The Appeal - Part 2

Just a couple of weeks ago, we launched an important appeal to help Blue Dragon secure a residence for street kids in Hanoi.

The goal is $30,000 US, which will be matched dollar for dollar by Planet Wheeler.

We're almost there - we have so far raised $27,385!

At this stage, we're excited by the possibility that we might even go beyond our target, which will help us even more with securing the home.

Friends and supporters around the world have done their bit to help. Schools, companies, and individuals have contributed whatever they can... It's been truly inspiring!

Below are some photos sent by the Girl Guides of Wyong in NSW Australia. They raised $502.10 by having a garage sale one weekend! Thanks, girls!!





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Celebrations

Today, some pics of Blue Dragon kids in central Vietnam celebrating...

In Hue, a family has a new house:

The old...

And now the new.

The son of this family, a boy named Tri, was trafficked to work in a garment factory but returned with our help over a year ago. The family home was falling apart and leaking every time it rained... so we built a new house!



Also in Hue, the official opening of our Safe and Sound Community Centre:



This centre, in Hai Tien village, is a place for kids and family members to come and learn, or play, or just hang out. It's part of our overall strategy to end child trafficking from this area.


And in Hoi An, a Children's Day celebration:






The kids and staff of the Home had a brilliant time; first at the Home and then at the beach.

Happiness all around today!


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Paper days

In my last blog entry, I wrote that Blue Dragon staff were in central Vietnam helping families to register their existence with the government.

They're done now - with a total of 90 individuals and families now having paperwork!

These 'papers' include birth certificates, marriage certificates, and household registration books - all essential for anyone to have a job, go to school, or have access to health care.

Our staff even managed to fit in some training for local government officials so that they can keep doing this in future without any further help from us.

Of all the people who were helped, one particular story stands out.

Blue Dragon staff met one elderly woman - nobody has any idea of her age - but she's a grandmother, so presumably she's in her 60s or 70s. She has lived her entire life on a boat; not once has she lived on land.

Because she never had any paper work - her birth was never registered - she's never been to school. Her own children also could not have paperwork; nor could their children. So in a single day, three generations of one family has suddenly acquired legal recognition, and all that that entails.

Definitely worthwhile!

Some pics below of families registering with government officials....

Pieces of paper

As I write, Blue Dragon staff are working in the countryside around Hue - in central Vietnam - in communities where dozens of families live without any form of official registration.

No birth certificates, no marriage certificates, no ID cards, no driver's licence, no land ownership papers.

I'm the first to admit that this is the 'less sexy' aspect of our work. It's hard to get people excited about registering families to receive official recognition from the government. But you just can't fight poverty if that basic first step has not been taken.

The staff are way out of town, along rivers and in beach areas, so I don't have a whole lot of info yet. All I know is that they've turned the usual procedure on its head. Instead of families having to travel to the nearest government office to apply, the government officials are out in the communities going from house to house with Blue Dragon staff to arrange the paperwork there and then. And on Day One, they registered about 40 families this way.

Pretty exciting stuff, if you ask me.

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Busy times

The last 2 weeks have been busy times at Blue Dragon - I've hardly had a chance to update the blog.

Last week I spent 4 days in Hue, visiting families in our anti-trafficking program. We've rescued about 60 children who were trafficked from Hue to garment factories in Ho Chi Minh City, and we're in the early stages of preparing another trip. My trip, though, was mostly to see how our work there is progressing.

Once kids have been freed from the factories and returned home, Blue Dragon's work involves getting them back to school; building homes if needed; and helping parents learn to become self sufficient.

Many of the 'solutions' to child trafficking are in simple, practical approaches. For the past 6 months we've been running a pilot project teaching aquaculture to some parents to help them improve their incomes. It's been a great success, so now we're getting ready to extend it to 10 more families. In another village, we've identified that the poorest families are struggling because their access to the main road is limited, meaning they have to travel much further than everybody else to get to the markets to sell their produce. So we're hatching a plan to build a new road to link their village to the highway.

We've never built a road before, but if that's what they need then that's what we'll do.

Back to the north of Vietnam, and last weekend we held the Closing Ceremony of our Stay In School program. We gathered about 300 students together, from Grades 5 to 12, to celebrate their completion of another school year. These are kids who are from the poorest families in their district, and without some outside help are pretty unlikely to stay in school.

This year, 35 students in our program have completed Grade 12. That's 35 kids who otherwise would be working in factories and shops now, despite their academic ability.

Over the past week a lot of my attention has been taken with matters at our Hanoi HQ. We've started our first ever fundraising appeal, and I believe we're almost half way now to our goal of $30,000. Blue Dragon has also said farewell to some staff who are moving on from us - never a happy time.

To top it all off I've been struck down with a recurring muscle problem in my shoulder, but thankfully was still able to give a speech to the Hanoi International School Year 12 graduation ceremony.

So, a busy couple of weeks, but some great progress with our work. Summer holidays are starting now, which means our drop-in centre is about to get a whole lot busier.

More to come soon!


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The Appeal

Blue Dragon's shelter for street kids in Hanoi is among our most important programs.

Seventeen boys are living at the Home at the moment. Some of these are kids who were rescued by our staff from child traffickers; some are orphans; some just don't have family they can live with.

All of the kids at the Shelter are trying to make a better life for themselves.

The Shelter is a rented building, and right now we have a chance to secure a long term lease on it: but we need to raise $60,000US, which is way out of our league.

Except... Planet Wheeler in Australia has made us an amazing offer. If we can raise $30,000 by July 31, they'll match every donation dollar for dollar. In other words, they'll double all donations so that we can be sure of keeping our street kids' shelter.

We've never made a public appeal like this before, but this is something really important to us. This is a chance for us to provide security and certainty to the kids who rely on us for their livelihood.

If this is something that you, or your school, company or church can help with, go to our donations page; and be sure to email us to let us know that your donation is intended for this appeal.

My colleague James is keeping a record of donations to see if we can reach the target - drop him a line at james@bdcf.org.

Thanks!

Michael
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Buffalo shirts

Buffalo Tours in Vietnam has created a set of kids-sized T shirts featuring artwork by Blue Dragon children. How cool are these!





Buffalo is selling them - for about $10 each (plus postage)! With all of the proceeds going to Blue Dragon! How many more exclamation-pointed-sentences can I write??!!

To get your hands on them, write to Rick at Buffalo Tours: rick@buffalotours.com

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Safety

Every Sunday morning, the Blue Dragon football team gets together for an hour of soccer by the Red River. Anywhere from 40 to 80 kids attend, most of whom are street kids or from seriously disadvantaged families.

Last Sunday we organised a workshop for the under-15s on injury prevention and treatment. A total of 21 kids joined in, spending an hour with a brilliant young doctor (pictured in the white shirt) who gave the kids some really practical advice on staying safe while playing sport.

The kids learned lots and had a great time. This coming Sunday: a workshop for the over-15s!






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Sorrow and adrenaline

I started last week by writing a well defined "To do" list. In hindsight, that was just tempting fate.

Two major events came to dominate the week; both involved the homes of Blue Dragon staff being attacked, in completely unrelated incidents.

One staff member had a couple of men turn up throwing rocks and calling out; shortly after, one of our program homes was also attacked, presumably by the same people. Eventually the men fled into the night, leaving everyone afraid but unharmed.

A few days later, another staff member started receiving threatening phone messages, only to find that a group of men armed with knives were waiting near his home to create an ambush. Fortunately, we were able to talk reason with the men, and finished up shaking hands and going separate ways. We still have no idea who they were or what they wanted, but it all seems to be resolved now.

These events have been stressful on everyone, but equally I have found them deeply saddening. The 2 staff involved are both great people; each has made many sacrifices to make life better for disadvantaged kids, and neither deserves to be made to fear for their safety.

I'm pretty sure (or at least very hopeful) that both of these incidents have been more about creating fear than threatening real harm. If the attacks had been aimed at me - well, I could be more understanding about that. I've dealt with plenty of threats over the past few years, and while I'd rather not have any more, I'd still prefer to be the one taking the blows.

This week, I won't bother with the "To do" list - last week's version will most likely remain current for a while longer!
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Swim time

Here's a frightening fact:

Today in Vietnam, 10 children will drown.

And tomorrow, 10 more.

Despite being a nation inundated with water, very few people here know how to swim. Add to that the general belief in luck / fortune ("No need to supervise the kids down at the lake, nothing is likely to go wrong") and you have a recipe for disaster.

And 10 kids drowning every day is a disaster.

In a country with 85 million people, this is a tricky problem to solve. That's a lot of people who need to learn how to swim - but who can teach, if so few people have the skills?

One 'easy' answer is to run awareness campaigns. Blue Dragon once ran such a campaign for the kids in one of our programs; but awareness is nowhere near enough. Even the UN and the Vietnamese government seem to be stuck on this - telling people that they should fence off houses near water is woefully inadequate. Action, not words, are need.

Vietnamese kids need to learn how to swim.

With summer coming on, Blue Dragon is preparing to start up it's annual swimming program. Foreign volunteers taught our Vietnamese staff to swim back in 2005; those staff have now taught all our other staff, and each year we teach the kids from our Hanoi centre basic water survival and swimming techniques.

The kids love it, of course, and there are a handful of teens at our centre who have lost family members to drowning accidents, so they also appreciate the opportunity to learn.

We've just had some good news, too, that the German European School in Singapore is holding a swim gala this month, and all the money they raise will be for us to run our 2010 swimming program.

We won't be able to teach thousands of kids to swim, but every child who learns will be better able to survive in the water. And in years to come, they'll be teaching their own children how to swim.

... and another, not quite so.

After our success at reuniting 15 year old Son with his family on Tuesday, we've had a more difficult time with the 14 year old boy, Hoang, who we've also been working with.

On Wednesday afternoon, Hoang agreed to go home to his family - and it turned out that our fears of his safety at home had been a little overstated. There were (and are) definitely some issues, but nothing that should really prevent Hoang from being with his folks.

Two of the staff accompanied Hoang back to the countryside, and spent some hours talking to his family. Our experience with runaways - all of whom are from rural areas - tells us that kids often leave home because there's a tremendous gulf between them and their parents. It's more than just a 'gap'.

Vietnamese teens are exposed to the world through TV and the internet; they see hip hop culture, city life, and fast money. It all seems so exciting and attractive, and a small problem at home (an argument with dad, a rude comment from a teacher) becomes the spark to cause the child to run away to Hanoi.

The parents, meantime, have no way of understanding such behaviour. Their own teenage years were spent in hardship and deprivation. Having lived in Vietnam for 8 years, I am yet to meet anybody aged 25 or over who does NOT have memories of going hungry. But to the kids, that might as well be a story from ancient history. There's so much more to the world now! Concerns about this are regularly raised in local papers, too, like this story.

Little Hoang is in exactly this position. His parents are strict and want him to do well at school; they don't understand his obsession with computer games. Every chance he has, Hoang is at the internet shop. He's been skipping school, borrowing money, and focusing entirely on games. Not knowing how to deal with that, his parents and teachers have simply tried being stricter and stricter - until he ran away some weeks ago.

Finally, though, we got him home and we thought everything would be fine - but Hoang only lasted one night. He ran away the next morning, and headed straight back to the internet cafes of Hanoi.

So... we still have some work to do. I think the next step will be to bring Hoang's parents to Hanoi and try to get both Hoang and his parents to attend some counselling.

Looks like this little guy is going to need some ongoing help to get through these difficult times.

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One happy ending...

This text message just came through my phone:

Son is with his family now. Everyone is happy.

Of the two runway boys we've been caring for, we now have a great result for one. Son, the older of the 2, is now back with his parents. Two of the Blue Dragon staff accompanied him to his village, after helping him to see that he does need to be back at home instead of living on the streets.

The staff have also just spent a couple of hours talking with Son's family - they too need some ideas and strategies for looking after their kids to prevent this from happening again. Apparently Son has run away many times before! But it appears that the family's problems are not insurmountable.

Son is pictured below, outside his house. Tomorrow we will spend time with the other runaway boy, whose situation seems much more complex. Here's hoping for some more good news soon.



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Runaways for the long weekend

I returned to Vietnam on Wednesday night, and after just one day at the centre, Vietnam has been on holidays - a 4 day long weekend!

Although the centre has been closed, there have been 2 tiny runaway boys, aged 14 and 15, in our care. A couple of the staff - both former street kids themselves - have been helping me to look after them. The 2 boys (from different provinces) have apparently run away many times before, and it's clear that they both have some serious issues at home. Our only progress so far is that we've been able to find out their real names, and make contact with their families over the phone. At this point, though, there's no sign of them agreeing to us visiting their homes.

Dealing with runaways can be very complicated for Blue Dragon. Our first priority is to protect the kids, but we don't have any legal authority to support children or let them live in our homes without their parents' permission. Which means that in cases where we are sure there's some kind of abuse taking place, we still have a legal obligation to either reunite the child with the family, or refuse the child any ongoing support from our organisation.

To date, we've mostly been able to work out compromises. Some of the 56 runaway children we have helped so far have gone to live with a relative, such as an aunt or grandparent, instead of going back to an abusive home life. Others have eventually moved in to Blue Dragon homes, with the permission (or at least the knowledge) of their parents.

For these 2 new kids, I'm really not sure how we're going to find a safe, long term solution!

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Giving and taking in Singapore

Today I am blogging from Singapore; I have traveled over for a quick visit to catch up with one of the Blue Dragon kids - I'll call him "Nam" - who is studying here at Chatsworth International School. I first wrote about Nam going to Chatsworth here.

Being offered a scholarship to Chatsworth felt like winning the lottery. Blue Dragon has been extremely fortunate to receive strong support from several great schools in Singapore, but the day we were invited to send a Blue Dragon kid to study at Chatsworth, I felt like crying with joy.

For Nam, this is the opportunity of a lifetime. He's close to finishing his first year, and will have 3 more years of study to follow. Upon graduation, he will have a certificate that will allow him to apply for whatever university or job he chooses. Even more than that, he will have a set of life experiences, and friends, that will be invaluable to him moving on to a great career.

But life in Singapore isn't all sweet and easy for Nam. He's far from friends and family: this year was the first time he's ever been away from home at Lunar New Year. Not a happy experience. And of course he's studying in a second language, alongside students whose own lives have until now been vastly different to his own.

Chatting with Nam over the last couple of days, I can see that he's determined to do his best and to make this scholarship work. It's Sunday morning, and I've been ditched because he has homework to do - he has his priorities!

Nam is starting to talk about his dream of one day being able to help other disadvantaged kids, just as he was helped. He already has some ideas about what he might do. It's a long road ahead, but it sure is gratifying to know that he is thinking not only about how much more he will gain, but also about what he will be able to put back in.

Here's lookin' at you, kid

Back in February, I wrote about one of the Blue Dragon boys who had serious problems with his eyesight.

Vuong, age 11, could barely see more than 2 metres from his face; but thanks to surgery at the local hospital, he's well on track to a full recovery. One of our Social Workers, Tung, took Vuong and his mother back to the doctor today, and the results are great! One of his eyes now has 80% vision; the other is better than 50% but needs some therapy for further improvement.

Vuong's thrilled, and his mother is all smiles!

Awesome!

The Australian Embassy in Hanoi invited Blue Dragon kids to visit this morning for a few hours of the most amazing hip hop fun with an Australian group called the Indigenous Hip Hop Project.

Hip hip is the 'in thing' among Vietnamese teens, so we took about 10 kids along... and what a great morning we had!

The group started off with a demonstration, and the leader of the company had a chat with our kids about his own life. In short, dance was his life line as a teenager growing up in pretty tough circumstances. This was great for our kids to hear - they need to know that even people in other countries can live in difficulty, too!

Then the kids joined in, learning some dance moves and how to beatbox. They had so much fun! Pics below... the smiles say it all...

Holding off

Quite a bit has been happening over the last weeks. I realise people are wondering how the story of the 3 trafficked girls has ended, but in fact it has not yet ended and for safety I need to hold off before writing more. When I eventually can explain the whole story, it will be a happy ending.

Meantime - below are some pics of kids in Hue, who were trafficked from their villages to work in factories in the south. As part of our support for them now that they are back home, we've been buying bicycles for those who live far from school, and we're about to start building new houses for 3 families.



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Moving on

Over the weekend, the kids and staff at the Hoi An Children's Home held a special celebration to farewell one of the Home's residents, 17 year old Nam.

Nam has been living at the Home for 5 years. He grew up on Cham Island, off the coast of central Vietnam, in a loving family but was faced with so many difficulties that his parents could no longer keep him in school without some substantial help.

For kids who come to the Home, although they are materially much better off, they struggle with being far from their families. So while they are fortunate to have the support of the Home, life isn't easy.

At times Nam has struggled too, but he's persevered and done pretty well for himself. He's done fine at school, he's much loved among both children and staff, and his farewell party was a touching send off. Nam will be missed.

Where's he off to? Not far, as it turns out: Nam has been accepted into a vocational training program in Hoi An called Streets. It prepares disadvantaged kids for jobs in Vietnam's burgeoning hospitality industry, and with demand for places so high, Nam really had to prove himself to earn a place.

Nam's dream is to become a great cook so that he can one day prepare a fine meal for his mother that will make her proud. Go for it, Nam - we're all proud of you already!

(In the pics below, Nam is wearing the red shirt).

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The girl who talked to herself

Almost a month ago, a father walked in to the Blue Dragon centre in Hanoi. He lives with his wife and 17 year old daughter, Bi, not far from our centre in a small house. Although his family is very poor, the father had never before come to ask for help: he provided for his wife and child and did his best to keep his daughter in school.

But something had happened and he didn't know what to do. Bi had had an accident on the road - there were no witnesses, so nobody knows if she was hit by a car, or suffered a seizure. What they do know is that her head hit the road, she fell unconscious, and when she woke up she had lost her mind.

Bi became completely unaware of her self and her surroundings. She appeared to recognise nobody; she spoke to herself but did not respond to questions or conversation. Everything around her seemed strange and new. One morning, she wandered away from home and came back three days later. Nobody has any idea where she was or what happened.

So finally the father came to Blue Dragon to ask for help. He couldn't even afford to take her to the hospital; could we give him the money for the doctor's fee?

Over the years, we've had plenty of strange or rare cases walk through our doors. Sometimes we think we've seen it all. Looking at Bi, we were at a loss. We'd never seen anything like this before,
but by all appearances this was not a case we could really expect to solve. Perhaps we should simply give some comfort and support to the family to help them deal with their daughter's strange new condition.

One of our social workers, Huong, took this case on and accompanied the family to a local hospital. They too were fairly bleak in their assessment, but referred us to another hospital which had more expertise in psychological cases.

Huong, Bi, and the parents made an appointment at the next hospital, and with their hopes fairly low they went off to see the next doctor. This time, some hope was offered: Bi would need to stay at the hospital for treatment, but with some medication and therapy there was hope of improvement.

Today, my staff came to me in shock - and I should say that it takes an awful lot to shock my staff. They had just been to see Bi, and to their amazement she has made a dramatic improvement. She was aware of her visitors, she could manage a simple conversation, and she was no longer babbling incoherently. None of us expected such a change!

Bi is not 'out of the woods' yet, and I dare not hope for a full recovery. We still have no idea what to expect. But this was truly an incredible moment for the Blue Dragon staff to see such rapid progress from what seemed like an impossible situation.

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Safe

Some great news: Blue Dragon staff, along with Vietnamese police, have finally crossed he border in to Vietnam with the 3 girls they were searching for in China.

I still can't give out all the details, but it seems the girls are fine, although traumatised - but much better than we had hoped.

Over the last 2 days, the group couldn't disclose exactly where they were or what they were doing in case there was any attempt to intercept them. But everything has gone well, everyone is safe, and tonight all will be sleeping in safe places back in Vietnam.

This is not the end of the story - there's much much more to be done - but what a massive relief for everyone that things have gone so well.

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Newsletter

The March edition of the quarterly Blue Dragon newsletter was emailed out last week. If you want to be on the mailing list to get the newsletters, drop my colleagues an email: info @ bdcf.org.

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Silence

A super quick update on the progress of our rescue trip to China...

All is fine. That's about all I can say today; I hope to be able to elaborate a little within 48 hours. Everyone is safe, and their progress has been quite remarkable.

Apologies for the lack of detail. All will be explained soon!

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Success!

This morning at 3am the Blue Dragon staff searching for trafficked girls in China sent the following text message:

"We rescued 3 girls safely. Tomorrow we arrest traffickers."

This is great news for the girls, although I can imagine they must still be very frightened. There is still some danger, and will be until they have all returned to Vietnam.

More news to come!


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Traveling

Blue Dragon staff have traveled up as far as Guanzhou today, in search of a group of teenage girls who have been kidnapped and sold to brothels. This is slow going, and there's no guarantee of success, but definitely worth the journey.

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Setting out

I'm in Hobart, Tasmania, this week: I had a terrific time yesterday talking with students at Cambridge Public School and Huonville High.

Back in Vietnam, my staff are setting off today with police to look for the missing girls in China. It's taken a while to obtain visas, but everything is prepared and they really are heading off into the unknown. Planning for something like this is a relatively futile task: but preparation (ie for anything) is essential.

Once they're over the border I won't be hearing much from them, but will update on what happens whenever I have news.

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Relatives

Blue Dragon works with about 900 kids throughout Vietnam.

Whenever I tell someone that statistic, I am always asked: Who do they live with? If the Blue Dragon residences only hold up to 50 kids, then where do the rest of the kids live?

In fact, nearly all of the kids we work with have some family, somewhere. It might just be an uncle who lives in the countryside, or a grandmother; but there's nearly always a relative to be found.

Most of our kids live with either their mother or father, or a grandparent. The typical story of our kids in Hanoi is that a parent is either dead or in prison, and the child is being raised by relatives.

Over the last weekend, one of the Blue Dragon staff was out in the countryside trying to track down the parents of one young boy who has only just joined us. He claims to have no idea at all of who or where his parents are, but he was able to lead us to a family who he lived with for a short time before coming to Hanoi. It's a bit like following a trail of crumbs, but we're on the way.

As an organisation, we have to make a real effort to involve parents and the community. The pics below are of parents and carers of the children in our Hanoi programs; we gathered them all together one weekend to talk about what we're doing, and how we're helping their children. In Hoi An, too, where we run a home for 30 kids, the relatives are invited to meetings from time to time, and encouraged to visit whenever they can.

Even street kids usually have families somewhere. Part of the work of a charity like Blue Dragon is helping the kids find their relatives and keep up contact with them.

No news is... no news!

Apologies to people who have been checking in to see the update of the China situation; everything is on track but we haven't yet been able to make a start. Blue Dragon staff will be accompanying Vietnamese police, so we need to wait for the police to organise visas and some other details. Won't be much longer!

I have just been staying on the central coast of NSW, where I took part in a leadership forum for primary schools. What a great day - and a great opportunity to talk to Australian school kids about the plight of street kids in Vietnam.

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And now another rescue

Much of the anti-trafficking work that Blue Dragon does is to help children who have been trafficked within Vietnam - from rural to urban areas. But once, a few years ago, we rescued 6 girls who had been kidnapped and taken to China, where they were sold to a brothel.

Two of our staff crossed in to China, found the brothel, and helped the 6 girls get away. All of those involved in the kidnapping were arrested and imprisoned.

That was some time ago, and since then we've concentrated on domestic trafficking. A sudden turn of events has meant that we're now looking back over the Chinese border.

Yesterday morning, the Blue Dragon lawyer was contacted by some Vietnamese police. They know of 3 girls who have been kidnapped and were being held in China against their will; however they seem to have escaped and have been able to call for help.

As to be expected, though, information is scarce - the details aren't completely clear. So the police have asked if Blue Dragon can help out, by accompanying them across the border in search of the 3 missing girls.

For our organisation, this is an incredible honour. It means that we can apply what we've learnt to an extremely important case, and we have the opportunity to work side by side with Vietnam's anti trafficking police.

There's some urgency to this, as every day delayed is a day of danger for the 3 girls. Our staff are getting ready and will leave soon - some time within this week. We're not yet sure what we will find, or how this will turn out. Above everything else, we are hoping to bring 3 teenage girls home to their families.


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An unusual rescue

While I am on the road, I'm still keeping in close touch with the staff back in Vietnam - especially about a particular case that has been developing for some time now, but which came to a head on Wednesday.

One of the boys who used to live at Blue Dragon - let's call him Thanh - had been making an effort to fix his relationship with his family, who live a few hundred kilometers from Hanoi. Before Thanh was with us, his mother had been making him work as a shoeshine boy in a provincial city so that she could live a life of leisure at home. Thanh wanted to go to school, so he hit the road and ended up living on the streets of Hanoi, until we came across him.

His family knew that he was with us, and we even made an attempt at reuniting them - but the mother was never going to let her son, then 14, go to school, and he was adamant that he didn't want to be working on the streets.

So until a few months back, Thanh was living with us and going to school. He made the occasional trip back to see his mother and his younger siblings, who he cares for very much, and things seemed to be getting better.

But then we received a phone call: Thanh would not be coming back. He had decided, we were told, to stay with his mother and go to work for a company. Our staff traveled out to visit him and talk to his mother, but on arriving at the home we found that they were gone. Different neighbours had different stories, and we had no way of knowing for sure where Thanh or his mother were, or what they were doing.

About a week ago, Thanh was finally able to tell us where he was, and ask for our help. He was in the far south of Vietnam, selling heroin. His mother or uncle (I'm not yet sure who) is an addict, and to feed their habit they needed him to be selling. Kids are sometimes forced to sell drugs, as they look less suspicious and are likely to receive less severe punishments if caught. So Thanh's situation was now far worse than prior to meeting Blue Dragon, and he was pleading for our help to escape.

One of our staff traveled to the countryside outside of Ho Chi Minh City to find Thanh, not sure of how to help (without breaking the law!) but determined to find a solution. It was a tricky situation: we have no right or legal authority to help a 15 year old run away from his family, and we could be in an awful lot of trouble for doing so. But then again, we've dealt with more complex problems, so it was worth a try.

Ultimately we have been able to help Thanh come back to Blue Dragon, with the family's knowledge and consent - if not their blessing! Thanh is glad to be back, but now has a long journey ahead dealing with the trauma of what's just happened, and working out what to do from here. He wants to study, but also knows that he alone can help his younger siblings avoid the same fate that has so far befallen him.

The escape is over, but much remains to be done.

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On the road

I'm writing this blog from Wellington, New Zealand, where I have just arrived as part of my annual travels to visit friends and supporters of Blue Dragon around the world.

We have a few good friends here in New Zealand, and not just in Wellington although this time around I won't have the chance to get out and see everyone. While I'm here I am hoping to meet up with David Cameron, a school teacher and musician who is bicycling around New Zealand for 6 months, visiting schools, teaching music, and talking about street kids in Vietnam. He's a hugely interesting guy - check out his blog here: bluedragonbicycletour.org.

Over the last couple of weeks my head has been off in the clouds, so I've been blogging very little. Apologies for those of you who are waiting for me to get my act together. There has been some good work going on back at Blue Dragon; although I am away now I'll be posting about that in coming days. Promise!

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Well said!

Considering my blog entry 2 weeks ago (Both are sufficient!), readers may well be thinking that Blue Dragon's English training program is somewhat below par.

Fortunately, there is some evidence to the contrary!

One of our older kids, Chinh, is working part time as an intern at the United Nations International School (unishanoi.org) in their Communications Department. Each week, he's contributing articles to the school newsletter, Tin Tuc.

In one recent edition, Chinh wrote a great summary of what Blue Dragon is all about - definitely worth a read!

Check it out here: Tin Tuc Newsletter - Chinh has 2 articles on page 7.

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Tet time

For the past week, Hanoi has been in holiday mode: it only happens once a year, but when Vietnam goes on holiday, it completely shuts down!

The occasion is Lunar New Year, or Tet; and now that I am coming up to my 8th year living in Vietnam, I finally feel like this is the 'real' new year.

In the weeks leading up to Tet, Hanoi goes absolutely crazy - as opposed to normal, which is just 'mostly crazy' - with everyone on a shopping spree, the purpose of which is to out-shop everyone else. People want to show how successful they are by bringing home bigger-screen TVs, outrageous new motorbikes and cars, and trees or bunches of flowers that are more over-the-top than the neighbour's.

Then, on the afternoon of the last day of the lunar year, Hanoi becomes a ghost town, as everyone heads out to the countryside to see their families.

One constant throughout all of this is major traffic jams. I've come to think of them now as a cultural artefact - 'traditional traffic jams' - on the grounds that every important / exciting / vaguely interesting occasion is a cause for millions of people to take to the streets and form one unending line of stand-still traffic.

Amid all the celebratory traffic jams and shopping are those who are left out: the street kids, and those abandoned by their families long ago. For them, this is a deeply sad time of year. While everybody else is with their relatives back at the ancestral home, the street kids are left to feel disconnected, worthless. In Vietnamese society, your self worth largely depends on who you are related to. Being alone is one of the worst fates a Vietnamese person can suffer.

Most of the Blue Dragon kids do head out of Hanoi for Tet: back to families which are often dysfunctional or otherwise inadequate, but there is at least some sense of belonging. A small number, though, really have nowhere to go, and so they stay back with us through the whole of Tet. At the Hoi An Children's Home, just a few kids were left behind, so the staff took turns to spend a day each at the Home until the holiday is over. Here in Hanoi, 5 of the teens stayed back for the whole time, with a few more kids drifting back to the city early. A group of expats living in Hanoi, known as the Australia-New Zealand Community Group, donated a couple of hundred dollars to us to pay for food and activities during the holiday period, so we had a pretty good time, listened to lots of music, and sometimes went rollerskating - like today!


Apart from the time with the kids, I've also been hanging out with an old friend - Chung, who was one of the original co-founders of Blue Dragon, and now studies in California. Chung only gets back to Vietnam once each year, so we've had plenty of catching up to do... Here's Chung at the rollerskating rink.

The Tet holiday is just about over now; the Blue Dragon centre and residence have already reopened, and Hanoians are starting to return home to the city. We're entering the Year of the Tiger, and my hope is that this year Blue Dragon will succeed in changing more lives than ever before.


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Both are sufficient!

Something kinda funny to share today... One of our kids in Hanoi has been learning English, but seems to have used a faulty translation system to write me an email. The sentiment is sweet - and the wording is memorable!

Thanks Michael, and Happy New Year,Close to full happiness. Loc financial package for the round. keep forever. Tighten the additives you. Wished each other the same as Italy, inspired round , Happy new year Peace. Both are sufficient :D!

*Happy* * New* *Year*!!!

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Getting things done

I'm in Hue now, in central Vietnam, and head back to Hanoi in a few hours.

I've been here with Van, our lawyer who works on rescuing trafficked children, but this trip has had a very positive purpose: we've come to celebrate lunar new year (Tet) with the 60 or so kids we have been helping.

This is the first time that I've met some of the children; in November and December we organised some rescue trips, taking kids out of factories in Ho Chi Minh City and bringing them home, but until now I have not met any of the kids. Although I've seen the photos, I was still shocked to see how tiny the children are - I still can't understand how anyone could make them work 18 hours a day in a factory. Here are 3 of the kids... See what I mean??



For this year's Tet party, we took the children to a nature reserve and hot springs centre, so they could spend a few hours playing and making all the noise they wanted. They really had a great time - and they needed it. Coming home from the factories is just the first step in a long process. Most of these children have really difficult lives; one boy, for example, is 13 and only just now learning to read and write. Another boy, aged 14, studies in Grade 1 - alongside his much younger brother. Forget all romantic notions of 'happily ever after'; it's downright embarrassing for kids to go to school in circumstances like that. I have incredible respect for these teenagers.

Here's a group photo of the kids with their Tet gifts...



... and here are the kids on the slides. Beats working in a factory!



Meantime, in Hanoi, our staff have been working with the little guy below (pictured with his mum). The boy has had an eye infection that festered and almost blinded him; a few days in hospital, and some surgery on both eyes, has given him back most of his sight.


So Blue Dragon is entering the Year of the Tiger with some great achievements. We're proud of these kids!

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Party for 400!

With Lunar New Year (known as Tet in Vietnam) approaching this coming weekend, there's a real sense of excitement around the countryside. (So much excitement that I haven't been writing in my blog!)

On Sunday our staff traveled north of Hanoi to Bac Ninh province, where Blue Dragon supports about 400 school kids from Grades 5 to 12.

This area is sometimes targeted by child traffickers, who look for kids who have quit school and have nothing to do. Our work very simply involves keeping kids in school - ie preventing them from dropping out - by paying school fees and providing material needs such as uniforms, text books, and stationery.

At Tet, however, the focus is on celebration. We gathered the kids together - 350 in one district, and 50 in another - for an hour of games and singing... followed by giving out gifts and lucky money (li xi) to all the children.

Kids waiting patiently for their Tet gifts...

We also gave bicycles to 4 of the kids who really need their own wheels to get to school. They were so incredibly excited - none of them had ever owned anything so precious before!

This evening I head to central Vietnam to visit the 60 kids who Blue Dragon has rescued from factories and other child trafficking situations. More photos to follow in coming days.

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A wedding, and a coat of paint

There's been some excitement at Blue Dragon this week - one of the very first kids we met and helped, over 7 years ago, has just married!

Minh, from Ha Nam province, was working on the streets of Hanoi shining shoes back in 2002. He and many young people from his village had come to the city to earn money to support their families. At that time, Blue Dragon was still just an idea, but when we opened a residential home in mid 2003, Minh was one of the first kids to move in. Shortly after, we helped him apply for a job in a fine restaurant, and he's been working in hospitality ever since.

The picture below is Minh with his beautiful wife, Luan:


... and here's Minh back in 2003, studying English!


While we've been celebrating in Hanoi, the kids and staff at the Hoi An Children's Home have been rolling up their sleeves and PAINTING!

Some old friends from Australia, Peter and Robin, have volunteered at the Home in the past, and just before Christmas they turned up to help out with gardening and maintenance around the kids' home. Thanks to a whole lot of paint, and even more elbow grease, the place looks absolutely transformed - in the bottom photo you can see the difference between 'old' and 'new'.





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The VIP story

There’s a lot more to Blue Dragon than most people realize. On this blog I try to let people know about all the different things we have going on, but outside of our staff and volunteers, not many people understand the full extent of our operations.

A case in point: few people realize that Blue Dragon has been running a vocational training program as part of a motorbike rental business we set up in 2008.

The whole concept started with a donation from Lars and Julie Jaegar and Lars’ company, Partners Group. At the time, Blue Dragon had a volunteer named Andrew Souto who happened to be a mechanic, and had already been with us for 18 months running small training and job skills programs for street kids. Together we hatched the idea for VIP Bikes, which was to be a genuine business offering the best motorbike rental and repair service in Hanoi, and which also trained disadvantaged youth in mechanics and business skills.

What we didn’t realize, though, was how intense the demand for business would be once we had started. While we were still renovating the building we’d rented, Andrew’s phone started ringing from people who wanted to rent bikes. How could we say no? Once word was out, there was no turning back. And once the Hanoi community heard how good the service was, Andrew’s phone just kept on ringing.

Some other supporters cam on board as well: Jacqui Gregory from Queensland raised money to help VIP Bikes buy equipment, and St Joseph’s International School in Singapore raised funds to pay for training. Some of their students even came over and painted the building!

Fast forward two years, and Andrew is still volunteering at VIP Bikes (through the VIDA program), with the original mechanics working alongside him – plus a couple more! The rental business side has grown from 3 motorbikes to over 50, and there’s a constant stream of short term and long term trainees.

One of those trainees, Bao, now works full time at VIP Bikes: he’s now staff, and wears his uniform with pride.



Bao at work...


Another trainee, Nhan, has moved on to a training program at KOTO, which teaches hospitality skills. Although that seems to be totally unrelated, VIP Bikes taught Nhan a few skills that he needed before he could be accepted by KOTO: like punctuality, listening to the trainer, and following directions. Without those months under Andrew’s guidance, Nhan simply couldn’t have been ready for any other program or job.





This week saw a major milestone in the VIP story. What started out as a program under the auspices of Blue Dragon has now become a fully independent social enterprise. VIP Bikes has taken on a life of its own; it needed to break free from the rest of Blue Dragon so it could keep on growing.


A workshop for disadvantaged youth on bicycle maintenance

I can be pretty cynical about NGOs and the ‘empire mentality’ that I see at work in many of the big charities here in Vietnam. In a situation like this, it was very tempting for Blue Dragon to hold on to VIP Bikes – after all, why wouldn’t we want to hang on to such a huge success story? Why let go of something so good? But the truth is, VIP Bikes has much more freedom to grow and develop if it is not part of another organization. So we decided to separate, and register VIP as an independent social enterprise.

Blue Dragon kids will continue to train there, and I’m looking forward to posting stories soon about some of the teenagers who are about to start learning motorbike repair – including a couple of boys who were previously trafficked to garment factories.

So stay tuned. The VIP Bikes story has a long way to go.




Read more about VIP Bikes here.
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