A blog about a blog

A whole week without blogging! Apologies to the masses.

Just a quick one today about a really cool project that we've got running at the moment. This is a 'kill two birds with one stone' project (but don't worry, no birds have even been injured - we swear!)

Some of the Blue Dragon kids at our centre wanted to learn about blogging... and they're all older teens who have also signed up to get involved in Career Planning and Development activities. So we've combined the two ideas by creating a class to teach about blogging, and the content is to be based on site visits to various employers and companies.

So far the kids have been to a web design company, a film studio and a kitchen in the Intercontinental Hotel (West Lake). Next week they're off to meet a tourist guide and learn about the travel industry. At each visit they can tour a workplace, meet employees, and find out what it's like to work there.

Really cool stuff!

A couple of pics below from the Intercontinental Hotel. When our kids actually start writing their blog I'll be sure to post the link.





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Dragons and bears

On Thursday, some of the Blue Dragon children attended a special event: the opening of a bear rescue centre about an hour's drive out of Hanoi.

Vietnamese people commonly believe that bear bile contains powerful medicinal qualities, so the bile and other 'bear products' are extremely valuable. As a result, bears are considered precious commodities, and kept in tiny cages so that their bile can be extracted daily. Their conditions are invariably atrocious.

In Hanoi alone, there are about 600 moon bears kept in cages in people's houses. As unbelievable as that sounds, it's true. So one NGO, called AnimalsAsia, has set up a rescue centre and is working on getting bears out of cages and into safer environments.

Blue Dragon kids were interested to find out more, so they went along with and spent the day learning all about moon bears. A very worthwhile outing for them all!

Maggie Q flew in to Vietnam especially for the opening.
(Maggie, you were in town and you forgot to call me!?)

The bears are living in large open spaces
for the first time in their lives.

One of our volunteers, Skye, and two of the Blue Dragon kids.

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Sneak preview

I wrote last week about an upcoming novel, Dragon House, set in Vietnam; the author (John Shors) has posted this clip on YouTube.

Around the 6 minute mark, there are scenes from here in Hanoi, including some shots taken inside the Blue Dragon centre. Have a look!

http://www.youtube.com/dragonhousebook


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Show me the papers

No matter which country you're in, 'bureacracy' is a dirty word. Long lines to wait in... being sent from one office to another... getting the right signature or stamp... losing your file and starting all over again... This is a part of life we've all experienced.

Here in Vietnam is no different, except that things can be a little more complicated. Vietnamese bureacracy is not yet computerised, which comes as a great shock to westerners who are used to having all their records kept on databases that can be accessed in a flash.

At Blue Dragon, we regularly meet families who need help with what appear to be simple bureacratic matters: teenagers without birth certificates is a common one. Parents, often poor and illiterate, might not bother with the fuss of obtaining a birth certificate, and 15 years later suddenly find that now their child cannot obtain an ID card, which is essentil for going to high school, getting a driver's licence, applying for a job, qualifying for government benefits, and so on.

But once a child is in their teens, the process of getting a birth certificate is no simple matter. In every case we've encountered, the family has moved away from where the child was born, or the parents have died, or other official family documents have been misplaced - all of which mean that a birth certificate cannot be issued.

This is why we hire two lawyers!

In the last few years, our two lawyers, both fresh out of uni, have helped 132 families get their paperwork and legal documents. Considering that it can take weeks of investigative work and gathering evidence, 132 is quite an incredible feat.

And last week, the number reached 133. This was perhaps the most difficult case we've so far encountered, because the family in question had absolutely no evidence at all of who they were or where they were from. Their oldest daughter Quyen is now 18, and her school has been very flexible in allowing her to enrol and study - but to get her final mark and then apply for university, Quyen must have her papers in order.

Final Grade 12 exams are just weeks away, and university entrance exams will follow in July. Our lawyer Hong has been working feverishly to get the papers in time - and with a huge sigh of relief, last week Hong could declare 'case closed.' Quyen, along with her mother, brother and sister, now has all the official paperwork she needs. Her birth has been registered, she has an ID card, and her mother even has registration back in the village where she was born.

Getting some papers just seems so unimportant, but Quyen's mother was crying with joy when she returned to our centre after traveling with Hong to the village. I really felt embarrassed receiving her profuse thanks, but I could see how important this was to her. They weren't just papers, they were the family's legal existence and their right to take part in society.

And with that done, here's hoping Quyen's final exams give her the result she's hoping for!


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Dragon House

One day last year, completely out of the blue, I received an email from an author named John Shors.

Having lived under a rock for the past 7 years, I hadn't read John Shors' novels, even though he's had a couple of best sellers. But John was working on a new project: a story about street kids in Vietnam. Would I mind having a look at the manuscript and perhaps giving some feedback, John asked?

As someone who plans to publish a best seller one day, but has yet to write it, I was excited to take this on... and I was curious to see how this writer would portray the world of Vietnamese street children. What I was most interested to see was if John would fall into the trap of cliches and stereotypes that plague most literature on the subject - both fiction and non fiction. Even many big NGOs produce material that merely perpetuates the myths of either the 'poor helpless victim' or the 'prince-in-paupers-clothing'. The truth, as always, is far more complex than any stereotype.

But in John Shors' novel, soon to be published, these cliches are nowhere to be seen. I was sometimes stunned to see the depth of the characters, and the understanding of reality that is portrayed across the pages. An example: early in the novel, there's a scene in which the 2 main street children are hussling tourists in a restaurant area of a hotel. As they leave, the staff demand a 'cut' of their takings. This is the sort of thing you never read about, yet it's typical of how street kids here are treated.

And the title? Dragon House. Too amazing.

Anyway, I don't want to give too much away. But I can say that there is no scene at the end where one person turns to another and says, "Luke, I'm your father." For anything more than that, though, you'll have to get your hands onto the book. It's really worth it.

John Shors already has a website up - www.dragonhousebook.com. Go check it out, and pass the word along.

In a few weeks, I'll add a page to the Blue Dragon website. John has offered that anybody who donates $100 to our Dragon House page can receive a signed copy of the novel. All the money raised will go towards running our centre for street kids.

I'm really excited by this! I feel that it's a huge honour to have a novelist lend his support to our work; and I know that readers will gain a much greater understanding of life on the streets of Vietnam.

More updates on this to come...


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She's in!

One of our teen girls, Linh, has just received the GREAT news that she's been accepted into the KOTO training program here in Hanoi. She's thrilled, but also aware of the 2 years of hard work that lies ahead.

KOTO is a hospitality training organisation that prepares disadvantaged youth for jobs in restaurants, hotels, and tourism. Getting in to the program isn't easy - they are regularly flooded with applicants but can only accept about 30 kids per intake. So Linh has had to work really hard to get this placement.

Linh deserves this chance, and she really needs it. This could be her 'lucky break'... KOTO graduates really do go on to great jobs with bright futures.

We all wish you well, Linh; we know you can do this!

Farewell for now

Blue Dragon has been caring for the 30 kids at the Hoi An Children's Home since 2007, but our history with the Home goes back a few years earlier than that.

As early as 2003, when I was living in Hanoi and spending my free time in Hoi An, I would drop in to the Home to see the Director, Mrs Diep, and catch up with the children. There are 30 girls and boys there, all from extremely poor families in remote rural areas, who otherwise would not have the chance to go to school. The Home itself is a very humble place, in need of demolition and a complete rebuild, but there's always been a tremendous spirit of hope and happiness there.

On one of my occasional visits in 2004, I met a new volunteer who had turned up to teach English and run activities for a few weeks. Nicole Woods, from Australia, was a young lawyer taking some time off and wanting to get involved in a worthwhile project.

Just for a few weeks.

Five years later, Nicole is finally getting ready to leave Hoi An and return to Australia.

Quite a few things have happened in the past 5 years! When I first met Nicole, Blue Dragon had no formal involvement with the Home at all; but as the weeks turned into months and then years, it was clear that Nicole was passionate about these kids and determined to improve their conditions. The Home needed some help, and Nicole was ready to do it (and capable): so at that time we made the decision that Blue Dragon would get involved.

With Nicole supported through the VIDA organisation, Blue Dragon assumed management of the Home and within months the Home had staff, social workers, and administrative systems in place.

Nicole has been an extraordinary manager. It's unusual to find someone so thorough and competent with administration, while also so completely in tune with the children.

Yesterday was Nicole's last day at the Home. As it was a public holiday, she gave the staff team the day off and stood in as the supervisor to spend some time with the kids.

She's not just leaving, though - Nicole is going back to Australia to have a baby. After years of caring for the children of others, she's decided it's time to start her own family.

Nicole will fly off soon, but will be back before the end of the year and is likely to return to the Home. We'll miss her while she's away, and she'll be missing the kids terribly; but we're already thinking of her return.

Take care, Nicole, and may your own child bring as much joy to you as you have to so many.

Where's Wally? Nicole is hidden away among
the crowd of past and present residents of
the Hoi An Children's Home

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Lots of news

Lots of great things happening at the moment... Hard to know where to begin!

Starting in central Vietnam, Blue Dragon has just 'officially' opened a new house for a family whose 14 year old son was trafficked to a garment factory but returned home with our help late last year.

I first wrote about this family last year (see this entry here - the family in question is in the 2nd photo). They've gone from a tent to living in the house pictured below... and both of the kids are now studying again. A great result. And I must say a BIG thanks to the Australia / New Zealand Community Group in Hanoi who funded this.



Back in Hanoi, the United Nations International School (UNIS) has allowed us to use their swimming pool for therapy with our disabled kids. Our staff, Phuong, is pictured below with one of the children who has cerebral palsy. (Thank you, UNIS).



And while I'm saying thanks, I should also mention our volunteer Issy who has been doing the most amazing therapy work with several of the Blue Dragon children. That's her below. If only we could keep her with us forever...



In northern Bac Ninh province, where Blue Dragon already supports about 350 school students, we've now made a commitment to extend our work to at least 70 more children in another very poor area of the countryside. I went to meet the principal of one of the schools on Friday, and we went about meeting some families who are really in need of help, fast. In some cases, young teens were living in the care of very elderly grandparents who were struggling to put enough food on the table. Some terribly sad cases.

Given the state of the world's economy, expanding our work to a new area might not be the obvious thing to do - but how could we say no to these kids?

Finally, over the weekend we had a visit from a wonderful group of students at the Hanoi Music Conservatorium. As some of our staff and kids alike are really into music, we decided to throw together a 'music gala' for the children - including a stringed quartet, a drummer, a couple of guitarists and a flautist. What a brilliant Sunday morning it turned out to be! About 15 of our children joined in, with plenty of chances to participate throughout the event.



It's kinda nice having so much good news to report...

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Full circle

One of our 'oldest' kids, a 22 year old boy named Toan, has just started his first part time job outside Blue Dragon.

Toan is the 'oldest' not only because of his age - although he is the oldest of all our beneficiaries. But he's also 'oldest' because he's been in our care longer than any other kid has.

When I first met Toan about 6 years ago, he was living a really tough life. He'd been arrested twice for shining shoes on the streets of Hanoi, but each time had made his way out of the detention centre and back to the city where he was working so that he could go to school.

It was an unusual circumstance: at age 16, Toan had never been to school, and his parents wouldn't let him go - so he ran away to the city, enrolled in a school, and worked on the streets shining shoes to pay for his studies and accommodation.

Now aged 22, Toan is in Grade 7 (he's been studying a compacted curriculum) and determined to get right through High School. Although it's more common for organisations like ours to end support when beneficairies turn 18, we've continued to support Toan because he genuinely wants to go through school, and without support he can't do it. However, he is taking steps to independence and although he's been doing some administrative jobs for us at Blue Dragon, it's time for him to take the next step of working for somebody else.

So this week he has started a part time job, and it's not just any job. Toan is working for another charity: the Australian Charity for Children of Vietnam, or ACCV for short.

ACCV is a fairly small organisation, still getting started in fact, but its founder Alison Vidotto is an absolute dynamo. She's the 'real deal': there's no pretence, no fluff, just a hard working woman with a dream to make life better for blind kids in Vietnam. Simple as that. Check out their website. (They're almost as good as Blue Dragon! Truly!!)

Alison and her daughter Rose have been coming to and from Vietnam a couple of times a year for about 4 years now, and they always drop in at Blue Dragon to see how we are. On their very first visit, they met Toan and were deeply impressed by his passion to be educated. So now that they're growing, and need some on-the-ground support, they have decided to employ Toan as their support staff.

He's still going to school, but has a couple of free mornings each week which he'll now use to arrange deliveries, visit families, and run errands around town.

There's no doubt that Toan is passionate about education. But he has another passion, too: he wants to help other disadvantaged kids so that they can have the chance to go to school, which he missed out on when he was younger. This job gives him exactly that opportunity. He's not only earning some money; he's also helping out people who are more disadvantaged than he is.

I meet a lot of young people who have endured difficult circumstances, but I am not exaggerating to say that Toan's story is one of the most inspiring I have come across. I'm grateful to Alison for giving Toan this chance, and I know that this is just the start of a great new chapter in his life.

Go get 'em, Toan.



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Sustain this

Sustainability is one of the buzz words in the world of development organisations - which used to call themselves charities until that word became unfashionable.

The great thing about the word sustainability is that it can mean so many things that in the end, it often means nothing. Blue Dragon recently received a flogging with a very damp kleenex on a public website because, the critic said, our results are unsustainable. And what does that mean? Well, there lies the mystery.

To be a sustainable organisation is often taken to mean that you somehow can pay for your work without having to ask anyone for help. So, for example, a training restaurant is sustainable because (in theory, at least) the income from the restaurant should support all the costs and training expenses needed to run the organisation.

This is a great concept, but how can you apply it to organisations that rescue teenage girls from brothels... or provide heart surgeries for impoverished children... or give a home to abandoned infants? How can they be expected to develop an income stream to pay for themselves?

So being financially sustainable is great, but it by no means should be the measure of how good an organisation is.

And then there's the other common meaning of sustainability: that when your organisation packs up and disappears, the results of your work live on.

Training restaurants again provide a good example of this. Once trainees, who are usually from disadvantaged backgrounds, have completed their training, they can be fully independent and no longer need any support.

Of course, that's a great goal to aim for. But again, not for everyone. What about organisations that care for the elderly? Or people with severe disabilities? Should these groups of people be expected to somehow show a sustainable result?

Last Friday one of our teen boys, Truong, was sprawled out on a sofa in our centre. He's recently dropped out of school and has been doing work experience in the Blue Dragon kitchen. He's 17 years old, and has no idea what he wants to do with his life. So I had a chat with him, and it went something like this (except in Vietnamese, of course):

Me: Do you want to get a proper job in a restaurant?

Truong: No.

Me: What sort of job would you like to have?

Truong: Dunno.

Me: What about a job selling clothes, or working in a shop?

Truong: Yeah, maybe. But I don't really like talking to people.

Me: What about joining a vocational training course?

Truong: I don't know.

... and so on.

We're hardly heading for a sustainable result with this kid, are we?

But then it hit me: millions of parents around the world must have had conversations exactly like this one with their own teens.

Maybe, just maybe, I was once Truong, with no strong passions, no career plans - just an interest in hanging out with friends and listening to music.

So who says that Truong has to somehow fit into the currently-fashionable mold of sustainability? Is it just because he's an abandoned, neglected, impoverished Vietnamese teen that he is expected to be different to any other teenager around the world? Seems to me that he's a perfectly normal teenage boy. And I, for one, have no problem with that.

Could it be that the development consultants, experts and critics around the world would really have such double standards - allowing their own kids to behave like normal people, while demanding that poor kids in developing countries deliver a sustainable result?


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Day One - Cut!

Some great news today about one of our teen boys, Ly, who is 16 and has been living in a Blue Dragon home for over 2 years. Up until recently, Ly was studying in school, but he didn't start Grade 1 until he was 14, so he's quite a bit behind his peers and not so interested in pursuing an academic career.

So today, after a lot of thought and preparation, Ly started in a training course to become a hairdresser.

Day One has been a great success. He's just come back in, all smiles and thrilled to be in a class with just 2 other students. Seems perfect!

This is a 6 month course, so there's a long road to travel, but we're off to the best start we could hope for.



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Quieter

Hanoi doesn't have many grassroots charities, so Blue Dragon is quite often in a position where we have to deal with every problem that comes our way - whether or not it's strictly part of our mission, or we have staff to deal with it.

An issue we have faced over the past few years has been how to help very young children whose families are in messy situations. Children aged as young as 5 or 6 have been turning up at our drop-in centre because their parents have died, or are sick, or are in prison, and they've been left in the care of a widowed elderly grandparent who has to work on the streets in order to survive.

Having preschoolers at the centre takes us away from providing a safe place for street kids; the little guys need a very different type of care and supervision. And our usual goals of leading the kids to greater independence, and encouraging self-motivation, just don't apply!

However, providing care to these children is still a terrific thing to do. Turning them away just isn't an option.

During 2008, we had a husband and wife team volunteering with us through VSO (the English volunteer program). Elaine was a school teacher, with a long history of caring for kids with special needs. She personally put in a huge effort with one little boy named Hai who was coming to our centre every day. Hai was so tiny that he looked much more like a 4 year old than a 6 year old; and he so badly lacked social skills that for the first 6 months of him coming to us, he had virtually no communication at all, with anyone. He wouldn't say a word, and he wouldn't look any of us in the eye.

Thanks in very large part to Elaine's efforts, Hai is a completely different child now. He runs about the centre, chattering and playing with stuffed animals like any normal child. And, also thanks to Elaine, our staff are well trained in working with Hai and know how to get through to other children with similar difficulties.

More recently, a little girl has also been coming to the centre every day: Hong, also just 6 years old. She had a wild gleam in her eyes when she first turned up. Her hair was tangled and her clothes were filthy, and her two main emotions were "disengaged" and "angry". The way she lectured and spanked the stuffed toys gave us a fairly good idea of what her home life was like.

But she, too, has undergone something of a transformation. She now smiles widely when she sees the staff; she wants to be picked up and hugged, and she treats the toys now with child-like concern for their welfare. Just like any little girl of the same age.

Having Hong and Hai at the centre made the place much noisier, and the staff have definitely been kept on their toes. But during this last week, our centre suddenly became much quieter.

Hong and Hai have both improved so much in their social skills that they are ready now for preschool. Until recently, no preschool would accept them. They couldn't interact with other children, and needed too much care and attention to fit in.

Remarkably, though, their first week at preschool has been fine, even though the school year is nearing the end. It's still early days, of course, but some early intervention seems to have had a pretty good result.

This might not be what Blue Dragon was set up for, but helping out these two preschoolers has undoubtedly been the right thing to do.


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Fame and fortune

Well, OK, maybe not really. But here's an article that's just come out in East&West Magazine:

http://east-westmag.com/issue13/84-87-13.pdf


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New heights

Blue Dragon's soccer team started in early 2003, long before "Blue Dragon" was even a legal entity. At the time, some of my friends and I were teaching English, maths and art to street kids and the rooms we were using just wouldn't hold any more students. So someone came up with the idea of taking it to the soccer field.

Our very first game was not spectacular: just 3 kids turned up. We played on a dirt field, in bare feet, and had a great time.

Since then, we've played 600 games. Yes, 600! - at least 2 games each week, and in the last 6 years there have only ever been a few weeks that we didn't play at all.

The original idea of the soccer was to offer some recreation to street kids, who don't have many safe or legal avenues to have fun. That's still one of our goals, but today the soccer serves as an outreach to street kids and young people around Hanoi's Phuc Tan area - one of the most socially disadvantaged areas of the city. Some weeks we have to sweep aside the discarded syringes before the kids can play; the area around the field is something of a hot spot for heroin users, some of whom come and join in the games.

From our first Sunday game with 3 kids, we've grown quite a bit. For a long time our record number of players was 64, but last week 75 kids turned up and today the number was around 65. We still play on a dirt field, but these days the kids wear shoes thanks to sponsorship we've had from a couple of organisations, including Catholic Relief Services and Asia Pacific Sports Management in Singapore.

Asking the Blue Dragon staff to turn up at a football field at 7.30am every Sunday hasn't been as much of a problem as you might expect. There's a trio who organise and run the games - Tho, Tung, and Diep - and usually a couple of volunteers turn up to help too. Tho and Diep have even received some training by the British Council's Premier League coaching program, so now the games start with a fun warm up and basic training.

As simple as it all is, the soccer games are fantastic: they let street kids come and meet us on familiar turf, and give working kids an hour of no-strings-attached fun. And if only it was held at a more reasonable hour, I might even get down there more often myself!


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A birthday first

On Monday, we had a real cause for celebration: the very first birthday of Dong, one of the teenage boys living in our Hanoi shelter.

Dong has never had a birthday before. Until late last year, he never had a birth certificate, so our staff member Van travelled around the countryside to work with the police and government officials in order to do the impossible: obtain a birth certificate for a 14 year old boy who has no close relatives in existence.

To settle on the actual date, Dong just had to take a guess. He did have a fairly good idea of the year, though.

And so, what should have been his 15th birthday was actually his first. At last, Dong has an annual milestone to look forward to (or, as those of us on the wrong side of our 20s would say: dread).

It might not seem like such a big thing, but imagine a childhood with no birthdays. Imagine not really being sure of your age, and of having nobody notice that you're another year older.

Dong's party was like all the rest: some terrible singing, some corny speeches, loads of food, and some presents. What a terrific event in the life of this wonderful kid.

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Don't forget the parents

A very common mistake made by charities is forgetting that street kids have families, too.

Of the 800 girls and boys Blue Dragon works with, most have a parent. Some have both parents. Just a few have none, but even those kids usually have an aunt, or a grandfather, or an older cousin.

To have a lasting impact on the life of a child, getting their family involved can be very important. Over the years, there have been some striking cases of parents who didn't care at all about the welfare of their own children, but I'm glad to say that they are the minority. The problem we see much more often is that of parents who simply don't know how to care.

This is something that Blue Dragon can help with.

Last weekend, we ran a two day workshop for parents on anger management and positive discipline. 22 parents came and joined in, which is pretty good... especially as most had to forego a couple of days of earning money in order to do that. (Most parents of Blue Dragon kids work in markets, or collect scrap on the streets. They can't apply for holiday leave from these jobs!).

The parents went away with some new ideas for dealing with their kids; and it was so well received that another course is already being planned for April. Hopefully the children will appreciate the results of this course too!

The photo below is of Mr Hao, a local psychologist from the Institute of Psychology,
working with a group of parents.

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Open for business

Microfinance has become all the rage in recent years.

Some very well managed programs have sprouted in developing countries and have been so tremendously successful that even private businesses and investors have jumped on the bandwagon to lend money to very poor people. Some investors are turning over a healthy profit from this kind of enterprise.

Blue Dragon has been a bit slower to get involved. We don't have the expertise to run a microfinance program - it's much more than just giving out cash and hoping to get it back later. And there's also the fact that we work with children, rather than adults.

Despite this, we've now helped a few young people to start their own businesses, and the results are fairly good so far.

I've written before about the Gold Dragon Shoe Shop in Hoi An which was started by a former street kid named Nam. Even though Hoi An is struggling with the drop in tourist numbers now, Nam's shop is doing OK and he's continuing to use some of his profits to support the Hoi An Children's Home.

More recently, we've helped two older teens establish mobile phone sales and repair shops. One boy, named Doan, was shining shoes in Hanoi when we first met him. He's had a pretty tough life and has long dreamt of 'making something' of himself. Late last year, he set his mind to opening his own business, and with some backing from Blue Dragon he's done it - and going well.

Another young guy with a business idea was a teenager named Thanh, who lives in the countryside with his three brothers. Their parents died a few years back, leaving them in massive debt and without many choices for the future. With some help from donors around the world, Blue Dragon paid off their debts and Thanh has just opened his own mobile phone stand near a university in Hung Yen province.

For both Doan and Thanh, we have helped out with a small grant, as well as a loan that they need to repay over the coming year. And to make sure they can do it, each boy has to come and meet with our accountant Tra once a month to make sure their record keeping is all in order and everything is under control.

From some very small steps, we've had a huge impact on the lives of these teenagers and their entire families. I don't think we'll ever extend our program to help thousands of kids open their own shops, but it's great to see how effective we can be with just a bit of money and guidance.


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Bowled!

Some happy news from Hanoi... a group of school students from Maine dropped by and organised to take some of our kids with disabilities to 10 pin bowling last weekend.

Teenagers from the Blue Dragon center joined in to help out... a terrific afternoon for everyone. I'll let the photos tell the story...

Newsletter

It's time for the biggest publication of the quarter - the Blue Dragon Newsletter!

If you haven't received a copy, send an email to Amy at info@bdcf.org. This edition features an article on how the global financial crisis is impacting Vietnamese families, as well as stories on the kids at Blue Dragon.



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Developments

Although I'm in Sydney now, the team back in Vietnam has been taking care of things (as usual!) and it's a great relief to know the kids are in good hands.

A couple of important updates...

- Although we couldn't locate the 4 missing children from Hue last week, we have some new information about which factories they might be in. A local journalist, who has been following this case, and some police will be following up these leads in a day or two. We're really hopeful that this matter will be resolved soon.

- The very first trafficked child we ever rescued, Ngoc, is starting this week as a kitchen hand at Pane e Vino restaurant in Hanoi! Ngoc is still at school, but as his classes are only in the afternoons he's been studying cooking at a vocational training college and now he's ready to start earning some money. We're all really proud to see Ngoc taking these steps to independence.

- There are several Blue Dragon kids about to start in apprenticeships or training courses - ranging from hairdressing courses to mobile telephone repair to English classes at Language Link. At the same time, we're speaking to our older kids who are thinking about university. This August we're expecting to have at least 5 of the Blue Dragon teenagers applying to uni and college.

- And I'm getting ready for a big fundraising dinner in Cabramatta this Saturday night. The Vietnamese Australian community is putting on a special evening to raise support for the victims of trafficking who we have been helping. If you're in Sydney and want to find out more, contact the organiser, Vuong, on vuongkevin@gmail.com. It will be a great night...

I plan to post another blog in a day or two - sorry for the recent silences!


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From afar...

I'm in Australia now, here to attend some events for Blue Dragon. Strange to be here - everything seems so quiet, and clean, and well organised... I really feel out of place!

Back in Vietnam, our staff are working out how to locate the 4 missing children who I wrote about in the last 2 blogs. We're not going to give up on them. We are getting some information through our networks - we know they're safe, at least, which is something. But they need to be home with their families, not slaving away in factories against their will.

And a quick note: we've created a new webpage for Blue Dragon. Go check it out here - www.streetkidsinvietnam.com - and let us know what you think. (Oh, and drop us a line if you see any errors! It really is brand spanking new!)


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It's bad news

This morning I wrote that Blue Dragon staff are looking for kids who seem to have been kidnapped from their families in Hue. We had some potential leads, but they've all fallen through.

We haven't found them.

But this is not the end - we just need to get creative. The traffickers have lied to the families about where the children are, and they've also lied to government officials who contacted them by phone to ask for their address.

Seems to me that the traffickers are digging themselves a deep hole. It's bitterly disappointing that we have not located the 4 kids, but we will. We're not giving up on this.


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Kidnapped?

There's a new and frightening twist to my tales of child trafficking here in Vietnam...

For some years now, Blue Dragon has been rescuing trafficked children and doing our best to disable the trafficking rings. We've had some good success although it's been long, slow work. Our focus has been children from Hue, in central Vietnam, who have been taken to Saigon to work on the streets or in garment factories.

Up until now, the traffickers have simply relied on deceit to get parents to hand their children over. They've promised training, an education, a free flow of money... all lies, but very persuasive. The families they target live in extreme poverty, often in tents or shacks erected on sand.

Things are different now: the families and communities are fully aware of the traffickers, they know about their lies and they refuse to sell their children. The traffickers don't have such an easy job any more.

In response, the traffickers appear to have suddenly started something new: taking the children without anybody's knowledge or permission.

There are 4 families in Hue, all living in terrible conditions, who each lost one child on one day about 2 weeks ago. The parents went out fishing on the sea, and when they returned their child was gone. No explanation. But now there are reports that the 4 children have turned up in Saigon, working in a garment factory...

I hesitate to call this kidnapping, because I don't have all the facts yet. There's not much chance that the children ran away: they wouldn't have the resources to travel 600kms and then find a factory! But maybe they agreed to go with the traffickers - which is still a dubious explanation. They're all under 16, so the traffickers knew that they'd need the parents' consent.

I'm not sure how this story is going to end. Too much doesn't make sense yet. Our lawyer, Van, is in Saigon now looking for the children, and we do have reason to hope he will find them. But Saigon is a large city... And the traffickers are not going to be happy to see him.

I hope to have some news tonight or on Wednesday. Here's hoping it's good news.


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Go, Oscar, go!

How cool is this...

UNIS school in Hanoi has organised a walkathon on Friday 27th to raise money for the Blue Dragon kids.

One of the keenest walkers, a 4 year old named Oscar, has posted a movie on YouTube to appeal for sponsorship. (Well, OK, I think his mum helped with some of it).

Check it out here!

We'll be cheering for you, Oscar!


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Long time coming

A small but significant milestone this week...

For well over a year, Blue Dragon has wanted to build a house for a particular family in Hue. They've been living in this bamboo hut on stilts above a swamp:


... and in case you're thinking "well, that looks quite sturdy", here's a shot of the floor inside:




The fact that there were 5 children living in a house that was on the verge of collapsing was not the only reason we wanted to help. Their eldest son, Ky, was one of the first children we rescued from child traffickers and reunited with his parents. At the time we took him home, we promised him that his life would be better now; we needed to make good on that promise.

So we appealed for donations and had some promises of support. The Hanoi International Women's Club came good with $1000; Marc Gold from 100 Friends offered another $1000; and three individuals - Eva Bengtsson, Amy Ha and Quyen Trang, donated a few hundred more.

Enough to build the house!

But... there was quite a long delay in securing land for the family. The local government was committed to granting a block of land on which to build the house, but no land was available until early this year.

However - it's done! Finished! Het roi, as they say in Vietnam.

The Red Cross, who helped us with the building, organised an Opening Ceremony for the house... although they wanted to delay it until I could get there, or one of the Blue Dragon staff from Hanoi could attend. Our answer: No more delays! Have the ceremony and let the family move in!

I can't wait to see it for myself. The parents so happy to have a house that won't blow down in a storm... And I'm glad to say that we could finally prove to little Ky that things really are getting better for him and his family.








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Dragon of the River Banks

A big event last night - the launch of a photography book, Dragon of the River Banks, produced by Blue Dragon Children's Foundation.


Our kids have studying photography over recent months with an English photographer named Darren Zlatareff. The end result is a collection of photos of the Long Bien bridge, a major landmark in Hanoi and also the place where many street kids live and work.

The whole project was sponsored by ArtAction (previously ArtVenture) in Singapore and last night's launch was at Hanoi's Bookworm.

Below are some pics of the launch, but click here to see some samples of the photos taken by the children. They really are impressive...

The Bookworm was packed...

... so the crowd took over the street!

Some of the photographers receiving a copy of the book.

The photographer, Darren, is holding up a book beside one of the kids whose work
is included in the book.

The launch gave the kids a great chance to shine. They were so proud to see people buying the book, and ordering prints of their photography - and people weren't just being charitable. Their photography was exceptional!

Good on ya, Blue Dragon kids...



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Not getting through

It's come to my attention that a lot of emails to my bdcf.org email account have been disappearing into the ether - perhaps for over a month now.

If you've emailed me and I haven't responded, chances are I didn't get your message!

Get me at bluesep @ gmail.com... and apologies if you're wondering why I never write back...


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All rice

Rice is being delivered!

The families gather at a rice distribution point...

This is Viet, who was trafficked a few years ago to work on the streets of Saigon. He's living with his family now and doing really well at school.

BIG THANKS to those people who respond to my blog last week and came through with the money to make this happen. (Scroll down to "Paradise for some" if you're not sure what I'm talking about!) Thanks to you, these 20 families won't be going hungry...


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All rise

One heartbreaking part of my work at Blue Dragon is being able to foresee the 'destiny' of individual children, but not being able to do anything about it.

It's heartbreaking, because I can often see where the kids are headed, but nothing I say or do can get them off the path they are on. These are the kids who are constantly on the edge, pushing the boundaries, running risks - and most times, their families are already in prison, or living with addictions. It doesn't take a fortune teller to predict where these kids are likely to end up.

But on some occasions, I have seen kids change track and surprise everyone. On how many occasions? Well, enough to make me keep working here.

This morning I attended the district court along with one of our teenage boys, who has been charged with stealing a badge from a car.

Tu - not his real name, of course - has been a part of Blue Dragon for almost 3 years. His life story is one of the more fascinating: he's lived in Ho Chi Minh City, he spent over a year working in China, and when I first met him he was surviving by collecting scrap on the streets of Hanoi. There's a lot more to his story, and many details I still don't know about.

He was about 14 years old then, and he's about 17 now - but these are just rough guesses as he has no birth certificate. Tu's family never bothered to mark his birth date. After his parents divorced, he was passed around from family member to family member, and often left to fend for himself.

Tu is a quiet kid, and very bright: when he puts his mind to it, he can easily come top of his class. He says little, and even at Blue Dragon many staff and kids find him something of an enigma.

Tu was arrested in November last year, having ripped the badge off a brand new Ford. Apparently these badges can be resold for a lot of money: lots of street kids in Hanoi fund themselves through this badge theft. The owner of the car, although furious at first, has forgiven Tu and shown considerable empathy toward him. The police, too, were quite compassionate when they learnt Tu's story and realised that he has no family they could call on.

In short, Tu is a good kid in a bad situation. And today he went to court.

There was a lot of information for the court to take into consideration: since his arrest, Tu has been working part time in the Blue Dragon kitchen, as well as going to school, and his behaviour has been excellent. The fact that the victim of the crime forgave him also went in his favour.

At the conclusion of the hearing, Tu was handed a suspended sentence. He's not going to prison (which was a potential outcome) but he has a second chance to get things right.

Based on how he's been going over the past few months, there's every indication that Tu will use this second chance. He's hugely relieved to not have a harsher sentence, and he already has plans to keep on studying and working. Tu knows how fortunate he is to have this chance.

I've known Tu for a few years now, and I've always believed that he would make something of himself, although at times I've been a minority in holding that view. Today I see in him a young man on the rise: he's determined to change his circumstances and make something of his life.

And I really, truly, believe that he will do it.



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Paradise for some

Hue, in central Vietnam, is a beautiful place. Hue City was once the capital city of Vietnam, and so is a goldmine of history - tombs, citadels, statues, the lot.

Outside the city, Hue's countryside is idyllic, from the mountain jungles to the white sand beaches.

Every time I visit Hue, and go to see the families supported by Blue Dragon, I am struck by the beauty of where they live. Their homes line the beaches, looking out over the ocean: I often think that a plot of land in a similar spot outside Sydney, or California, would have a price tag starting in the millions.

But these families are not 'real estate rich.' They live where they do because nobody else wants to live there, in the face of typhoons, far from basic services like fresh water and electricity. Their homes face the beach not for the view, but because the water is their sole source of livelihood: fish. Fathers and sons spend 2 weeks at a time out on boats hauling fish. The pay is meager and the dangers many.

The reason Blue Dragon works there is that many families make so little money, they must let traffickers take their children to work in factories just to be sure the family has enough to eat.

In the past 10 days, we've received many requests from the families in Hue for some extra food. Right now, the weather is bad, the fish aren't biting, and families are starting to go hungry. We need to get them some rice!

This is just a short term fix - we have 20 families needing rice for 3 months. The total bill will come to 14,000,000 VND - that's about $835 US, or $1,250 AUD. Twenty families will be fed for 3 months!

If you can help, please email me directly - bluedragon@bdcf.org.

It's hard to imagine in today's world that anybody needs to go hungry. How can it be?


Updates:
Thursday: Alison from ACCV has pledged $400AUD to help - that's enough for about 6 families. Big electronic hugs, Alison!
Friday: Steve - a.k.a Our Man has pledged 50 GBP, and I can't find the "pounds" symbol on my keyboard. Thank you Steve.
Friday again: $100AUD from Rachel Welch. Thanks - we're about half way there!
Tuesday: Vo Minh has donated another $300 US.... so the pressure is off now.

Thanks everyone!!

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Now for the gold dragon

Here's a link to a story in this week's Vietnam News (in English) about a young man named Nam, from Hoi An town, who recently opened his own shop. It's called The Gold Dragon Shoe Shop.

It's not just any shoe shop, though. Nam used to be a street kid, and he's donating some of his profits to support the Hoi An Children's Home.

The news article tells the whole story... except for the address! 495 Cua Dai Street, Hoi An.

Get on the phone to your travel agent, book your flight to central Vietnam, and get yourself some shoes made!

Or... just enjoy this great story...


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Ain't no angel

I've been writing a lot during recent months about the work Blue Dragon does in rescuing kids who are forced to work for garment factories in Ho Chi Minh City.

Each time I write, I struggle to capture the feelings involved in this work: the hopelessness and misery of the children, as well as the disbelief and extraordinary relief they show when we tell them they are free to go home.

There's a line from Bruce Springsteen's Philadelphia that's been playing through my head lately (yeah, I'm secretly a bit of a Bruce fan):

Ain't no angel gonna greet me. It's just you and I, my friend.

When we meet trafficked children, whether it's on the streets as beggars, or as prostitutes in brothels, or as bonded labor in factories, this is what the look in their eye says. There's no hope that anyone, even an angel, is going to appear; there's just no hope at all. The kids are lucky if they have someone else their age to befriend them.

I have a video - it's just a few seconds - which I have hesitated to post on the blog, but which I think deserves to be seen. The little guy in the clip has just been told by our staff that we're taking him home. He doesn't believe us, so we ring his mother and give him the phone to let him hear it from her.

He's so shocked and overwhelmed with relief that he can't even talk - the nightmare is over, the unbelievable has happened. And in his silence, you can see a shade of what life must have been like for him up until this moment.




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The disappearance

Hanoi is eerily quiet in the post-Tet peace that sets in every year and lasts just a few days...

While all the staff are on holidays, I'm supervising the few kids who are left behind in our shelter, with no family to go home to. They're good kids, and don't need much in the way of supervision, so I have plenty of time to reflect on the past year and all that has happened.

Over the past 12 months, the saddest development on the streets has been the increase in the number of kids who get caught up in gangs and drug dealing. Mostly the gangs steal fruit from markets and re-sell it, then use the money to play games and eat through the next day. But more and more, they are breaking into houses, stealing car parts, and selling heroin. And then there's the fighting, which always involves knives.

There's a group of boys who live on the edges of these gangs; they have one foot on the streets, and one foot in Blue Dragon. Some have lived in our shelter, where I am now staying, then returned to the streets when the lure of fast money and the thrill of the chase became too strong.

Many of those same kids are now in prison or detention centres.

Each time one of our kids is arrested, my feelings are badly torn. I am filled with grief to see them start down the inevitable path of institutionalisation, and with fear for how they must feel in those first days and weeks of incarceration, before they find friends and small comforts in their new world. But I am also relieved, in a guilty kind of way, that the other Blue Dragon kids - those who are tempted to go back to the streets but have chosen not to do so - can see that they have made the right choice. Their envy of the teens with motorbikes and pockets full of cash soon evaporates when they hear of them landing in prison.

But then there are the kids who simply disappear. This does not happen often, but it worries me sick when it does. And it's just recently happened to a 15 year old named Hung.

I won't post a photo, but many volunteers and visitors will know Hung: he has an angelic face, he's shy, but he argues like a lawyer and seems to always be around when there's trouble. As one of our staff recently said: "He's just a typical teenager with a bad attitude."

I like Hung. I've met his family, who care for him but are unable to understand his needs and desires. He's bright, but leads from behind. He shuns the spotlight but ever since I met him 2 years ago I have learned that he knows what's going on and, 9 times out of 10, he's involved.

Hung did manage to come off the streets for a whole year, and he was doing really well but in September things started to go badly for him and he returned to the streets. We tried renting a small room for him, we tried sending him to school and training, but nothing seemed to work. Still, he'd come back to us every day for lunch, and sometimes come to hang out for dinner as well. Whenever he got picked up by the police our staff would go down to the station to sit by his side and talk things through with the officers.

About 2 weeks ago, though, something happened. Some of our kids saw Hung sitting in an internet cafe when a man came in, declaring himself a policeman, and handcuffed Hung. He lead him away, and nobody has seen him since.

Our local police know nothing about this. The district level police stations claim the same. Hung's family knows nothing either. We've been watching for Hung to log on to his chat service, but it's been silent. It's as though he has just disappeared into the winter fog, and no explanation makes any sense.

Maybe he's fine; maybe in coming weeks we'll find out where he is and what has happened. My past experience tells me not to panic. But deep down inside I fear that he's not OK.

Wherever Hung is, I hope that he knows someone is thinking of him.


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The match

Last weekend, Blue Dragon held a friendly match of soccer against trainees from KOTO, a hospitality training restaurant here in Hanoi.

Blue Dragon kids play soccer every Sunday morning, but a match or a tournament is always something extra special.

It was a great game (how could it not be?) and all the kids had a terrific time. Some pics below from the wonderful Amy...

Isn't this guy too little to be goalie?

Action! The Blue Dragon kids are wearing the blue shirts.
Nam, pictured in blue, was a shoeshine boy but is now
a chef at a fine restaurant.

Break time...

Some fruit to keep the bodies going...

The Blue Dragon staff really enjoyed the break!

... and the final score was 3-2 to Blue Dragon!

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That time of year

Christmas and New Year raced by in a blur, but here in Vietnam the real festive season is only now underway: Tet, or Lunar New Year.

The last few weeks have been incredibly quiet on the email front (my inbox has slowed right down from the usual 30-40 emails I normally get each day) - so I am guessing that most of the world is blissfully in holiday mode. But here, preparations for Tet have been quite consuming - hence my silence in recent weeks!

Blue Dragon is working in 4 locations in Vietnam, so this year we organised 4 parties: 1 each in Hanoi, Hue, Hoi An and Bac Ninh.

The Hanoi Tet Awards Night is our biggest celebration, as we recognise the children's individual achievements. This year, about 230 kids were invited to the night, which was held in the ballroom of the Sofitel Plaza. (No, we didn't win the lottery - the Hotel Manager, Antoine Lhuguenot, offered it to us free of charge! Amazing!) All of the children received a gift and a certificate congratulating them on their most outstanding achievements of the year, be it in schooling, social activities, or behaviour.

Chinh and Uyen gave the opening speeches at Tet Awards...

Food time!

... and of course, everybody wanted their photo taken.

It's hard to put into words, but this is a very special event: an outside observer would never know the incredible hardships that these children have been through over the past year. My blog only contains a fraction of the stories that could be told... but Tet Awards is the night to say farewell to the difficulties of the past, and welcome the new year with dancing, singing, and lots and lots of presents.

Hoi An, in Central Vietnam, celebrates "Tat Nien," which roughly means "end of year." The kids at the Hoi An Children's Home joined in a special Tat Nien party over the weekend, with gifts and singing and loads of food.

Up in Hue, we held our first ever Tet party for the 45 children we support there. These are kids who have previously been trafficked to work in garment factories or to sell flowers on the streets, as I've been writing about in recent posts. We brought all the children in to Hue City for the day (all the kids live far from town) and spent the morning visiting ancient sites. The kids joined in a lunch celebration before going home, but the final farewells were really sad... nobody wanted to say goodbye!

The kids gathered outside the ancient Hue Citadel

Lunch included a quick game with pipe cleaners!

And finally, the 350 children we send to school in Bac Ninh province, north of Hanoi, got together for their annual Tet celebration, complete with gifts and games. Organising games for 350 children is no mean feat, so this year we arranged some hilarious competitions that involved blindfolding pairs of kids and getting them to feed yoghurt to each other... you get the idea. It was a riot.

So what's the point of all this? Isn't this just fun for the sake of fun? Yeah, it is. Blue Dragon has a statement of beliefs that starts off with the words: "All children have the right to be children." This really struck me at the Hue celebration in particular, where I toured the city with children who I had met in factories or on the streets of Ho Chi Minh City, but who were now, somehow, younger than when I first met them. They were just - well, children. The pressure of producing garments, or making enough money to prevent the traffickers from beating them, was gone. They could laugh and tease each other, they could fool about and simply be themselves.

What could be more worthwhile than that?


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A link

Here's a link to an article that's been written about our work getting kids out of factories in Ho Chi Minh City:

Thanh Nien article

And yes, it calls us Green Dragon - a small translation error...


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A great ending followed by a terrible beginning

The final weeks of 2008 marked a major milestone in our work with the victims of child trafficking. Until now, we have been taking kids a few at a time off the streets and out of factories and reuniting them with their families. This has been powerful work: often moving, sometimes frustrating, but always worthwhile.

At the same time, though, we've been trying to land a punch at the belly of the trafficking rings. We have been aiming to put this topic of trafficking and exploitation into the public arena, where Vietnamese people and their government representatives can have their say about what's going on.

Finally, we've done it. The leading newspaper in Vietnam, Tuoi Tre, has run a series of 6 articles, as well as publishing reader's comments and some editorial pieces. Each article in the series has taken a different angle, but each has basically been about the very same issues that we've been working on since 2005.

The icing on the cake is that the minister for Social Affairs has met with the newspaper's chief editors to discuss their articles, and also instructed the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Labour, Invalids, and Social Affairs to get involved and to put a stop to child labour in garment factories.

Things are suddenly looking a whole lot better for thousands of children...

But in a reminder that laurels are not for resting on, our return to work at Blue Dragon after the new year holiday has been pretty awful. Four kids we know and work with have been arrested over 2 separate incidents, both of which are fairly serious. Another of the boys from our main home in Hanoi started off the new year in hospital with an apparent case of pneumonia AND measles.

Not a promising start to 2009 - but then again, that's why we're here...