Festivals and football

It's the mid Autumn festival in Vietnam - time for moon cakes, parties, and dancing dragons! Here are some pics of the kids at the Hoi An Children's Home...




... and in Hanoi, our football team has once again joined the Hanoi Youth Football League. One of our 2 teams won their age group in the last tournament; we're hoping to do well again this time!

In the first week, our teams came second in their games (yes, yes, I know what 'second' means in soccer...) but they had a terrific time!

A week on the north island

For the past week I have been on New Zealand's north island; mostly in Auckland, where our three boys have started their courses at NTEC and are off to a flying start.

The oldest boy, Chinh, has started a diploma of business management; the two younger boys, Son and Khanh, are studying English and in a few months time will join some hospitality courses. They're on a real high now: the teachers are amazing, the students are friendly, and they are learning LOTS.

Our biggest challenge now is to secure sponsorship for their homestays and living expenses, which has turned out to be rather difficult. I'm leaving Auckland on Monday, but will have to keep working on this as it's rather urgent!

While here in New Zealand, I traveled to Wellington for launch of the Blue Dragon Children's Trust (New Zealand). The event was hosted by Wellington College, and we had a terrific turnout for the start of what should be a pretty dynamic and exciting organisation.

I caught up with some great friends there and spoke at the Harbour City Rotary Club before heading to Taupo, where Chinh studied English last year. I was only there for about 24 hours, but spent time with his former homestay family, who have remained in close contact with Chinh, and was able to thank the school where Chinh studied. Incidentally, while I was in Taupo we had the news that Chinh's IELTS test results had come through: he scored a 6!

Visiting New Zealand has been fantastic, and I am already planning to get back here next March. But for now, it's just about time to pack my bags...

Hello New Zealand!

The Blue Dragon boys have made it to Auckland, ready to start their scholarships on Monday!

Time for the Tales

The latest Blue Dragon newsletter, Dragon Tales, has just been emailed out - another great read!

If you're not on the mailing list, drop my staff a note and they'll be happy to send you the quarterly newsletter: info@bdcf.org.

Bits and pieces from Hanoi

As usual, my lack of regular blogging doesn't mean that nothing is happening... In fact it's quite the opposite. There's so much going on that I am not sure where to start!

Most of our kids are back at school now, with the summer holidays behind us. People sometimes mistakenly think that Blue Dragon is, or has, a school; we do have classes at our centre, but our goal is to get the kids into local schools or training programs. There are at least a dozen different schools around Hanoi which our kids attend, each according to need.

Back in March, I wrote about a girl named Bi who had suffered a brain injury and was struggling to regain her speech and senses. Although not fully recovered - my staff say "about 80%" - Bi is now often at the Blue Dragon centre, playing games or studying private lessons with our teacher. She's able to communicate quite well, and although she often looks to be in a world of her own the visible recovery she has made is quite remarkable.

If you're a follower of Blue Dragon on Facebook, you may have seen the notice about Cath DeVrye's latest book, Paper Clips Don't Grown On Trees. Cath once volunteered with us, and has been a terrific supporter ever since. Check out her book here - each purchase helps Blue Dragon Children's Foundation!

Three of our older kids (18-21) are heading off to Auckland next week for 6-12 months of study at the National Technology Institute. Together with our student at Chatsworth International School in Singapore, that makes 4 of our kids on international scholarships. These scholarships, although free, do come at a cost - Blue Dragon still needs to support living allowances, and even the process of applying for a visa for former street kids is rather complex and time-consuming - but these are amazing opportunities that are just too good to turn down.

Our drop-in centre has a steady flow of new faces these days; our staff have become great at finding runaway children, bringing them to the centre to care for them, and help them reunite with their families. As I write this, one of our staff is in the countryside with a 14 year old named Long who has been living on the streets for less than a month. Long has been really worried about going home, but the text message from my staff about 20 minutes ago said: We are back at Long's house now... Everything is fine and Long is very happy."

And speaking of the drop-in centre, here's what the kids were up to this afternoon...

Waiting...

Jumping...

... and over!

I don't think this ended well.

On the road

Over the past week, I have been on the road quite a bit - hence the blogging silence. Today I am blogging from a cafe in Saigon.

First stop on my trip was Hue, where Blue Dragon runs a program to help trafficked children. We've pretty much ended child trafficking in 3 villages, and are on the way to ending it in a fourth, so we now have to decide which village to move on to next. Plans are underway for a rescue trip in a few months time, so the staff have started gathering information from the community about which children have been taken, and where they might be now.

Even though the trafficking rings have been disrupted, we still have a commitment to working in the villages for a few years yet. We need to keep on supporting the families of children who were trafficked, and making sure the traffickers don't have any chance to come back.

To this end, we need to raise some funds to build a house for one family - more info about that in the Blue Dragon newsletter, which should be emailed out within a week. We're also helping one mother who is very sick and in hospital at the moment.

One village has asked us to build them a road to connect their homes to the highway, which will give them better access to local markets. We hope to be able to do that soon, too!

After Hue, I traveled south to Hoi An, where we have been working at the Hoi An Children's Home since 2007. Before we started at the Home, conditions were quite difficult for the kids: there was a Director and a cook, but no other staff to look after the children from day to day, and no formal structure to ensure the health and safety of the 30 girls and boys living there.

Now the Home has social workers and carers, ensuring supervision and support around the clock, along with a really well organised program of social work.

For the long term, the Home eventually needs to go back to being under local management, so Blue Dragon has started the first step in this direction. We've now partnered with another organisation based in Hoi An, called CHIA, which is now getting involved at the Home. By working closely with CHIA, we hope to improve services for the kids even more. A big part of my work in Hoi An on this trip was meeting with CHIA to discuss the practical aspects of such a partnership.... Doesn't sound very exciting, but it was really important and I'm confident that we've made some good decisions!

And now I am in Saigon, aka Ho Chi Minh City. Blue Dragon doesn't have any formal program here, but I need to visit some kids and other organisations, so I've managed to fit that in with a long weekend (it's Vietnamese national day today).

This morning I went to visit the Green Bamboo Shelter, a home for over 20 street kids. I met with Mrs Phat, the Director, who took the time to chat with me about how her Home works. Blue Dragon runs a similar Home in Hanoi, so it was quite cathartic to compare our struggles and challenges and see how similar they are!

Later today I will meet with one of the Blue Dragon kids from Hanoi who has been working in the south for some months. He's been learning motorbike repair, and is excited at the chance to catch up. And of course, I have already met up with Vu, who now carries his school bag with him absolutely everywhere (even on a public holiday!) and beams with joy pretty much continuously. What a kid.

Hopefully tomorrow I will go to visit the staff of Saigon Children's Charity, who helped enormously with Vu's case. And then - if the rain stops, I might behave like a tourist for a couple of days!

Runaway reunion

Working with runaway children is a significant part of daily life at Blue Dragon. We have staff whose job is to meet kids on the street and help them sort out their problems, so there are always at least 2 or 3 children around our centre who have run away from home and have been living in Hanoi.

We can't always help the kids to go home - sometimes they have run away for their own safety - but we do try to get them to at least visit their families to open up a line of communication.

Yesterday, two of our staff - Huong and Vi - traveled 6 hours out of Hanoi with a 16 year old boy to reunite him with his family. Here are some photos that give an idea of what's involved...

1. The journey
Many runaways in Hanoi come from very isolated parts of Vietnam. Getting the kids home is often a challenge! The Blue Dragon car does its best, but sometimes needs a little help...


2. The reunion

There are usually tears. Nothing wrong with that at all.


3. The issues

When children run away from home, there are always several related and complex reasons. Poverty is usually (although not always) a big factor. This is the home of the family our staff went to yesterday.


4. Family.

There's almost always a family. Forget the stereotype that 'street kids don't have families.' In all of our work over the past 8 years, we've only encountered one child who has absolutely no family at all - and even in his case, it's probably just that nobody (including the child) knows who the family is. Runaway kids do generally have families, and many (like this one) have family members who truly care about their welfare.

And a happy new year

In late December 2009, after spending Christmas in Hanoi with the Blue Dragon kids, I headed to Ho Chi Minh City for a short holiday.

I love Saigon. When I moved to Vietnam in 2002, my plan was to live there. Although I'm happy now living in Hanoi, I still miss the south and love to spend my holidays there.

So this year I wanted to spend New Years there. I figured it would be fun and relaxing, and I went with no real plans other than to catch up on some sleep.

Late on the 31st I walked the streets of the city, watching some outdoor concerts and enjoying the festivities. But, not being much of a party animal, I decided to head back to my hotel at about 1130.

It was a long walk, and by midnight I was getting close. I knew it was midnight because I could hear the firecrackers start far off in the distance.

At that exact moment, a small boy appeared out of nowhere with a huge smile and a friendly "hello!" He was oblivious to the fact that it was new years eve and midnight, and that he was missing a great display of fireworks not too far away. He was just genuinely excited to be talking to a foreigner.

I quickly learned his name was Vu, and he was selling helmets by the side of the road at a major intersection. I'd walked past this same spot half a dozen times, but never noticed him before. On this night, he was there with his 2 cousins, whose mother owned the stall but had already gone home for the night.

Vu was 14, and his cousins were about 17 - but all looked far younger. They were a bit dirty and were clearly very tired, but the sudden distraction of a foreigner who could speak Vietnamese cheered them up immediately. We chatted for about fifteen minutes before I wandered off, smiling to myself at what a happy and unexpected encounter I'd had.

Over the next few days, I met Vu and his cousins repeatedly. The older cousin, just turning 18, was pregnant. The younger one, a boy, worked until 2am each day in a side-of-the-road restaurant, earning about $70 per month. So the long day of selling helmets was mostly left to Vu and his aunty, who I spent many hours with at the intersection, talking about her life in between customers and learning about how she had come to sell helmets with her children and Vu.

Having worked with street kids for over 7 years now, I'm fairly good at getting a sense of the character of young people. Vu impressed me. At times he was like a child in kindergarten, wide-eyed at a new toy or jumping on the spot with joy at seeing a friend. But every time a motorbike crashed near his stall - which was at least two or three times a day - he would run out into the traffic to help someone get up, brush them down, and see them on their way. Over and over I watched him go out of his way to help complete strangers, never for any reward, and many times he was treated with disdain by passersby on expensive motorbikes, but it never deterred him. He wore the same infectious smile no matter what happened.

Until, that is, the day I was leaving. When it was time for me to return to Hanoi, Vu was inconsolable. Trying to hide his tears, he told me that he had an eye infection, but he was clearly distraught and for the following week I had constant text messages from Vu, using his aunt's mobile phone, to ask what I was doing and when I would return to see him.

Since that eventful new year, I've been back to visit Vu and his family several times. His cousin has given birth to a baby boy, and Blue Dragon helped out with some medical costs as well as a small allowance until the baby's father got a stable job. Vu's enthusiasm for text messages has eased off a bit - I imagine his aunty had to sell quite a few helmets to pay the phone bill - but we've still been in contact regularly and Blue Dragon has helped the aunty with some cash each month to support her nephew. They live in a tiny room, 4 people and a baby all together, and work unbelievably long hours to scratch together a living. What could I do to make things better?

A few months ago, I contacted a man named Paul, who runs the Saigon Children's Charity. Vu had told me that he wanted to study, and I was happy to pay for a tutor, but I was wondering if Paul could help me find a suitable teacher.

Instead, Paul asked his social workers to look into the case, and eventually they came up with a way to help Vu get back to a proper school. This was something that I simply couldn't do from Hanoi! And on top of this, they found a reputable local shelter that was prepared to accept Vu so that he could have better living conditions. In short, this was to make sure he wouldn't be compelled to work until the early hours of the morning, which would certainly mean that he couldn't keep up at school. Vu has been out of the schooling system for a couple of years, so he needs all the support he can get.

And finally, the Saigon Children's Charity staff found a vocational training course for Vu's cousin who has been working in the restaurant. He now studies motorbike repair in the morning, and helps his mother sell helmets in the afternoon.

This morning, Vu went to school for the first time in 3 years. He's in Grade 5, and one of the staff from the shelter sent me a message to say that he's doing really well.

Vu's outlook is great. He's back at school, living in a secure environment not too far from his aunt, and his cousin is studying a trade with a guaranteed job upon graduation.

If only every story could have such a happy ending!

First day

The new school year is starting, and there are lots of exciting developments among the Blue Dragon kids.

Here's just one:

This afternoon, a 15 year old boy named Hung went to school for the very first time in his life.

Hung has grown up on the streets of Hanoi with his mother and siblings. To earn money, they shine shoes in the outer districts, but Hung has long wanted the chance to study.

Our outreach worker Vi met Hung late last year, and gradually built up a relationship with him and his mother. Hung has been coming to our drop-in centre every day for over 6 months, and apart from playing Connect 4 with the other kids (he's a champion! Nobody can beat him!) he's been studying with our teacher, Ninh, to learn some basic literacy.

And today, he went to school.

I can't post a photo, but I can say that we're immensely happy to have made this happen.

From street kid to IT guy

In July 2004, I met a teenage boy shining shoes on the streets of Hanoi.

Linh was a bright kid, and very shy. It took some time to learn how he had come to be on the streets, but eventually he revealed that he had run away because of a dispute with his mother.

Linh lived in the countryside with his mother and a younger sister. They were extremely poor, and often didn't have enough money to eat breakfast. So one day, frustrated and not able to face the difficulties of his life, Linh left home and headed to Hanoi.

At the time, Blue Dragon was a very small organisation - we were not even registered with the Vietnamese government - but we had really good outreach into the community and had already started a (tiny!) drop-in centre. So we were able to help Linh with some basic needs, and could give him a place to stay when he needed it.

Linh (in the yellow shirt) at the Blue Dragon centre.
This picture was taken in July 2004. The other kids pictured were
also street kids at the time.

After some weeks with us, Linh was ready to accept our help to return home. Van, who is now Blue Dragon's lawyer (but on leave to study in the US), was a uni student at the time, and volunteered to accompany Linh home. This was Van's first experience of reuniting a runaway with their family, and it was a terrific success. Linh's mother and the entire neighborhood came out to celebrate the return of the boy who they feared was dead!

Once Linh was home, Blue Dragon continued supporting him to study, and to ensure that his family didn't have to worry so much about money. His school results were always good, and from time to time he'd even travel to Hanoi to visit us.

Today, Linh is a student at a private college in Hanoi learning IT. He's in one of the best colleges around, called Aptech, with the course almost entirely in English. We normally couldn't afford to send him to Aptech, but a private donor gave us the money to pay for the course in full, and so Linh has had the opportunity of a lifetime.

Linh with a certificate of excellence from his college (July 2010).

Linh is now entering the last 6 months of the course, and his results have been great so far. He's starting to dream of landing his first job, or maybe studying further overseas.

Such a long way from his days shining shoes to survive in Hanoi!

A great idea

There's a new venture in Hanoi that is being set up as a way of supporting local orphanages. It's called Little Tigers, and the website is here: little-tigers.org.

Little Tigers runs a second-hand store in Hanoi, with all the items donated, and all profits going to fund specific needs in orphanages in and around town. As they're still in the early stages, the shop is currently only open once per month... and the next opening day is this coming Saturday, August 7.

Check out their website... Shop there this weekend... And support this great cause!

Hien, now

Hien is an 18 year old girl who was in the original 'intake' of students who joined our Stay In School program back in 2004.

Stay In School supports kids in Grades 5-12 in a rural province just outside Hanoi. We identify those students who are at high risk of dropping out of school due to extreme poverty, and ensure they have the means to complete their education.

The most recent edition of Dragon Tales, our quarterly newsletter, featured the story below about Hien now finishing Grade 12 and preparing to enter university.

Now that her university entrance exams are over, Hien has been helping out at the Blue Dragon centre in Hanoi. That's Hien below, with 3 of the kids hanging out this afternoon.



Many days, Hien helps out with the drop-in centre, which has been very busy during the summer break. But she has also been assisting our staff with administration, and last week she was out in the countryside interviewing new families who have asked for Blue Dragon's support.

It's great to see her now so confident and capable. Sometimes it's hard to believe that she hasn't even started uni yet - she's such a reliable worker around the office!

In coming weeks, Hien will get her uni entrance results, which will determine which course she can take, and at which university. We're looking forward to supporting her through her tertiary studies... and , who knows? Maybe she'll be working for us full time in years to come...

Getting the families on side

I've just returned to Hanoi after spending a couple of days in Hue, visiting families of trafficked children.

I've written many times about Blue Dragon's work of rescuing kids who have been trafficked from central to southern Vietnam. It's a difficult and dangerous part of our work, but arguably the most valuable.

Once we get the kids home, though, we still have much to do. Helping the children return to school is never easy: most have been away from school for 2 years or more. Some of the kids, now in their early teens, have never been to school. We can't just take the to the school gates and drop them off, hoping that everything will be alright.

Across the three communes where we are currently helping families, some of the children have dropped out of the schools or training courses we helped to enrol them in. While this hasn't been a huge problem, it has been growing, so I decided to go to Hue and talk with the families about this directly.

In Hue, we have just 2 staff running our anti-trafficking program. They're out in the villages every day helping families to solve problems, and often overseeing the building of houses or the running of a youth centre we opened in one village. To deal with this issue of children giving up their studies, we decided to call 3 meetings - one in each commune - in which the staff and I would stand together with local government and Red Cross officials to talk about the importance of education. In short, we called for the parents to work with us to keep their kids in school.

We've never done anything like this before, but this is a new problem so we needed to think of a creative solution.

Each meeting was a little different. The very first meeting was attended almost exclusively by fathers and grandfathers; the second was attended only be mothers. Each village clearly has its own way of doing things!


In one village, the Red Cross leader told the families that education must be important - after all, Michael has come all the way from Australia to help your kids go to school, so surely you can make more of an effort to send them! I couldn't help but chuckle at that line. But, hey, whatever works!

Families were invited to give us their feedback and let us know if they had any problems we could help with. This was the part of the meetings where all the really interesting stuff happened.

One very elderly man spoke about his two grand daughters, both of whom we brought home from factories. Although the whole family wanted them home, he explained, the younger of the two just didn't want to go to school, so they took her to a fortune teller. The advice was that the girl was never going to be a doctor or a teacher, so there was no real need to force her to go to school. Instead, the mother took her back to Ho Chi Minh City to find another factory to work in.


While a story like this might just seem bizarre to anyone in the west, it's not unusual at all here in Vietnam for families to make a decision like this based on the words of a fortune teller. Even with the local officials urging the grandfather to bring the girl back and send her to school, it's unlikely that he will.

At another meeting, a group of parents had joined together to write a proposal to us. They needed help to improve their incomes, they said, so would we consider giving them a loan to buy fishing nets? I must have looked stunned for a moment, because I was just so impressed that the villagers had thought up a solution to their problem and had the foresight to put it in writing. Mistaking my expression for confusion, one mother spoke up: "If you can give us this loan, we'll be able to earn more money for our families and invest more in our children's education."

These are the words that charity workers dream of hearing. Yes, they'll be getting that loan for sure!

There's no doubt that these community meetings have made an impact on the parents. They all agreed that they should do their best to encourage their kids to go to school, and to let us know if there are any problems we can help with. School starts again in mid August: we'll soon know just how our strategy has worked!

Visit

This morning Blue Dragon had a very special visitor - the spouse of Thailand's Foreign Minister, who is in Vietnam for an ASEAN meeting.

Mrs. Chintana Piromya, along with some colleagues from Thailand and the Royal Thai Embassy, spent this morning meeting our kids, touring our centre, and learning about street kids in Vietnam.

Towards the end of the visit, there was a lovely moment when the Blue Dragon kids brought the craft items they had been making as gifts to our visitors. This wasn't something we had planned, but the children wanted to say thanks for the donations that the Thai visitors had brought to us.

Mrs. Piromya is in the centre, wearing a black top

We don't often have foreign dignitaries turn up at our centre, so this morning was really special for all of us!

Welcome!

This week at the Hoi An Children's Home, 7 new kids have moved in!

Older residents and staff have been busy showing their new brothers and sisters around the Home, and also around the town, as all of the newcomers are from rural areas far from Hoi An.

Coming to the Home means a new chance at life - the chance to go to school and have a roof over their head.

Welcome, kids!

Involvement

Blue Dragon has been working in Vietnam for about 8 years now. We started out as a couple of guys with good intentions but absolutely nothing else, and we've built up an organisation that's now helping about 900 kids around the country.

Some of the very first street kids who we helped work for us now. It's fantastic to see young people from tough backgrounds wanting to give back to others.

Last month, I wrote about our latest rescue trip to Saigon to retrieve rural children who have taken by traffickers. One thing that I didn't mention was that, apart from me and one Blue Dragon staff member, another person who came along was Nghia, a young man who we first met working on the streets of Saigon back in 2006 (click here for the original story - that's Nghia in the photo) and who now has a mobile phone shop in Hanoi. Nghia's job on the trip was to work alongside me in looking after the kids who we took away from the factories until they could start the journey home by train.

While we were in Saigon, we went to visit the Caravelle Hotel, which Nghia has always seen as a symbol of the life he has been denied: luxury, comfort, wealth. Despite the protestations of a security guard (he seemed to know that Nghia used to be a street kid!) we went into the Hotel to have a drink in a restaurant. We'd have had a meal, too, except that there's no way in the world I could afford to eat there! Sitting by the huge glass windows, sipping outrageously overpriced drinks and watching the city buzz by, Nghia came to the realisation that he'd be just as happy sitting on a plastic stool on the side of the street... He wasn't missing out on anything after all! So we had some laughs and got out of there pretty quickly - and the next morning, started meeting trafficked kids as they came out of the factories. Much more satisfying than the airconditioned paradise of a 5 star hotel.

Another of our kids who has featured on this blog in the past has also been helping out. In late 2007, a terrible event took place in Blue Dragon: one of our teens was stabbed repeatedly and left for dead in a case of mistaken identity. The story started here, and it was an awful time, but the boy, named Ngoc, made a full recovery and is now studying accounting at college.

Now that it's summer holidays, and Ngoc has completed his first year of study, he's traveled to Hue with one of our staff named Binh to teach dance and computing to trafficked children - including some of the same children who we brought back home to Hue just last month.

Binh and Ngoc are working in Hue for 3 weeks, living at our Youth Centre in a village on the coast where the electricity is off more frequently than it's on, and where unemployment, illiteracy, and poverty are rife. Through their workshops, they are rewarding the kids who have come back from the factories and are now in school, encouraging them to stay on in the villages and not be tempted by the traffickers who promise excitement and bright lights in the big cities.

Apart from his own awful experience a few years back, Ngoc (pictured above in the white shorts) has had plenty of hardships in life, and we are hoping that the kids will see him as a positive role model to emulate. Yes, life can be difficult, but stick with education, aim high, and things can get better.

As the founder of Blue Dragon, I am particularly proud to see young people like Nghia and Ngoc doing their bit to help others. I could go on with many more stories, too; such as the girls and boys from our street kids' program who volunteer to help children with disabilities go swimming each week. There are many more stories to be told.

I'm sure that around the world many more organisations also involve their 'beneficiaries' in community service like this - if any readers have a story to tell, feel free to say something in the Comments section below!

A week at Blue: Friday

And so to Friday!

Earlier this week I compared our drop-in centre to an ants' nest. Here's how it looked at 2pm this afternoon:

I think we need a bigger centre!

There are a few particular games that the kids are just crazy about: Connect 4; Uno; and a game involving stringing up an elastic way above everyone's head and trying to leap onto it with one foot. Our kids may be small, but they're extremely agile.

To keep the kids occupied, there was once again a great range of things to do - and once again, swimming topped the list.


I wrote some time ago about the need for children in Vietnam to learn to swim. It's certainly fun for the kids to go to the pool, but there's also a very important reason for them to come and practice their swimming with us. Ten children drown daily in this country.

We were on alert for a possible attempt at theft this morning, as one of the teens noticed a thief from the nearby market scoping out our premises. I think the young guy got spooked and disappeared pretty quickly once he saw all of us watching him.

A much more enjoyable moment was eating treats made by kids with disabilities in the Blue Dragon kitchen. I've written before about Mummy Dish Day, but this was the first time that I've been in the office when the kids (and one beaming mummy) carried their dishes downstairs to share with everyone. Man, were those kids proud as the staff team demolished their dishes!

Apart from all this fun and action, much of my day was taken (as usual) with emailing, planning, and the more formal side of running a charity. These days I receive about 40 emails per day - and I do try to answer them all before I get to bed. (Not that I am going to succeed tonight!) It was really nice this afternoon to meet up with Seb, who works here in Hanoi in an Embassy but in his own spare time organised a football tournament last month which raised funds for Blue Dragon and a local pagoda. Seb came by today to deposit the funds - about 50,000,000 VND! - which will go toward our Outreach work. Much appreciated!

With our chief lawyer and Child Rights Advocate, Van, about to leave the country for a year of study, tonight we met up for a farewell drink. It's sad to be saying goodbye - he's an amazing man, as long term friends of Blue Dragon know. But the important thing is that he will be back! And to that end, my farewell gift for him tonight was a boomerang...


This will be my final in my "Week at Blue" blogs. From tonight I'll get back to my regular routine of writing a couple of times each week about special stories and events. And yes yes, I realise I only counted 6 days in this week! I'm hoping that Saturday's blog would read "Woke up really late and went swimming with the kids from our Shelter." If anything more exciting than that happens, I'll post a story about it! I do hope these entries have helped our friends around the world gain some more insight into a typical week at Blue Dragon in Hanoi.

A week at Blue: Thursday

This morning had a rotten start: my first duty of the day was to be a disciplinarian. Fortunately, though, the rest of the day just got better.

Last night, 2 of the kids from our Shelter came home waaaay past curfew, and in doing so broke their word to try harder at following the rules. With a couple of the more senior social work staff away, it fell to me to be the bad guy.

It's a role I don't enjoy at all.

But by the end of the day, both of the boys were able to sit with me to talk about what they'd done and why it was wrong, and we had a chat about the concept of trust. Let's see if they can rise to the challenge.

The Blue Dragon centre was full of life and activity. Today kids could join in rollerskating and swimming (not at our centre, of course! It's a bit smaller than that!), and one of the staff took some children with disabilities to see a movie in a cinema.

It was also Haircut Day, which is always a lot of fun. Once a month, we invite some hairdressers to our centre to offer free haircuts to kids and staff; someone always ends up with a mohawk or shaved head. But there's no surprise in that - take a look at the guy in charge of the haircuts!

That's him standing, with the black shirt and the... well, how can I describe that hairdo?


His name is Kien, and our kids think he's the greatest! I'm just glad he's no longer sporting the orange mullet he had last time he came to the centre!

Upstairs, a volunteer was running a workshop for kids on animals, with a focus on extinction. They watched Jurassic Park and then learned about Vietnamese native animals which are on the verge of extinction. This is a very hot topic right now, with the recent revelation that an extremely rare rhino killed by poachers in central Vietnam was probably the last of its kind in the country. The kids were really interested in learning about this and enjoyed the hands-on lesson.


Our centre also held the monthly gathering ('sinh hoat') in which we acknowledge all the kids' birthdays and achievements. Unfortunately I missed the whole thing! I was off at a hospital visiting one of our kids from outside Hanoi.

The little boy, named Tung, is having surgery to reconstruct his left hand. When he was just a toddler, he had a terrible accident which burned his hands and feet. Because his family never had the money to have him treated, he's grown up with awful deformities and limited use of his limbs. Two years ago, we brought Tung to hospital to have some corrective surgery - I wrote about it here - but there's still some more to be done.

Today I visited him with Tuyen, who coordinates one of our rural programs, and it's clear that apart from being in great pain following last week's surgery, Tung is also bored out of his brain. And he has 3 weeks left to go before he can return home! Tuyen will go back to the hospital in the morning with a supply of comic books for Tung, and some newspapers for his equally-frustrated grandfather who is staying with him in the hospital.

Nghia's shop is getting close to opening; I dropped in on him as I rode home tonight, in the midst of a huge rainstorm. Well, now he knows which bits of the roof leak, and I guess it's best that he finds that out sooner rather than later....

A week at Blue: Wednesday

Hanoi's heatwave is here to stay: there's been no let-up all week. Our drop-in centre remained full all day, but by this afternoon the kids were so quiet that from the offices upstairs you could hardly hear a sound.

Each day for the last few weeks our social workers have organised activities - mostly involving swimming! - but today there was a real sense of "lets just lay here under the fans." Our centre is intended as a safe place for the kids to hang out, as most don't have very decent places to stay; so we're happy for them to just come, have a shower, and relax.

In the afternoon, a social worker named Chau ran a 'life skills' workshop on co-operation. The kids chatted and played games, all on the theme of how working together makes things easier. They were also pretty pleased when the plates of fruit came out at the end!

One of the games the kids played: 2 children sat back to back, linked arms, and had to stand up.

Here's the group attending the workshop. The girl in the foreground is translating the class to her friends who are deaf.

Away from our centre, we have heard that the boy who was arrested on the weekend has been released and has returned to his countryside with his mother. Seems to me that that's about the happiest ending we could have hoped for. Now if he can just learn from this...

The young guy with the prison sentence hanging over his head hasn't come back to see us! It's a bit strange, considering the gravity of his situation, but he knows where to find us if he wants to. Our philosophy has always been to offer the best possible service we can, and it's there for those who want and need it. I still think he'll be back in coming days, but I'm a bit confused as to why he's taking so long, and why his mother doesn't seem interested at all in getting some legal advice.

I mentioned yesterday that one of our teens, named Nghia, is preparing to open a new mobile phone shop. He spent today working along with some Blue Dragon friends to get the new premises ready, and as I write he's moving all the equipment and furniture from his old shop.

A very happy Nghia!

One of the Blue Dragon staff, a cleaner named Cuong (pictured below) helped out too, especially with fixing up the VERY shonky electrical system.


Apart from all these activities, a good chunk of my day involved preparing to take three of our older teens to New Zealand. The National Technology Institute in Auckland has offered them full scholarships, and Jetstar is donating free flights - so we really feel like we've won the lottery. The kids don't go until September, but there are many arrangements to take care of in advance.

And I haven't mentioned this previously, but I usually finish off my days at the Blue Dragon shelter, just a few doors down from our centre. Sometimes I eat there with the kids, or else just take part in the daily meeting that they have. It's a nice way to end the day, and to stay in touch with the kids despite the mountain of admin that usually piles up on my desk!

A week at Blue: Tuesday

Given the worrying events that took place yesterday morning, it would be fair to expect that today would have been fraught with fears and challenges. But Vietnam is much too random for that. Tomorrow there might be a hurricane, or maybe a snowstorm, but today was pretty calm.

About the Chinese traffickers: no news or developments. The teenage boy in lock-up: no news. The 16 year old who (thinks he) has been sentenced to prison: his mother didn't come to meet us yesterday or this morning because, woe betide, she has a headache.

So of all the big dramas that we were dealing with on Monday, not one so much as poked me in the ribs today. Maybe tomorrow?

Much of my day was occupied with catching up with people: coffee with Jim from Language Link, who has been a huge help to Blue Dragon over the years (as well as a fantastic friend); a meeting with our Communications department; and a very long chat with an ABV volunteer, John, who is here in Hanoi helping us to review and develop our IT department. Back in 2006, the Irish Embassy helped us to set up an IT room, and since then we've had a couple of amazing IT guys working with us. It's time now for us to figure out the direction of IT in Blue Dragon, and how to best use our resources for the street kids and children with disabilities who visit our centre. We have lots of decisions to make, so today was just the start of discussions.

And throughout all this chatter, a few notable events marked the day.

First, one of our teens who used to work as a shoeshine boy in Ho Chi Minh City is preparing to open a mobile phone shop near the Blue Dragon centre. We helped him to open a small business late last year, but for various reasons he needs to move and fortunately he's found a little place for rent not too far from where we are. Today he and some of the other kids scrubbed down the walls and repainted the interior - in just a few more days he should be ready to start his new shop!

Second, I was thrilled to get a call from Paul, the Country Director of Saigon Children's Charity, telling me that his staff have had something of a breakthrough with a street kid I contacted them about last month. Since January 1 this year I have been in contact with a family working on the streets of Ho Chi Minh City. Each time I'm in the south, I spend time with them at their motorbike-helmet stall by the side of a filthy road, and Blue Dragon has been helping out with some money to support a newborn baby in the family. However, one of the kids in the family really needs help to get back to school, so I called on Paul to see if his organisation could be involved. Originally I was just after some advice and introductions, but he's gone much further than that, and it now looks like the teenage son will be starting school next month! That's fantastic news.

And third, one of our longest serving staff members has been granted a visa to study in the US for a year! Van, who is well known to readers of this blog, leaves on Saturday. I'm thrilled for him, and I know he deserves this opportunity; but selfishly, I also hope the coming year goes VERY quickly. Van is one of our two lawyers, and has been involved in just about every major event / development / crisis since I met him in 2003. I'm not sure how we're going to survive without him!