They're shining!

Some months ago, I first blogged about an activity we're running in Hue called The Right to Shine.

Funded by ArtVenture in Singapore, this is a drama group for kids from impoverished families who had been trafficked from rural to urban areas, but are now back in their villages trying to return to normal lives.

The basic premise of the project is that these kids, like any others, have the right to shine - to be recognised as amazing, valuable human beings who deserve to be cared for and respected.

Over the summer holidays, the kids have been taking part in drama classes, learning to express themselves in a safe environment. But it's all been leading up to some community performances in which the kids can use drama to tell their communities about the experience of being trafficked. The message of the performances is: kids should be at home, not slaving away in factories.

The facilitator of the drama groups, the irrepressible Skye Maconachie, has been keeping her own blog about this. Check out her latest entry to see what she says about the first performance, which was held on Tuesday night.

There's one more performance to come, this coming Tuesday, and I will be in Hue for that one.

For now: some photos of the first village performance by Blue Dragon kids...






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Excellent results!

The little guy in the photo above is named Loi; he's about 12 years old and lives in a village in Hue. He has a moderate form of cerebral palsy, and because of this he had never been to school before Blue Dragon staff met him and provided him with the support and encouragement to go study.

He's just finished Grade 1, and he's the only person in his class to receive a certificate of excellence! This is great news for him, and also suggests that he's extremely bright: kids who start school so late rarely achieve outstanding results.

Some more great results today from our older teens who have been taking part in a cooking class organised by Mr Ha, the owner of Matchbox restaurant. He's been teaching about 6 of our kids through the summer; today, the group traveled over to his restaurant for a 'final exam', which was fairly serious but also a lot of fun.

Two girls, Phuong and Phuong Anh, received a prize for achieving the best overall results. I'll post some pics of the cooking exam tomorrow!


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Son of a gold miner

Blue Dragon has recently been joined by a new teenage boy, Huy, whose life is off to a pretty rotten start.

Huy is aged about 15, and he was orphaned by HIV a couple of years ago. His story sounds extraordinary, but the circumstances that lead to the death of his parents aren't so unusual.

About 5 years back, his father was taken to work in a gold mine. I say "taken," although I am not sure of the exact circumstances - it's unclear if he chose to go to the mine, or he was somehow tricked or abducted.

Once there, though, the mining "company" doesn't have an employment contract; instead, they have heroin. They shoot heroin up the arms of all the miners, to get them hooked so that they cannot escape. The mines are isolated, and the workers have no money, so once they are addicted they are essentially prisoners, but the shackles are white powder injected through a needle.

And in the interest of saving money, there's just one needle. Everyone shares.

Eventually, every miner succumbs to HIV. They are then sent away - fired, in essence, and sent home. With no idea of why they are so ill, and no knowledge of HIV or safe sex, they slowly die at home and chances are they will pass the infection on to their wife.

So it was with Huy's family. First his father died, and then his mother.

And then, the village gossip begins.

As other families start talking and speculating, the taunting starts - on the streets, and then at school.

For Huy, the discrimination at school lead him to drop out. He was not only being teased, but also set apart from his classmates and left out of games and sports.

So Huy has found his way to Blue Dragon, and is enjoying the new freedom he has. He'll be starting at school soon, and this time nobody will know about his past.

There's no way we can make up for all that has happened, but at least Huy can have a new chance to make something of his life.

And meantime, I am left wondering... how many more families have been devastated by this barbaric practice? How many more orphans are out there because of this awful system of gold mining?



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Our Kathryn

Here's an article in a Sydney newspaper about Kathryn Freeman, a Blue Dragon volunteer who recently returned home:

http://hornsby-advocate.whereilive.com.au/news/story/touched-by-needy-hanoi-children/

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The comeback kids

Social enterprises are the latest craze in the world of development... and for once, it's a 'craze' that seems to be helpful and worthwhile.

The idea of a social enterprise is this: it's a profit making business that also has social, or environmental, goals. In Vietnam, there are several such enterprises that provide training to disadvantaged youth, particularly in the hospitality field. Blue Dragon has ventured this way with one enterprise called VIP Bikes, and many similar business are popping up all over the place.

While I support the idea of a social enterprise, the model has its limits. Recently someone was advising me that Blue Dragon should work more like a social enterprise, with a greater emphasis on training and job placement. The theory sounds good, but in practice it has its drawbacks.

Most of the kids Blue Dragon works with have been damaged by neglect and abuse. Some have been addicted to heroin; many have lived on the streets with nobody other than a gang to protect and care for them. Getting young people from such harsh backgrounds into training and jobs, and keeping them there, is quite a challenge.

So here's the dilemma that we face: if we chose to work with only those kids who are highly motivated, well behaved, and eager to learn, we could have a terrific success rate for all the world to see. But doing so means turning our backs on kids who have lived on the streets for years, run away from abusive families, and find relief in addiction and crime.

A social enterprise simply cannot work with kids from the latter group. How can a training restaurant operate with waiters who are in the habit of violently attacking anyone who criticises them, or with cooks who have never followed rules before in their lives?

But surely kids from such backgrounds also need some kind of program to at least offer them a chance at change.

This is what Blue Dragon does. Any young person who wants some help can come and talk to us, and have the chance to get back to school or find a job. Even those who have failed, again and again.

Over time, we have seen kids succeed when nobody thought they could. We've also seen kids who appeared to be doing really well suddenly fall away, lured by fast money or the excitement of the streets.

During the past week, we had to make the very difficult decision to send away two teenage boys who have been living in our Hanoi residence. Both have been with us for some years, and although they both made good progress in the past, neither has been working or studying for the past few months, despite their many promises and commitments to make a better effort. They've been having a great time in our house, but they haven't been keeping up their end of the bargain - to study, to learn, to prepare to be independent of us.

Friday night was their first night away from Blue Dragon for a very long time. And I think it came as a huge shock to them.

But for each of them, this is not the end. They were both at the rollerskating rink on Saturday afternoon, knowing that they'd see the other kids and me there. As I was leaving, one rolled up to me and asked to see me on Sunday morning. We'll see how that goes.

It hurts terribly to have to send kids away, to tell them that we can't help any more. I'm just hoping it will cause both of them to realise that they, too, have a duty and that they need to be making an effort.

We've seen plenty of young people in the past turnaround when nobody thought it possible. This is the strength of the way Blue Dragon works with street kids. There's always another chance; we just need the kids to make a comeback on their own, and we'll be right there waiting for them.


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Dead man swimming

I'm going to have to revise the comment in my last blog, in which I said that the week finished up much better than it started. There was a rather sudden and unusual turn of events on Sunday afternoon, when I took the kids from our residential home to the swimming pool.

We take the kids swimming a lot - not only as recreation, but also to teach them the skill of swimming. Drowning is a major cause of death here in Vietnam, and on top of that very few people know CPR. Because of this, we have invested a lot of time in teaching our kids and staff some first aid, and just a couple of months back we also ran a CPR course over a weekend.

On Sunday we were at the pool as usual, and one of our older kids noticed a man floating face down in the water - so he dived in, realised the guy wasn't kidding around, and pulled him out. Lifeguards were called, but they didn't seem to know any CPR, and the attempt at resuscitation that followed was fairly futile. A foreign man who was also swimming there knew a bit more than the pool staff, but I think the man had had a heart attack, and CPR probably wasn't much help anyway. An ambulance was called, but they didn't arrive until I was leaving, about half an hour later.

So our weekend frolic at the pool ended in our kids watching a man die. His wife and their young child were with him, so there were some traumatic scenes.

Given this awful situation to be in, I was really proud of the Blue Dragon kids. Because of the tough lives that they have lived, the local community often stereotypes them and can be extraordinarily harsh on them. Our kids get blamed for pretty much anything that happens, but the reality is that they stand head and shoulders above their peers as well as their elders.

The Blue Dragon boy who saw this man in the water was the one to dive in to see if he was OK; he was also the one to call for help and start the CPR process. And while another group of teens at the pool were laughing and joking about the great excitement of it all, our kids stood back quietly, worried to see this unfold about them, looking to me in the hope that I could help.

In the end all I could do was round our kids up and get them back to their home. Another of our staff came to meet us, to talk through what had happened and make sure they weren't traumatised by what had happened. Vietnamese people are big believers in ghosts and superstition, so I wasn't sure what the kids would be thinking - or fearing - after this. Two of the boys who were there lost their own younger brother in a drowning incident a few years ago.

But despite it all they seemed fine: shocked to see how easily and quickly life can be extinguished, as was I, but that's only to be expected. Another tough life lesson, but once again I have reason to be proud of the Blue Dragon children.


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Look into my eyes

While the summer holidays roll on, we've taken the chance to get our kids down to the local eye hospital for check ups. (Summer is FUN at Blue Dragon!) The kids with disabilities who we support are usually at their special schools all day every day, so the summer break is the only time to do things like this.



A few people wrote to me through the week to say "hope things get better" after my less-than-cheerful blog on Monday. Actually things got worse before they got better - but they did get better and I'm really enjoying the weekend. Saturdays and Sundays are great for hanging out with the kids at the soccer, rollerskating, and swimming pool, so it doesn't at all feel like work and I get to see some sunshine!


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Mummy dish day

While the school holidays are on, Blue Dragon staff are organising lots of extra activities for the kids who are coming to hang out at our centre.

The challenge is to not just organise fun games, but to make sure the kids are learning along the way... and that's not just 'school learning', but also life skills, and learning about nutrition and health.

One of the coolest activities running at the moment is "Mummy dish day," which is being held every Friday afternoon. One of our social workers, Phuong, has been organising this: it's an event just for the kids with disabilities, who we don't see much of during the school year as they're all off at special schools and facilities.

"Mummy dish day" is a chance for one parent each week to come along and teach the children how to make one or two dishes. Last Friday the kids were making che when I walked in - a sweet liquid dessert famous in Vietnam - and without a doubt, the eating was at least as much fun as the cooking.

The pictures below show some of the kids learning with a mum (in the black shirt). Such a simple activity, but a great way to help the disabled kids develop some skills while also giving their parents a chance to shine!




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Hard to blog

After a flurry of blogging a few months back, I've fallen into a lull - so much to write about, but no idea where to start!

When I set out to create this blog back in 2005, my idea was to create a direct and immediate line of communication between me here in Hanoi, and the supporters and friends of Blue Dragon all around the world. I wanted to let them know what was going on in our big family of street kids.

It's turned out that the process of writing each blog has become a kind of therapy for me. I'm forced to ask what I really think and believe; and quite often the very act of writing helps me to understand myself a little better.

At other times, though, I am so lost that I don't even know where to start.

For any foreigner living in Vietnam, life can be a little on the crazy side every day; but working with street kids, and being involved in the lives of people who've been trafficked / abused / arrested / tortured... well, that takes the craziness to a whole new level.

I often feel that life is out of control: anything can happen, at any time. Sure, that's roughly true everywhere in the world; but here, the range of 'anything can happen' is a little broader. Here are some insights into events just in the past 7 days:

- a complete stranger rides his motorbike up to me outside the Blue Dragon residence (where up to 17 very needy teenagers live) and says: "Hi, I just bought this building so I'm the new landlord. Now I'd like to see your rental contract." We didn't even know the building was for sale, and now we don't know if our 5 year contract on the house will be honoured, or if we need to start looking for a new home!

- I receive a phone call that one of the teens from Blue Dragon has been in a motorbike accident, and he's either dead or in hospital. (Two people were involved in the accident, and one had died; but the police were not sure who was who). Would I mind going down to the hospital to work out if the Blue Dragon kid is dead or alive? (He was alive).

- a staff member rings in to announce that she's quitting, and she's never coming back. The next day, she rings in to apologise and ask if she can come back to work.

- a 14 year old boy calls me to say he plans to go to the Chinese border, as he's been invited to join a gang of thieves that promises to help him earn at least $1000 within a few months. Despite my warnings, he goes - but he's back within 36 hours as his best friend has been arrested. Oh, and would I help with some money for the friend to pay a fine?

- the Thai Embassy in Hanoi invites us to nominate two of our older kids to travel to Thailand for a study tour; we select two teens, a boy and a girl, who are excited beyond belief at the chance! But completely out of nowhere, the father of the boy - who I can honestly say has done nothing for his son in the 4 years that I have known him - decides that Thailand is far too dangerous a destination, and forbids his son from going. The boy is devastated, as are we.

I could go on... but you get the picture. Life here is anything but boring, but sometimes the constant curve balls from left field become overwhelming.

In the midst of all these events (which, I should add, are considered pretty ordinary around the Blue Dragon HQ) we're preparing budgets for the coming 12 months, developing program and fundraising plans, and analysing our finances from the past year. It strikes me that there appears to be a massive disconnect between the 'formal' side of my work as the Director of an NGO, and the blow-by-blow reality of my life.

But is there really a huge gap between the two - or are they just different faces of the one coin?

I think it's the latter, but with my head still spinning from the events of the day I don't think I can reach any logical conclusions. I'll just wait for the world to slow down and get back to blogging about something that I can get my mind around.


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A farewell, and a new beginning

The kids and staff at Blue Dragon's Hanoi drop-in centre have farewelled a much-loved volunteer, Kathryn Freeman, who has been with us for the past 12 months coordinating our street children program.

Kathryn originally came to us as an Australian Business Volunteer for about 6 weeks, but then applied to return for a year-long stint as an Australian Youth Ambassador. She's been simply amazing, helping us to improve our work significantly. We'll miss you, Kathryn - stay in touch!

Our work in central Vietnam, rescuing children who have been trafficked to Ho Chi Minh City, has been running very well with the help of another volunteer, Skye Maconachie, whose drama program with 'returned children' is being documented in this blog.

A sudden turn of events late last week could signal some challenging weeks ahead, though. A family contacted our staff to say that their 14 year old son is being abused in a garment factory, working as an unpaid slave, and the boss won't let him go home without a payment of 13 million dong - that's about $760 US. The family would be lucky to earn that amount in 2 years.

As we investigated the case, the factory owner stood firm for a while but then let the boy go. He wasn't paid anything at all for his months of labour, and he was warned not to tell anyone about his experiences. But now that the boy is home, he has told us that the factory has many children... all from a village we have never been to before.

We're yet to gather all the facts, but there's some urgency to this as the boss appears to be fairly brutal. I am hoping we can gather enough information for the police to act on this one sooner rather than later...


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Bits and pieces

The last week or so has been quite busy... apologies for not posting much lately!

- While I was in Ho Chi Minh City last week I met up with street kids around the tourist area of District 1. Some of the kids were tiny... one little girl was just 9 years old. A whole troupe of small children had come to the city from Thanh Hoa province, which is close to Hanoi; this is usually a 'red flag' for child trafficking. The kids seemed to be there to work for the summer holidays, so my staff and I plan to go visit them when they are back in their village in September. Perhaps we can get to the bottom of this and prevent it happening again in the future.


- Kids from the Hoi An Children's Home have just come back from a camping trip with, apparently, about 1000 other disadvantaged youth from around Vietnam. Sounds like they had a great time!








- About 30 children with disabilities - along with their parents, Blue Dragon staff, and a host of volunteers - went on an overnight trip to Halong Bay late last week. We organised a similar trip last year, and given the sheer joy expressed by all the kids we had to do it again. These children and their families never, ever get out of Hanoi. We made sure the parents had a morning to themselves, too, so they could have a break from looking after their children for a few hours.






- Back in April I wrote this blog in which I mentioned one of our boys, Truong, and the 'typical' teenage issue of working out what he wants to do with his life. A surprising update - Truong has just started a 3 month course in sales and marketing! So far, he's all smiles.



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Newsletter time

The quarterly Blue Dragon newsletter was sent out last week... if you want to receive a copy just email Amy at: info@bdcf.org.

I'm in Ho Chi Minh City at the moment, and heading back to Hanoi tomorrow. I've been catching up with some of the street kids Blue Dragon helps here, and seeing what more we might be able to do...

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In training

Summer has hit Vietnam! Apart from sweltering heat, this also means the Blue Dragon kids have a few weeks off school. (Summer break is normally 3 months, but most of our kids attend special schools, which for some cruel reason have shorter holidays).

So... we're taking the opportunity to run a football development program for street kids. Each Friday our staff are offering training workshops for the teenagers who live around an area of Hanoi called Phuc Tan, which is notorious for poverty, crime, and drug use.

This also gives us a chance to build stronger relationships with the kids - essential if we are to make any headway in getting them back to school and jobs.

Here are some pics from the first week...

Tho, standing in the centre, is Blue Dragon's
IT coordinator-cum-football coach.

In the midst of an activity...

This guy's hairdresser missed a bit!

... and here's the team in their uniform.

We're really lucky that the British Council's Premier Skills program helped out with the uniforms, and the field managers have cut the price of field rental in half. Makes it all a bit more affordable.


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It's just a small thing, but...

The pictures below were taken about a week ago in a small village in Hue. They don't look so impressive, do they? But there is a story behind them...




What you're looking at are slogans displayed on banners, hanging on a very long fence. Each of the slogans says something different, but all are urging the people to take care of poor children... and to resist pressure from child traffickers.

The truly remarkable thing, though, is that these banners are hanging in a village where, 4 years ago, Blue Dragon staff faced arrest for merely suggesting that there might be a problem with child trafficking. Our concerns were met with outright denial: "No children from this village have gone to work in the south..."

But how things have changed! The local government has declared a month of action to support poor children, and at the top of its list of concerns is children being taken by traffickers.

This is one village where things are really getting better for children. I know it's just a small example of improvement, but this was completely unthinkable just a few years ago...


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Hard at work

This article appeared in the Vietnam News this week, with some facts and figures about child labour.

An interesting read, if you have 5 minutes...


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A big day in Hoi An

Monday June 1st was Children's Day in Vietnam, and the kids at the Hoi An Children's Home were treated to a terrific morning - not only for Children's Day, but to mark the end of the school year.

Here are some images of their celebrations...

Eating 'che' (a liquid dessert) blindfolded - followed by
an hour of washing clothes, I presume!

The Home has a huge yard - perfect for Tug o' War...

Here's a video clip of some general insanity.

In the formal part of the day, awards were presented.
Thao's award is for "Best All-Round Resident"


Dan's award is for being the most helpful around the Home.
Both of these awards were decided by a vote among the kids.

And there were gifts!

Here, the boys are showing off the football shirts
they received - donated by Tanglin Trust school in Singapore.

So, a great day for the kids and a nice way to end the school year. This was an espcially important day for the 5 students who are finishing Grade 12, and will soon be leaving the Home for university and work.


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Exam time!

Year 12 exams have started throughout Vietnam this morning - first exam is literature, commencing 7.30 am! (Who sets an exam for 7.30 am??)

There are lots of Blue Dragon kids in Year 12 this year - about 35 I think! - so we've had a few stressed teenagers around the place recently.

From our Hanoi centre, some of the kids sitting for their exams today are:

Hanh - our 'resident artist' whose paintings feature on the gift cards we sell at Christmas

Chinh - a former shoeshine boy who has lived in our residence for several years

Ngoc - the singer and dancer who was stabbed in late 2007 but made an extraordinary comeback

Hieu - a very bright girl with cerebral palsy, who has defied the odds to stay at school and do extremely well

There are 2 exams per day for 3 days, so come Thursday night it will be all over. Then the study for uni entrance exams will begin...


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The drama continues

Skye Maconachie, who is organising the theatre workshops for trafficked children in Hue, has created her own blog: The Right to Shine.

This should be interesting - check it out...


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Drama in Hue

Blue Dragon's work with trafficked children in Hue has taken a dramatic new turn, but this time it's a turn for good.

We now work closely with about 50 families whose children were taken to Ho Chi Minh City but have returned to their villages by the beach. With the summer holidays starting - the very time the kids are most vulnerable to traffickers - we have created a drama and theatre program with a grant by the ArtAction foundation in Singapore.

First and foremost, the kids are learning to express themselves. Our hope is that through drama the children will be able to safely 'tell their story' to let their families and communities better understand their experiences. But so far the drama groups have been about fun, games, and even some dancing to get the children into the swing of things.

These villages have never seen anything like this before, so attracting an audience won't be a problem. Everyone is so excited and the kids are having a great time after just a few days.

Traffickers, you don't stand a chance any more!








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Football!

Another big day of football on Sunday - 79 kids this week, plus some staff from Dutch Lady (who have started donating milk for the kids). Here's a snapshot of the youngest kids playing...

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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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