year before her assignment was due to be completed.

And what of the kids? Again, some massive challenges for everyone. One of our boys was caught walking down the street with, umm, a part of somebody's house, and received the beating of his life for it. (Read: boot prints all over his face and body). Obviously that gives us a few issues to deal with.

Another one of the boys has come down with TB meningitis, and the tuberculosis hospital refused to accept him until the fourth time our staff took him there. (Sorry, doctor, but more exercise and iron tablets are NOT a cure for TB meninigitis).

One of the great things that happened in my absence was an art exhibition at L'Espace, a French art gallery near Hanoi's Opera House. An art teacher from UNIS School, Panni Varadi, has been organising weekly art sessions in the evenings with a group of about 12 children, including 4 Blue Dragon children. The sessions have been taught by artists who live in Hanoi, and the kids' work has been so inspiring that L'Espace wanted to exhibit some of the work. Only problem is, I can't find out much about what happened, because when I ask the kids they just laugh, and when I ask the staff they simply say "It was sooo amazing!"

And finally, we had some great news that funding has come through from an organisation in Germany, called, Schmitz Stiftung. This grant will enable us to build a library for a primary school in Bac Ninh province, where there aren't very many libraries at all... We've built houses for families before, but this is the first time that we will construct facilities for a school - a good step forward, I think.

In coming weeks, there's plenty more happening. The Australian Embassy is providing funds for us to improve the safety of our children's center and set up a room that will then be used for a daily lunch hour with our most malnourished children - so first some building and maintenance, and then a new program to feed 20 or 30 kids.

We're also increasing the frequency of our football matches; a new team of older players is about to start (Thursday mornings at 7 o'clock!), and running a drama program during the summer holidays.

No time to rest, that's for sure. But it's all good...

The highest of accolades

My staff in Vietnam are under strict instructions: If I start behaving like a celebrity, they are to shoot me immediately.

I have seen some charity leaders go down the celebrity road. At first their intentions are purely to help the poor, but eventually the media spotlight, and the admiration of supporters, distracts them. Programs are devised based more on their media potential than on their benefit to needy people.

The last 4 years working in Vietnam have taught me to beware people who name their charity after themself, and charity workers who can more often be found on TV than in the field.

While I sound critical - maybe even cynical - I know that I am always in danger of going down that celebrity road myself.

The reason I have been in Australia these last few weeks was to take care of some Blue Dragon business here, and particularly to prepare for and attend a dinner being held to raise funds.

The event was not organised by Blue Dragon Children's Foundation, but by friends in the Vietnamese Australian community.

I could never have anticipated the outpouring of support from the community. Men and women, and whole families, turned up at Friday night's dinner - more than 570 people in all. There were business people, media representatives, grandparents, kids, students... People from every imaginable walk of life.

In the lead up to the dinner, and during the dinner, and in the short time since the dinner, people who I have never met before have come up to thank me, congratulate me, for the work of Blue Dragon. And people are digging deep, so that their actions more than match their words.

One of the many surprises has been seeing how much support I have received from people who have their own charities! The founder of a Veteran's Support Group... a Buddhist monk... and a newspaper, Van Nghe, which has a very active charitable arm, have been among Blue Dragon's biggest supporters. Despite what you might expect, people who run charities rarely want to help other charitable causes.

And so the last few weeks have been a whirlwind of meeting people, hugging people, shaking hands and then, finally, the big event itself on Friday night.

My heart is with the street kids back in Vietnam; I am counting down the hours until I am home again. I have been deeply, profoundly moved by the support that has been extended to me on this trip to Australia, but I am no celebrity. All the attention has been appreciated, but it's not why I am here.

And yet, having said that, I have to acknowledge that the support of the Vietnamese Australian community is the highest accolade that I have ever received. I am flattered that they so appreciate my work - and the work of the Blue Dragon staff and volunteers.

There is an overwhelming sense of gratitude; people are actually thanking me for what I do. I never expected this.

On the night, there were countless dancers, singers, and performers of all types - all totally for free. A small army of volunteers helped with selling raffle tickets, organising the stage show, setting up tables, greeting people at reception, and everything else that it takes to pull off an event for almost 600 people.

So in return, I have to do something. I can't let them do so much for Blue Dragon and not give something back!

All of this means that, when I return to Vietnam next week, I have to work even harder. I have to prove that the time and money that people committed to Blue Dragon was not a waste, that it really will change the lives of children who have no other hope.

If I do start acting like a celebrity, it means I've lost the plot and outlived my usefulness to the street kids of Vietnam. But I think that, for now, I've got way too much to do to even worry about that.

Waiting for dinner

Time is flying by on my visit to Australia - just 10 days more and I'll be back home in Hanoi.

My days have been packed with meetings... sometimes with friends, sometimes with groups and organisations that I hope will become my friends!

The main focus of this trip - the whole reason for me coming here - is a fundraising dinner on May 12, at Canley Heights in Sydney. The event is being organised not by any associations or foundations, but by a couple of Vietnamese Australians with huge hearts, who really want to support the work of Blue Dragon.

In the lead up to the dinner, we are going out to meet with members of the community, inviting their participation and support. In addition, I have been meeting groups such as Rotary to talk about Blue Dragon's work and needs.

While I don't particularly enjoy this side of my work - I would much rather be back in Vietnam at the Blue Dragon center - it's exciting to know that this trip will bring in some funds for our work with the kids. We know so many families in need of support - living on boats (like the one below), or letting traffickers take their children because it's the best of all the rotten options. It can seem overwhelming, but I have no doubt that we CAN make a powerful difference if we have the resources.

I'm a long way from knowing how successful this trip will finally be, but I am greatly encouraged by the support of so many people.

The Crying Day

Today's blog starts with some excellent, excellent news:

The young boy Viet, pictured in the previous post, is home.

His older sister travelled from her village down to Saigon, where Viet has been working for a child trafficker. Viet's family had no idea what was happening to him; they thought he was going to school and living in a youth center. Instead, he was selling flowers in the tourist district until 4am every day. Every cent he made was going to the trafficker.

But he's home. Blue Dragon's lawyer, Van, travelled to Viet's village to make sure the return home would go smoothly - and it did. Viet is a slave no more.

Viet's school principal has even agreed to make an exception, and allow Viet to rejoin the class, after four months away!

With the good news, almost inevitably, comes the sad. From Viet's village, at least another dozen children have been taken south to work. And none of the parents knew that their children were being exploited: they all thought that they had sent their sons and daughters off to a better life.

Today the village is filled with weeping parents, sad and ashamed of what they have inadvertently done; unable to sleep, knowing that their kids are being forced to work through the night.

However, a process has started, and it isn't over yet. Lots more will be happening in coming days and weeks. There are many more kids who need to get back home...

Greetings, from Down Under

This morning I write from Sydney, Australia. I have returned "home" for a few weeks to take care of some Blue Dragon business, including some work with the Australian committee and some fundraising.

Leaving Hanoi was very painful... I just hope these next few weeks fly by. I'm missing the center and the kids already.

Even though I am far away, I'm still working with the staff team via email (how did any organisation operate effectively before the internet??).

In a recent blog, I levelled some criticisms against the big NGOs that work in the anti-human-trafficking field. Since then, a few people have made comments - but have asked that they not be added to the blog site. Seems to be quite a sensitive issue.

What really gets me mad is the simplicity of helping kids who have been trafficked. I accept that it is not always simple, but if I can walk down a street and talk to a child who has been trafficked, then why is it so difficult to help that child go home? Why does an international NGO have to spend millions of dollars, and yet these kids are still on the streets?

The Blue Dragon lawyer, Van, is currently talking to the parents of two children from Hue, who have both been trafficked to sell flowers in southern Vietnam. This involves working from 8pm until 4am, around night clubs where foreigners hang out. They earn a small fortune, all of which they give to the trafficker. Typically, the trafficker pays their family about $70US for the child, and earns in excess of $100 per month. Each trafficker might have 10 or more children working for them. And the traffickers are both male and female.

Why do the parents let this happen? Because they are desperately poor, have no education, and are deceived by the trafficker.


(The boy above is Viet, whose parents were tricked into letting him be trafficked)

When Van spoke to the parents of these 2 kids on the telephone, they were genuinely shocked to hear that their children are working all night. The trafficker promised that their kids would go to school, and just do some simple part-time work, while living in the luxurious conditions of the Thao Dan youth refuge.

Now that the parents know, they are determined to get their children back. We are watching closely to see if the trafficker allows the children to leave. Stay tuned...

Did that really happen?

At the end of a long and tiring day, I have been searching through some old ("old" as in "January") photos of a visit by some Aussie teenagers to Bac Ninh province in northern Vietnam.
The teens, mostly girls, were involved in various projects such as building a house and painting local schools. Some time, some how, someone has snapped the photo below... and I really did think it should be shared with the world. Click on it to get a better sense of the scene.

Good on you, girls...

I Do Miss Saigon

A whirlwind weekend comes to an end... On Friday evening I flew to Saigon and have just returned to Hanoi. It's good to be home, but I really do have a soft spot for the south.

When I moved to Vietnam four years ago, it was to live in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) where I had fallen in love with the thriving culture and the gorgeous peace of the surrounding countryside. I had never been north, until late in 2002 when I moved to the capital to work in a university. It took a long time to adjust - the northern and southern cities ar every different places. And now, although Hanoi is where I hang my hat (or my helmet, to be more accurate) the south still draws me in.

The main reason for this trip was to visit one of our kids who is staying in a rehab center there. But it was also a chance to catch up with a cohort of street kids who I have known over the years - some of whom are making progress, others who are not doing so well.

Around the tourist district are many kids who have been trafficked from a village in central Vietnam to sell flowers and chewing gum. This is an extremely lucrative business, and the best thing about it for the traffickers is that they don't have to do anything! In fact, the hardest work they have to do each day is sit and watch their slaves earn them money.

In the world of international NGOs, there is a tried and tested approach to dealing with the issue of trafficking. It is this: get a grant of half a million dollars, and hold a conference (somewhere like Thailand is always good) where 'experts' can talk about what a terrific job they are doing. Between conferences, the experts go back to their homes and prepare papers to deliver at the next conference. It's great work if you can get it. Even more lucrative than trafficking.

My own line of work is with Hanoi's street kids and children with disabilities, but I have helped one boy escape the trafficker who took him to Saigon. On this trip, I met up with some of the others from Ngoc's village and believe that there is a good chance I can get some more away from their situation.

Helping the kids on a case-by-case situation like this is not ideal for trafficked children: arguably, every child I help will simply be replaced by another. But for now, there seems to be no other way. Vietnam has lots of big foreign NGOs, although none want to get involved in the case of the Hue kids being trafficked south.

So hopefully I'll be heading south again in a month or so, and will be able to get two more children away from the men and women who have enslaved them. Another trip to Ho Chi Minh City... Not such a bad thing to have to do.. .

A little bit red in the face

OK, OK, so I've had about five messages asking why it has been over a week since I last blogged... sorry, folks! I do try to be more regular than this.

But the blog heading isn't because I am red-faced over this - it's the kids... One of our little guys, Doan, has turned up with rubella, no less, and it looks like we might be standing on the brink of an outbreak. We have Doan isolated now, but it seems that the infectious period began long before he started to feel ill.

We're in an odd situation, in that we are certain our foreign volunteers (me included) are immune to rubella, but not so sure about the local staff and vols. So the job of caring for Doan to see him through the next few days has been taken up by a few of us expats, taking turns to sit with him and keep his temperature down.

It's been a bad week for the kids' health - we've had stomach bugs, cut feet, throat infections, lung infections, fevers, and of course rubella as well. The doctors at Hanoi Family Medical Practice have been amazing - thank you one and all!

The legendary Dr Bruno gave me a bit of a wake up call, though - when we took him one tiny 14 year old for some tests, Dr Bruno was stunned at the child's height and weight. I have to admit that I am no longer shocked when I see malnourished kids - we see them literally every day.

Anyway, Blue Dragon has been thinking for a while about offering a daily lunch to kids who really need it, but we've been hoping for some funding to come through. I think it's time to just start the lunches, hire a cook, and get on with it - we really can not wait any longer.

I'm off to Ho Chi Minh City this weekend to see Binh, who is doing exceptionally well with his treatment, and I'll use the opportunity to catch up with some other street kids who I know there.

The train is rolling south

My last blog mentioned a young boy addicted to heroin, “Binh,” who has made the decision to go into rehab. We’ve worked with him for a long time now, and seen him through the highs and the lows. Knowing that Binh is trying to make a real change to his life has got to be the greatest news we’ve had so far this year.

As I write this, Binh is on a train with one of our staff members, heading south to the best treatment facility we could find in Vietnam.

However – this will be my last entry about him for a while. I don’t want to make his rehabilitation a public spectacle, and as much as I want to share with the world the joys and sorrows of what we do, I do feel a responsibility to keep this matter private. I look forward, though, to making some occasional updates with good news…

I need to ask for financial support to make this a success. We are currently committed to a treatment program that will include psychological counselling, medical intervention (Binh’s liver is shot to pieces) and ongoing support from our Hanoi staff – even though the treatment is to take place in Ho Chi Minh City!

We are looking at a cost of about $300 US per month for the next 6 months. Any of our regular readers who have a particular interest in drug rehab – this is your chance to get involved! Please do email me if you’d like to help us out in this case… bluedragon@bdcf.org

And as always, thanks to all of you out there in Blogland. I do appreciate your support.

The cris-ortunity of a lifetime

In an early episode of The Simpsons, little Lisa explained to Homer that the Japanese have one word that means both CRISIS and OPPORTUNITY.

Believing that his daughter couldn't possibly know what she was talking about, Homer consdescendingly patted her head, saying, "Yes, Lisa, cris-ortunity."

This week just gone has been a full seven days of cris-ortunities at Blue Dragon. I'm not even sure how to explain... or where to begin...

We're all exhausted now; that much is certain! And lots of good things have either happened, or are in the making. To summarise:

- As my last blog mentioned, the nine cases of runaway boys have all been resolved - and all but one has had a happy ending. This has taken up hundreds of "man (and woman) hours" and a lot of emotional energy, and we are all very happy to see the kids in much better conditions. No more sleeping under bridges!

- We had about four robberies last week - I say "about" because there may be more than I don't yet know of! Two of them were by a young man named Tien, who we caught; and two were by one of our own boys. This boy - I'll call him "Binh" - is a drug addict, and I have written about him before. He's very special to me, and has had the most awful life you can imagine. I would probably try to kill the pain with drugs, too, if I was in his position. But he's never stolen from us before - this was very odd behaviour for him. It turns out he has plummeted to depths he's never been to before, and was desperate for money. Realising what he had down, however, he first tried to hide from us but we wouldn't let him; so he has come clean and wants to join a rehab program. We are in the process of making that happen... I think we need the entire blog world to cross their fingers and toes that this will happen, and succeed.

- We had 13 - yes, 13! - student visitors from United World College in Singapore throughout the week. They spent their days cleaning walls, painting, playing with kids, teaching photography and IT, having parties... It was so much fun for our kids, and I know the students had a ball too. Back to a (slightly) quieter center tomorrow...

- On the fun and games side: Our kids were also treated to Laser World on Monday, thanks to UNIS; and bowling on Friday, thanks to Rachel Wardle and Phil Vargas. Then this evening, we started a new activity with the kids - a Hip Hop dance club! Big thanks to volunteer Jen and the Big Toe dance group.

The coming week already promises to be demanding. If "Binh" really does want to join a rehab program, we'll need to get that happening on Monday or Tuesday. And some of our kids have already told me that they have met some more runaway children, and have invited them to come see us.

Demanding or not, I wouldn't have it any other way...

Home free

For the past few weeks, I have been writing about the nine runaway boys Blue Dragon has been working with.

This afternoon, the last two of the nine have been reunited with their family. Their case was a particularly complex one: they are step brothers, and claimed that their father had been violently abusing them. We finally negotiated an agreement that they would live with an aunty - their father agreed, apparently buoyed by a fortune teller's recommendation, and the aunty was delighted to have the boys come to live with her.

The little boy I wrote about in my last blog, Tuan, doesn't want to live in an orphanage, even though we located a pretty good place for him to live. So he's taken to the streets again - clearly not a good outcome, but he is the one making the choices...

Our street has been very safe since Tet, when a spate of muggings had us working overtime to help our kids who were being robbed, sometimes at knife-point, for the few possessions they own.

Two days ago, however, another young man was hanging about the area to rob kids who came out of our building. The man, named Tien, had just been released from prison and apparently decided that robbing children was more lucrative than getting a job.

It didn't take us long to work out who he was, and where he lived... and last night we paid a visit to Tien's family. Today Tien has come to make amends and offer an apology (of sorts) - along with a promise never to do it again!

What a crazy life this is...

Get out of my house

Our saga with the nine runaway boys had a light at the end of the tunnel yesterday. All but three of the nine have already gone back to their families and had a "happy ever after" reunion.

The smallest of the boys, a very timid 12 year old named Tuan, had been steadfastly refusing to give us any information that would enable us to contact his family. We certainly don't insist that the kids tell us - if they don't want to, we just wait until they do.

Yesterday, Tuan came to tell us that he wanted to go home. He's an orphan, but he was missing his step-father who lives in Lang Son, a rural province sharing the border with China.

We got all the important stuff out of the way - a haircut, some photos at Hoan Kiem Lake - and our lawyer, Van, hopped on a bus to accompany Tuan to Lang Son.

These trips that Van makes are incredibly difficult; every time he turns up in a village with a missing child, any number of problems and complications can arise.

But this trip is the first time that the child's family refused to accept their child back.

Tuan's story is complex. His father died when he was a baby. His mother remarried a blind man who already had a son; and then, some years later, Tuan's mother died.

The step father simply doesn't want Tuan. His exact words were: "I have only one son, and that's not him."

When Tuan did live with the step father, he had to quit school to look after a buffalo, and also to take the blind man to a temple to beg. The step father doesn't seem even slightly appreciative of that.

And so... Van has returned to Hanoi this morning, with Tuan. Blue Dragon doesn't have the facility or staff to raise a child so young, so we will spend our Saturday afternoon contacting charitable homes that might be able to take Tuan in and raise him.

More twists in this tale are certain to come...

The chicken I love

It's Wednesday night, and Blue Dragon's music group has just finished.

The group was started by Julian Carey, an Aussie friend and supporter of Blue Dragon, and funded by the International Women's Club.

The group's name usually raises some eyebrows: The Chicken I Love. Naturally everybody wants to know why we called it this... and the best answer is "Why not?"

The Chicken I Love was the name dreamed up by one of the group members. Sure, it's totally out of left field - but then, most of what we do here at Blue Dragon is pretty unconventional.

The group has sixteen members - about half and half boys and girls. They're all street kids, all with awful stories behind them. One boy was trafficked to the south to work on the streets. One of the girls has just run away from her uncle's home; her parents are both in prison and her uncle has been beating her and her little brother. But one other thing the kids have in common is their love of music.

For the first few months, the kids mainly went on outings - sometimes to see a band rehearse, sometimes to karaoke, sometimes to watch displays of traditional music.

Since then, the kids have focused on practising guitar or singing; they can choose which they prefer, and they study with Vietnamese teachers. It's been really nice for the past few weeks listening to the sound of kids practising the guitar on their own upstairs from the office. They might not be perfect, but their enthusiasm more than makes up for that.

Blue Dragon's stated aim is to enable kids and families to break the poverty cycle. And how do we do that? Of course we help kids get back to school and training, and sometimes help them to find jobs.

But breaking the culture of poverty is just as important. The culture of poverty says that you have no hope; that dreaming is futile and the only thing that matters is making money to get you through the day.

I don't know if any members of The Chicken I Love will ever form a rock band and tour the world. That's not the point.

What matters is that 16 girls and boys are daring to try something new and to indulge in music lessons, instead of drowning in the many problems that have swamped them.

Rock on, The Chicken I Love.

Visitors and growth hormones

Blue Dragon's street kid center had a change of pace today, with visits from guests both in the morning and afternoon.

This morning we had a visit from the Aussie Ambassador to Vietnam, Bill Tweddell, and his wife Chris. It was great to see their interest not just in our program structire but in the lives of the kids who were there. They then invited me and a Blue Dragon volunteer, Candice, back to their residence for lunch.

No sooner were we back than a team of visitors from the US dropped by - about 12 men and women visiting programs run by Giving It Back To Kids. The founders of GIBTK, Robert and Dorothea, have been friends of Blue Dragon for about 2 years now, and they've recently supported us to buy equipment for the center.

Our kids had a ball with so many visitors to impress. And so many cameras to pose before!

The day was quite a contrast to last night, when the people ringing our doorbell were a boy who had been beaten up and the drug addict responsible....

Blue Dragon is facing some tough issues at the moment regarding services for kids. One young guy we've been working with, named Duc, has a hormone deficiency that has severely stunted his growth. Worse than that, though, Duc lives with chronic pain because of his condition, and his doctors don't expect that he can live to the age of 30. He's 14 now.

We have recently learned that there is a cure - but at a cost of $20,000 over 3 years. I remember back in 2001 when my own father was desperately ill with a multi resistant organism attacking his heart. The weeks in ICU... the emergency air evacuation from Armidale to Newcastle... the heart surgery... the months of receovery... All of this must have cost at least $150,000, paid for by Medicare.

But here in Vietnam, spending $20,000 to save a life seems different… Because the same amount of money could save 20 lives. This raises so many ethical and philosophical issues, but as it is we don’t have $20,000 anyway.

If we can raise the money for Duc, we will offer him the treatment – right now, though, that figure seems impossible. Anybody who wants to know more, just contact me (bluedragon@bdcf.org).

And a quick update on the runaway kids we have been helping… Four have now been reunited with their families, and we expect that one more is close to deciding to go back home. He’s already been ringing his mother and talking to her about why he ran away, so fingers crossed for a happy ending.

9 kgs happier

Back in November I wrote about a boy named Ngoc, who was trafficked from his home in the countryside to Ho Chi Minh City. Blue Dragon helped him to escape the trafficker and he's now progressing through school.

Today Ngoc hopped on a pair of bathroom scales... and we learned that he has put on 9 kilograms since November!

It's a Weight Watcher's nightmare, but for Ngoc this is excellent news. While he was working for the trafficker, he never had enough to eat and was always worried about the future... and so was always underweight.

Now that life is back on track and his worries are over, Ngoc is getting close to his ideal weight. He's still such a little guy, though! Hard to see where he's packing the 9 bricks...

Saturday soccer and travel

Ten of our street kids joined a soccer tournament today, organised by UNIS - the United Nations International School in Hanoi.

Our Sunday soccer games are played on dirt fields, often with 20-30 players per field. A proper game on the beautiful grass fields of UNIS is a real treat for our kids!

We lost more games than we won, but the kids had a great time - which was the whole point of the morning. BIG THANKS to Julian, Phi, and the UNIS staff who organised this.

Meanwhile, our lawyer, Van, was on a train heading south. Not on a holiday, though - he was accompanying a boy named Hai, who had run away from his home and was living under a bridge here in Hanoi.

The photo on the right shows Hai in the hole he lived in before we met him.

I met Hai just a few weeks ago; he and another child were collecting scrap by the roadside, and were covered in filth. Assisting runaway children is very difficult and sometimes dangerous for us. If we do help, we might be helping a child who has loving parents desperately hoping they will come home. If we don't help, any range of crises can (and do) befall the kids.

So our approach is to equip the kids with some sensible decision-making skills, and help them if they decide to return home. We've had a 100% success rate so far; but right now we are in contact with many more runaway boys, and have to hope that we can continue to achieve good results.

It's a lot of work: Van is spending close to 40 hours this weekend travelling by train, bus and motorbike to Hai's house just to ensure the reunion goes well. Probably another 20 hours have been spent with Hai these last few weeks, counselling, talking, encouraging, and helping him to call his parents.

A lot of work - but time well spent, I'd say.

There's been a lot of buzz recently around the Gary Glitter case, and I've been receiving plenty of calls from journalists around the world asking for my opinion on events. The big question is always about the Vietnamese government: Are they doing enough? Do they care?

For the record - you bet they do. Sex tourism and child prostitution are just not acceptable in Vietnam, and my gut feeling is that they authorities were pleased to have a chance to show the world that offenders caught here will be processed through the courts just like anywhere in the world. Mr Glitter now has three years in prison to think about this fact.

Tales of the Merlion

It's been a whole week since I last posted, as I've been (and still am!) in sunny Singapore.

The messages I have been getting from Hanoi keep telling me of the awful, rainy weather over there - so it's good to be away for a few days!

But it's Blue Dragon work that brought me here - I was invited to take part in the annual Fringe Festival organised by The Necessary Stage. This year's Festival theme is "Art and Healing", so I spoke about the role of photography and creative arts in our work with street children. There were some other interesting presenters involved in the same forum, including one guy who travelled here from Thailand with a truck load of papier mache dolls made by Burmese sex workers. Interesting...

I've been to Singapore a few times, but on this trip I brought some friends - including a long term volunteer from Blue Dragon, and two young guys who were among the first boys that I met on the streets of Hanoi. They're 18 years old now, and have great jobs, so the purpose of this trip for them has been to give them a taste of life outside Vietnam.

Anyone who has been to Singapore can imagine what it's been like - shopping all day and then some more at night. (To be honest, it's mainly been window shopping, but we loaded up with souvenirs today!)

- I always find it hard being away from the Blue Dragon center - don't know how I would survive without email and SMS. Our lawyer, Van, has been keeping me informed of developments with the runaway boys we met last week. So far two of the five have made contact with their families, and we're working toward some solutions for the other three.

- I must say a big thanks to the hostel I have been staying at here in Singapore, The Betel Box on Joo Chiat Road. The hostel owner agreed to let the four of us from Blue Dragon stay here for FREE in a private room for the whole of our visit. I doubt we could have come if we couldn't find free accommodation. This is a terrific place and I can genuinely recommend it to anyone looking for a backpacker hostel in Singapore. Thanks, guys!

Tonight we're having dinner with Heather Campbell from Sydney - her dad Evan is principal at Tuggerah Public School in Australia and they've helped Blue Dragon out a few times now. I'll be back in Hanoi soon - will post on the weekend with developments from the past week.

Home, under the bridge

ONCE UPON A TIME, a potential donor was visiting Blue Dragon to talk about funding possibilities.

We were introducing him to some young people we'd been working with for almost two years. We were very proud of those kids.

During the meeting, the donor said he had a problem. It was this:

The kids were too good.

They were clean. They had nice clothes. They were polite.

They didn't look like street kids.

It's the main Catch-22 that Blue Dragon - and other charities like us - face. People want to help helpless, dirty waifs in rags. I know of one charitable center here in Hanoi where the Director gratefully accepts donations such as big TVs and nice clothes - but as soon as the donor is gone, the donations go into storage. Otherwise, the next donor might think that the center is already well equipped and doesn't need any help!

Blue Dragon's policy is different. We don't want our kids to look poor. We don't want visitors to walk in and see street children; we want our kids to look just like anybody else their age. And to tell the truth, we don't mind if that turns away a donor or two. The wellbeing and happiness of the kids are simply more important.

THIS WEEK we face a challenge with some kids who definitely qualify as 'helpless, dirty waifs in rags'. On the way to drumming on Sunday, I saw a couple of boys looking absolutely filthy, collecting scrap near the office. SO I invited them back and spent some time chatting. Late for drumming again...

The boys are living with some friends under a bridge - yes, that photo is actually their home. At least some of the kids are runaways; our experience in working with kids like this is that it takes time for them to trust us. And it's only when they trust us that they'll start telling us the truth.

Until then, anything that they say might or not be true, and our staff don't pass judgement on anything.

These boys are really doing it tough - I wouldn't trade places with them for anything! Even our other kids here at the center are shocked to see where they live.

Nothing like a challenge to start the week, though...

A week is a long time on the streets

Friday is staring me in the face - and I am smiling.

Another huge week at Blue Dragon; there really is never a quiet one. I wouldn't have it any other way, but it sure is nice to have a day to slow down and work at a sane pace.

Lots of great news this week!

- The young guy who has been missing for over 2 weeks, T, is back. Our cleaner ran across him in Long Bien market at 7am on Wednesday and brought him back to the center. What a tremendous relief. A few tears were shed... He's still not talking about what happened or where he's been, but we hope he'll open up soon.

- We have a full time volunteer from Australia! Candice O'Brien started work on Monday; she's sponsored by VIDA which is a new program that's been developed by the Australian Youth Ambassadors organisation. Candice is mainly here to work on developing our admin systems - the less sexy side of caring for street kids. Just 12 months ago, Blue Dragon was me and one staff member in a small building, with a street kid as an assistant. Today we have a staff team of about 10, working with over 400 children. While the 'real' work has taken off like a Vietnamese dog at a thit cho restaurant, our admin systems have been struggling to catch up. Let's hope Candice can work some miracles! (And thanks to the good people at VIDA).

- A 16 year old girl, Tuoi, who we've been working with has also been getting about with a big grin on her face. Until this month, she was working about 14 hours a day for just $10 a month so that she could send the money to her sick mother in the countryside. Tuoi is a bright girl - she's got a great future if only she can get through school - but she's just had too many obstacles in her way. This week we enabled her to bring her mother to Hanoi for medical tests at Bach Mai Hospital. Apart from our staff member getting pickpocketed while he was there (another mobile phone gone!) everything went well and we'll have the results by Friday afternoon. Tuoi's mother has been taking traditional medicine, but she doesn't even know what the cause of her illness is. We're hoping to find out exactly what the problem is, get some treatment happening, and support Tuoi to get back to school full time.

- Hoping not to jinx myself, but there has been a lull in the robberies and muggings that were taking place over recent months. A lot of this is thanks to our local policeman, Mr Thanh, who was pretty serious about helping us and putting a stop to the crime wave. It's worked!

- And finally, Little Chung (see my last blog!) has been talking to us about where he's been and what he's been up to for the past 18 months. He and I are rebuilding our relationship - I'm wondering what happened to him, he's wondering how I will react to seeing him again after so long. But the signs are all good, and Chung is keen to get back to school asap. So good to have him back...

Now bring on Friday!

Postscript: Little Chung returns

SUNDAY is usually the best day of the week for me… We have social activities with our kids outside the center, with plenty of time for a slow breakfast at Café 252. And I try to keep the boring admin work to a minimum!

We start the day with soccer: 8am on two dirt fields near the office. We’ve been playing for three years now, with about 50 kids joining in every week.

The soccer is purely a social event – we’re there for an hour no matter what the season or weather, so any street kids in Hanoi can find us and meet us on their own terms.

Last night I wrote about how we often have kids who ‘disappear’ for a year or more, and we just don’t know where they are or what has happened to them. This morning, one of our guys returned after being away for 18 months.

Friends and vols know him as “Little Chung”. He’s an orphan, who met us back in 2003 and was making good progress for a while, before things started to fall apart for him. We had helped him enrol in school and he wanted to join a handicrafts course, but neither of them worked out well. He started hanging out with a bad crowd and got himself into trouble, so started to drift away from us. And then one day he was picked up off the streets and sent to prison.

He was 13 then, and everybody here was worried about what had become of him. We didn’t know that he’d been arrested, and had no way of knowing. So to see him back at the soccer this morning was a real buzz for us. He’s already back working on the streets, so hopefully he’ll come by on Monday and we can start over again…

OUR OTHER SUNDAY ACTVITITY is a drumming circle at the American Club. But I failed to make it there today – despite inviting others to come and see me there!

One of Hanoi’s few truly fine restaurants, The Vine, was holding a party for its staff and their families. Donald Berger, the amazing guy who founded the restaurant, has hired 6 older teenagers from Blue Dragon; and as most of our kids don’t have families, one of the boys invited me to accompany him.

I had no idea what I was in for – I thought I might stay a few minutes and then head off to drumming. No chance. Apart from being a great meal (and about a truck load of wine), the party was a celebration of the staff’s achievements.

The big event was the announcement of the Employee of the Quarter award. In the last quarter, Nguyen Van Minh won the award; I first met Minh back in 2002 as a shoeshine in Hanoi’s Old Quarter. Today, another of Blue Dragon’s young people received the Award – Le Hoai Hai.

Hai is an orphan, and unlike most orphans he doesn’t know anything at all about his background. His earliest memory is of walking the streets in Hanoi, selling chewing gum. He was probably 5 or 6 years old. A local woman named Phuong saw him and took him into her home – now, eleven years later, he’s still there, and has even assumed Phuong’s family name.
Hai’s time at The Vine hasn’t always gone smoothly. He’s quit twice, when the pressure seemed to be too great. One time, a local journalist persuaded him to answer some questions for her by promising Hai guaranteed entry into a sports academy – so he quit his job the next day! But each time this has happened, Tu the Executive Chef has urged him to come back to work and sorted out any problems.

So today’s award is a massive feather in Hai’s cap. Receiving Employee of the Quarter is really something when there’s a staff of 100!

It’s a pity I missed the drumming, but what a treat to see one of the poorest and most vulnerable young people we work with receiving his certificate.

Congratulations, Hai – and welcome back, Little Chung!

The vanishing

One of the realities of life when working with street children is that many of the kids come and go - the little girl we take to the doctor today with a severe case of bronchitis might suddenly decide to leave Hanoi tonight, and we can only hope that she is somewhere safe and taking her medicine.

But we don't know, and there's nothing we can do about it.

It's very rare that one of our kids disappears permanently; some have mysteriously vanished for over a year before coming back to us. Just last week, a boy named Nhon started sending me text messages from Ho Chi Minh City - we last saw him when he stole a bicycle from another one of the kids 18 months ago!

(For those volunteers and friends who knew us during 2004 and 2005, Nhon is the shoeshine boy who gave me Bob, the cat. And considering what a psychopathic freak Bob turned out to be, it was in Nhon's best interest to leave Hanoi!)

So usually when kids 'disappear', we don't worry too much. We know they'll be back.

Except... Since Tet (Lunar New Year), one of our young guys has disappeared, and I have a really bad feeling about it.

T is 16 - or so he says. Actually he has no idea - no birth certificate or official registration papers; and his father is the last person on earth who would have bothered to remember what year his son was born in.

T has been living on the streets for most of his life, and smoking heroin for the last year or so. My staff and I have been trying everything to get him to quit. We've known that, once he starts injecting, it's just a matter of time before he contracts HIV.

With no special expertise in helping drug users, and no resources to rely on other than instinct, we've encouraged and supported T as much as we could. We gave him his own special corner of the office in which to keep his few belongings, so that he could at least have a place to identify as his own. We included him in all the normal outings that we could, took him along with us for lunch and dinner, experimented with confrontational and non-confrontational approaches, and even saved his life when a drug dealer was threatening to kill him. The same dealer has been switching between exploiting him and caring for him, leaving T both dependant and terrified. T has been visibly torn between embracing the support of Blue Dragon, and submitting his soul to these vile drug dealers.

About 3 weeks ago, he turned up at the center with his arms looking like pin cushions. Bad news.

And now he's vanished.

The last time I saw T was on the eve of Lunar New Year. One of the Social Workers, Tung, had been here at the center and left a little before midnight to see the fireworks down at Hoan Kiem Lake. I was getting ready for bed when the doorbell rang... T was in tears, confused, ashamed to be alone on the eve of the New Year.

He wasn't stoned - for the first time I had seen him in a long time. Reality was hitting him hard.

So we watched the fire works from the top floor of the building - he 'wow-ed' and 'whoa-ed' with the awe of a little boy.

For the following hours, he was restless: something was wrong, but he didn't know what. Was it withdrawals? Or just the agony of realising how alone he is in life? I wanted to ask him where the dealers were, and why they had abandoned him on such an important night.

Finally T left, mumbling about going to see someone – and we haven’t seen him since.

In a police operation last week, the dealers were all arrested. Was he with them at the time? Or did he see the police coming and think that he was in trouble, and ran away?

This afternoon I was sorting through some bags that I found when we were moving into the new center earlier this week. Out of one bag fell a piece of paper, with T’s name, written over and over. Just a few months back, we started teaching T how to read and write his name, and other important words such as “Vietnam”. We had such hope. Things seemed to be going so well for him.

This isn’t the end of the story, though. One thing I have learned is that the story never ends; something more will always happen, for better or for worse.

Now it’s almost midnight here in Hanoi; it’s raining and it’s cold. I don’t know where T is sleeping tonight; I don’t know how the next chapter of this story will be written.

I can only hope that it will be for better.

Not just a building

I’m not the sort of guy who gets excited about bricks and mortar.

Nice new facilities and modern equipment do not mean good services for kids; there are plenty of international NGOs right here in Hanoi that are up with expensive offices and staff cars, and back in the dark ages when it comes to service delivery.

But I have to confess that I am feeling pretty excited today about our new building. Because it’s not just a building – it’s now the center where the 100 or so disadvantaged kids in our programs can come for classes, medical help, activities, and a DVD or two.

Up until now, Blue Dragon’s street children center has been based in the same building as our offices (and my home!) As of today, though, the center is a building all on its own, just a few doors away from our current building, which is still used for offices and a computer classroom.

This gives us loads more space to work with the kids – 4 classrooms instead of 1! And 2 psychology rooms instead of none!


Maybe it’s not the building that I’m excited about, but the opportunity for us to achieve more with the kids.

- THANKS (again!) to those people who have contributed to getting us set up with the equipment… I really don’t like spending money on furniture, but of course there’s certain equipment (such as classroom seats!) that we need in order to provide services to the children. We’re just about there now - we started off needing over $3000 but thanks to donations of money and equipment, we now need only about $700 more. Christine Becksted and Robert from Giving It Back To Kids deserve a very special thank you.

- On another train of thought altogether (isn’t that what blogging is about??) an Australian woman who volunteers full time in Hoian, Nicole Woods, is in Hanoi this week making contacts and enjoying the northern drizzle. I’ll be meeting Nicole on Thursday to work out how Blue Dragon can help the Street Children’s Center that she works at in Central Vietnam. More on this later!

- And finally, some news about the spate of attacks against our kids over the past 2 months. Our local policeman, Mr Thang, reports that the man who was behind three attacks (including robbing a child at knifepoint) has now been caught and will be spending the next couple of years getting his back tattooed. (It’s a Vietnamese prison-culture thing). While I wouldn’t wish prison on anybody, I can’t feel too sorry for people who make a living out of robbing street kids.

In the News

A quick note today. Hanoi is slowly coming back to life and Blue Dragon is still (sorta kinda) closed. Some quiet days...

The Vietnam News Agency has run an article on the hair styles our kids were getting as Tet presents. It's mostly accurate (which is the most you can hope for sometimes) and worth a read: http://vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn/showarticle.php?num=01SUN290106

- BIG THANKS to the people who have responded to our request for help to buy equipment! We still need funds to buy study desks and gear for the children's center, so contact me if you can help.

- We had a small victory in the fight against the gangs of thieves who have been robbing our kids. We tracked one of the thieves down to his family home, and (with some careful negoatiation) eventually received a note of apology and a refund of the money the guy stole from one of our children.

- The kids are coming back from holidays now... Football starts up again on Sunday and the office is officially open on Monday.

Life's good!