These are a few of my favourite things

I realised something important this week: I really, really love the new Blue Dragon centre, Dragon House.

It's still a work in progress, and many things are yet to be done. There's no roof over the front yard to protect the kids from the rain (which is pretty important right now, as Vietnam is being battered by a typhoon!). We need to install safety railings on the rooftop before the kids can use it. The electricity in many parts of the building doesn't work right. And so on.

But all of that is insignificant compared to how brilliantly usable the whole centre is. So I thought I'd commit the literary sin of compiling a list of 'a few of my favourite things' about Dragon House.

1. It has SPACE!

The kids can spread out through the drop-in centre, classrooms, art room, meeting rooms, and open areas. They can chat with their social workers and psychologists, have private meetings, play table tennis, exercise... there are so many new opportunities for the children that they haven't had before.

And an unexpected advantage of all this new space? Staff are reporting less incidence of fighting and arguing among our sometimes-volatile teens. There's now plenty of room to chill out without getting in each other's way!

2.  It has ACCESS!

In Hanoi, the Blue Dragon family includes over 50 kids with all kinds of disabilities; and anyone who has been to the city knows how rare it is to find buildings with disability access.

To enter Dragon House, there are no steps. There's an easy-access bathroom with hand rails  on the ground floor. And there's an elevator to get up to the classrooms and offices. All of which means that kids in wheelchairs can get to just about every room in the building as easily as anyone else.

3. It has PRIVACY!

The week after we moved in, Blue Dragon's anti-trafficking team dealt with 2 separate cases of teenage girls being trafficked into China. There were 2 girls each time, and 1 of them had a baby. However, apart from the staff who were working with them, nobody knew that they were even in the building.

Dragon House includes a room set aside specifically for our anti-trafficking team: the lawyers and psychologist who have so far rescued more than 230 children. Access to the room is fairly discrete; nobody needs to walk through the busy children's areas, or past the offices and meeting rooms.

4. It's huge, but it's humble.

Dragon House looks out over a main road towards Hanoi's Opera House; it's highly visible, which means street kids can find us easily; and it's 6 storeys high.

But this is no luxurious office tower: some floors are bumpy, most walls are still in need of paint, and a lot of the windows and doors really should be replaced. Because we couldn't afford to do that, we brought with us the old windows from our last centre and reused them to save money. Even though they were 5 years old, they were still better than the windows and doors throughout the building!

In my mind that humility is important. Blue Dragon isn't all about a building. We're about helping kids in need. A luxurious building would just be... wrong. And unnecessary.

5. It all happened because of the community.

We knew for almost 2 years that we needed to open a new centre for Hanoi's street kids. While searching for potential land and buildings, we were also talking to potential donors who could provide the funding. A few in particular were quite large organisations which have helped other charities in the region purchase property or build new facilities; and they could easily have helped us achieve our dream of opening this new centre.

But they didn't. They wanted us to remould ourselves to fit into their preconceived ideas of what we should do and how we should look, based mostly on their experience in Cambodia.

We weren't willing to do that, so instead we turned to the international Blue Dragon community for help.

Our friends around the world dug deep. Someone gave $5. Someone gave $30,000. A community group in Australia sent money for kitchen and dining utensils. One foundation in the USA, and another in Germany, sent money for furniture. Everyone gave what they could. We put it all together and it was enough to create something fantastic.

Here in Hanoi, the community helped out in many ways. One company, Uma, painted the classrooms and offices for free, and gave a huge discount on furniture. Ford sent a team of volunteers to assist with the thankless task of cleaning the place. Another company, which doesn't want to be named,  donated about $2000 worth of roofing. The Hanoi Hotel donated enough equipment for an entire kitchen, then paid for a team to come and install it, along with an industrial grade exhaust fan. Several local restaurants and cafes are pitching in with food and drinks for our opening party in a few weeks time.

It feels like all of our friends have joined in to make Dragon House what it is. And that's a beautiful feeling.

Blue Dragon isn't a building. The relationships we build with young Vietnamese people are far more valuable than the bricks and mortar of Dragon House. But it sure is great having a beautiful space where the kids can come to learn, play, and be safe.

Back to where it began

Some of the most powerful events in life begin with a chance encounter. The course of my own life changed in January 1999, when I had my 'mountain bottom' experience in Chau Doc.

Right on the border between Vietnam and Cambodia, Chau Doc is a quiet town far from the major cities. Most visitors to Chau Doc are either crossing toward Phnom Penh, or on their way to visit Sam Mountain.

I was on a tour of the Mekong Delta, following a well worn path, when my bus stopped at the base of Sam Mountain more than 13 years ago. Stricken with food poisoning, I was too weak to walk up the mountain with the rest of the group, so I opted to miss the beautiful view over the delta and into Cambodia. Instead I sat alone on a bench under a tree.

But I wasn't alone for long. Within minutes, two boys aged about 13 and 15 approached me, asking for help with their English homework. The boys were named Huy and Vu; their families lived on the side of the mountain, and they saw countless tourists walk by every day. On this day, they decided to be brave enough to approach one and ask for help.

Huy's mother owned a tin shack along the path from which she sold drinks and sweets. She plied me with food, refusing to accept any payment. Other kids, including Vu and Huy's brothers and sisters, came to look and try to learn some English too. It must have been quite a spectacle. 

I have no memory of how long we sat there going over their English text books. It might have been 20 minutes, or maybe 2 hours. All I remember is that, when the tour group came back down to the bus, I didn't want to go. It's a cliche, but there's no better way to say it: I was having the time of my life.

That single encounter changed me. I had been unhappy in my job back in Australia and had been looking for a change but didn't know what to do. I did get back on the bus, and we returned to Ho Chi Minh City; but the very next morning I was back on a local bus to Sam Mountain, a harrowing 8 hour journey, but I just had to get back to see Vu and Huy and their families.

On returning to Australia, the experience stayed with me. Next time I had a holiday, I was back in Vietnam, and back in Chau Doc. And again some months later. And again.

Vu and Huy, in 1999, holding birds they brought me as a gift

Finally I moved to Vietnam, and I have been here for 10 years now. After 6 months in Ho Chi Minh City, I found myself in Hanoi meeting street kids, and so Blue Dragon was born.

Before coming to live in Vietnam, I stayed in close contact with Vu and Huy. Those were days when "close contact" meant sending letters and making an occasional phone call. I sent their families money to make sure they were in school, and they asked for some extra help to study computers.

After moving to Vietnam, I saw them again a couple of times, but then ended up in Hanoi, at the other end of the country, and we drifted out of contact. 

This afternoon, I returned to Sam Mountain for the first time in 10 years. I was not alone on this trip; Blue Dragon's lawyer, Van, was with me, as we had both been in a nearby town for a meeting with police about human trafficking.

In many ways, nothing has changed at the mountain village. Huy's mother still sells sweets out of the same tin shack. Most of the neighbours remembered me; as I pulled up on my rented motorbike, a woman instantly recognised me and started calling out to others. It felt like I'd never been away.

The shop run by Huy's mother

However, a lot really has changed over the years.

Before coming on this trip, a friend had visited, just a week ago, and had met the mothers of Vu and Huy. So when I arrived today, I had already heard the news that Vu died 3 years ago of liver disease. He was 26, and had been working as a driver. His mother told me proudly that he had finished high school and was tall and handsome; and also that he had hidden his illness from his family for as long as he could, knowing that there was no cure.

His mother took me and Van to visit Vu's small grave. We sat and talked about his life; she seemed pleased to have the chance to talk and I was happy to listen.

Huy's mother was there as well, of course, and she told me that her son is married now and has a daughter. They live near Ho Chi Minh City, and I hope to see them over the weekend.

We have much to catch up on. And I know I will be back to Sam Mountain very soon.

Good to be back

Blue Dragon United has been playing football regularly for the past month, after having been booted off the Long Bien field for the whole summer.

Every Sunday morning, up to 90 kids are coming along to play, and then smaller groups go off together to play in the Hanoi Youth Football League tournament.

The kids' joy at being able to don the BDU shirt and get back on the field is etched is undeniable!

Since our beginnings back in early 2003, we've played over 1000 games with the kids. It sure is good to be back every week, giving the kids the chance to laugh and play.

Counting the cost

I recently ran into a social worker from another charity who had heard about Blue Dragon's rescue of a trafficked Vietnamese girl back in August.

The girl, aged about 16, had been trafficked and sold as a bride to a Chinese man. Although we've mentioned this rescue in our social media, we haven't given all the details because the trafficker is now on the run and has yet to be caught.

The social worker, rightly enough, asked me about how Blue Dragon justifies the cost of such rescue trips. Given our limited resources, and the seemingly endless needs of children and families in Vietnam, how do we decide to allocate money to sending staff on risky trips into China to find individual girls (or sometimes groups of girls) and bring them home?

It was a good question, and thinking later I felt that my explanation deserves also to be blogged. So here goes.

First, it's worth pointing out that Blue Dragon rarely journeys into China to find trafficked girls; most of our rescue work is done within Vietnam. But when we are contacted by girls who are in China, or their family members here in Vietnam, pleading for help, it's very difficult to decline. In the most recent case, we were in direct contact with the girl who was desperate to escape but had no idea where she was or how to get home. She was there against her will, and it was within our power to find her and get her home.

In such a situation, it would be almost inhumane to tell her that we thought that helping her would be too expensive..

In the western world, how much would we consider "too much" to rescue a teenage girl who has been abducted? Such cases do some up reasonably frequently, although they might not be trafficking as such. In recent months in Australia there have been cases of Australians detained in Libya; in one case, the Australian Foreign Minister, Bob Carr, flew to Libya to intervene on behalf of the detained woman.

Can you imagine how much that cost? A bill of half a million dollars would not be out of the question.

By contrast, a typical rescue of trafficked children within Vietnam costs around $400 per child; a rescue trip into China can cost $2000 - $4000 per rescued person.

In the grand scheme, $4000 isn't a lot of money, and yet the point stands that the same $4000 to help one person might seem excessive when you consider how many others it could help.

However, when Blue Dragon organises a rescue trip, we are doing much more than bringing home a single person.

In the last few months, 10 individual traffickers from cases we've been involved with have been sentenced in court. That's 10 men and women who would otherwise be trafficking girls, right now, into China.

How have they been sentenced? The starting point in each case has been the evidence provided by the girls Blue Dragon brought back from China. Without their testimony, there was no case against the traffickers.

Put simply: To stop the traffickers, we first need to bring their victims home. 

Our experience so far has been that each trafficker has several girls 'in the wings' at any one time. In one case, the trafficker had groomed a girl over the course of a whole year before finally taking her into China and selling her. We know that the same man had trafficked at least 2 other girls, but it's reasonable to suspect that there could have been at least another 5 to 10 victims already; and it's also a reasonable assumption that he had several other victims lined up ready to go.

Unless he was arrested, how many more girls would he have trafficked? Five more? One hundred?

So part of the value of our rescue work, in addition to bringing home individual girls, is that we follow up with the prosecution in order to put a complete stop to the same traffickers taking even more girls.

And there's one more effect of this work: with stories being published in the local media, other traffickers and would-be traffickers must see that they cannot get away with this forever. The prosecutions act as a deterrent to others. This in itself will not stop trafficking, and it's unlikely that scores of traffickers will go out and get a real job just because they've heard of someone else getting caught. But if the traffickers had free reign, and nobody was challenging them, how much worse would the situation be?

It's definitely worth stopping to count the cost of rescuing trafficked girls and boys. When we do so, we see that the cost of NOT rescuing them is even higher.

Full moon, full house!

Vietnam celebrated Full Moon Festival on Saturday - which means endless kids' parties, moon cakes, and colourful decorations around the streets!

Blue Dragon took the opportunity to hold a huge party in Dragon House, our new centre for street kids. The space was fantastic; at least 150 children and family members came to celebrate!

One of our boys, Quy, told me later that it was the best Full Moon party he's ever attended. That's high praise!

3 new houses

Blue Dragon has just finished building 3 houses for families in central Vietnam; take a look at the change!


Hoang's house before...

... and after:

Thai's house before... 

and after:

 And Van's house before...

... and after (painting still to be finished!):

Each of these houses cost between $2000 and $2500 to build, with all the money coming from Rally Indochina 2012. (If you haven't heard about the Rally yet, take a look at their website for the April 2013 rally).

This weekend, some kids and parents are sleeping in a secure, well built house for the first time in their lives.

Dragon House

Monday was the day we've been building up to for the past 2 years: the opening of a new centre for Hanoi's street kids.

 

The Blue Dragon team is exhausted but running on adrenaline - and we still have plenty of that!

Our new centre has opened its doors, even though the builders haven't quite finished their work. I don't want to post a photo of the front of the building just yet, because there is still construction work being done, but this time next week we'll be fully ready to go.

Regardless, our first day was wonderful. Finally the kids have a huge space to play, with endless sunlight streaming through the windows. Because of construction work, we decided to not open up the ground-floor drop-in centre, but instead create a temporary centre on the second floor.

The kids loved it; even though it's temporary, it was still more spacious than the centre we've occupied for the past 5 years! The sense of open space led the kids to spread out, find spaces with their friends and relax. 

Several of the older kids, who now live independently and have their owns jobs (and, in some cases, their own businesses!) came along to visit or help. It was lovely to see the older guys hanging out with the younger kids. 

Lunch was great, even though the kitchen is also not quite ready to use. We ordered in 'bun cha' and had a feast - nobody went hungry, that's for sure! 

So the centre needs a few finishing touches.... like doors, windows, and gates. But we're nearly there!

And after much discussion and deliberation, we're proud to announce the name for our new centre:

Dragon House.

The various Blue Dragon centres over the years invariably end up being named after the house number: 66, 32, 18, 51... It sounds a bit too much like we've been playing bingo! So this time, the house has a name.

We're honoured to be borrowing this name from author John Shors, who published a novel named Dragon House back in 2009. John and I have been great friends since then; John used the book to raise support for our work in Vietnam, and even though the story is completely fictional, I always recommend Dragon House to anybody who wants to know what life is really like for Vietnamese street kids.

So life is now imitating art, and the Blue Dragon kids have a centre that shares a name with John's novel.

Dragon House is already an awesome place. In coming weeks, as we add the finishing touches and really make it our home, it's going to be even more amazing.

Re-booted

We're back!

Blue Dragon United has its fields back!

After about 5 months of not having access to the 3 fields we have played on over the past 9 years, today was the first game of the Blue Dragon soccer team.

And a record number of kids came: 85!

The countdown

Blue Dragon's new centre for street kids opens in 2 weeks... and here's how the renovations are looking!

(Click on the pictures to get a larger view). 
  

 

The main building now has an extension to give the kids a much larger space to play. The ramp leads to a parking area for the children's bicycles!

As for the inside of the building, the bad news is that we asked Bluey to do it...

Not long now... We're counting the days! Moving starts Thursday September 13th.

Massive Interventions

A few years ago, my team at Blue Dragon set out to write our mission statements.

This was not just an academic exercise; we wanted to capture the spirit and essence of our work with Vietnam's street kids. We wanted to be sure that, no matter what may change in our organisation in the future, our spirit and philosophy would carry on.

Among the various philosophical statements we came up with, one was just a little controversial:

Massive interventions, not quick fix solutions.

We added to this an explanation:

We tackle the problem of poverty from every angle, rather than focusing on one obvious cause or effect. Our interventions may take years, as we persist until we are successful.

 Some friends who looked over our drafts felt uncomfortable with this. "Massive interventions" just sounded too brutal; it had a whiff of wanting to conquer and dominate.

However, we kept it in the list of statements (I'll put the whole list below) because it summarised our view that to really help someone out of poverty, and really make a lasting change, our work had to be comprehensive, all-encompassing, and lasting.

Over the weekend I caught up with one of the Blue Dragon boys from Hue, named Cuong. He strikes me as a perfect example of the sort of "massive intervention" we had in mind when we wrote that.

He's 16 years old, and when we met him back in 2009 he lived in a tin shack with his family. Cuong had dropped out of school, which was hardly a surprise; it's unbelievably hard to live in a hot tin shack with no electricity and no place to study, then take yourself off to school every morning.

Cuong's old house...

And with his family's only income from fishing - which is poorly paid, dangerous, and seasonal - Cuong could hardly see any hope for a better tomorrow. What's the point of going to school when there's no future anyway?

Cuong's life today is incredibly - massively - different.

In 2011 we built Cuong's family a new brick house, replacing the tin shack with much greater comfort and protection from typhoons... and with electricity.

... and the new one being painted!

We then invited his mother to join an income generating activity we had started in their village. Today, Cuong's mother raises fish in a set of cages in the nearby lagoon. The money she makes has more than doubled the family's income in just one year.

As for his studies, Cuong is now studying in an internationally certified motorbike repair training program. He's about two thirds of the way through his course, and just loves it.


On top of all this is the mentoring he and his family have received over the years; the social activities we organise every week; and the encouragement Cuong gets just from being part of Blue Dragon.

Through these few interventions designed not only for Cuong, but also his family and community, Cuong has reason to hope for the future. His family is not rich, but they are no longer living in poverty, hungry during the off-season for fishing, and vulnerable to child trafficking.

"Massive interventions." I'm glad we kept that phrase, because I've really grown to like it.

Legalities

Just a week, and hundreds of lives have been changed.

The big news of the week is that the Blue Dragon team succeeded in finding a young woman who had been trafficked into China, and brought her home. She's safe and well, but once again I can't say much more until the police work is done. It's quite a story, and I hope I can tell it soon.

The handover 

Just out of interest, the photo above is of the 'handover ceremony' held at the crossing between China and Vietnam. The red line on the road is the international border. Each time we bring a girl back from being trafficked, a small ceremony like this takes place as she returns to Vietnam.

On the anti-trafficking front, we had another reason to celebrate this week, although to most of the developed world our reason must seem a little odd. Our staff worked in Loc Tri commune of Hue province to register all the 'unregistered' citizens we could find. In total, we registered 399 children and adults. So the population of Loc Tri went from about 9,000 to about 9,399 in 2 days! 

Sign me up! 

What does this have to do with trafficking? Quite a lot, in fact.

Throughout Vietnam, tens of thousands of people are unregistered. This means they have no birth certificate, no ID card, no driver's licence - nothing to 'prove' that they exist. Without such paperwork, they cannot access government services, like school and healthcare.

We've known for a long time that kids who drop out of school are at the highest risk by far of being targeted by traffickers. But what we have also learned along the way is that, without paperwork, the rescue of trafficking victims is much, much harder. How can police open a case file on a person who doesn't officially exist? How can the police in China or Cambodia - or England or Australia - facilitate the return home of someone who has no documentation at all?

So our staff worked with the Hue government, focusing on just one commune, to ensure that everyone has the paperwork that they need. It was a busy 2 days, but 399 people now have extra protection against trafficking, and can access all the services that it is their right to do so.

Weekly roundup

What a whirlwind this past week has been!

My own week started in Hue, where Blue Dragon is fighting against child trafficking. However, I was there for a different purpose: I was catching up with one of the street kids from Hanoi has been... well... 'recovering' in Hue for the past few months. He's a young guy (let's call him "Minh") who has a good heart but was finding himself in all sorts of difficulties in the big city, so headed to the quieter environs of Hue to work and study. The change has been fantastic for him.

Despite the fresh start, Minh has been having some difficult times, and as it was his birthday I went down on a surprise visit to spend a couple of days with him.

Back in Hanoi, much of the week was taken up with meetings, supervising the renovations and construction of our new centre, and planning for the BIG MOVE on September 15. We even transported our first truckload over, although renovations have a few more weeks to go.

This new centre is a great step for us. After 5 years in our current centre, we've well and truly outgrown the building and need a whole lot more space for all the kids. There are so many facets of our work that we either didn't have, or were very small, 5 years ago. The new centre should be big enough to see us through the next 10 years. And thanks to some skillful negotiations by my staff, the landlord has agreed to not increase the rent for the whole 10 years that we will be there!

The end of the week saw one of our friends, a 20 year old named Hai, undergo heart surgery. Hai had a stroke some months ago, and on investigation doctors found that his heart had an abnormality which needed to be corrected. As I write, Hai is recovering from the operation, which took almost 10 hours on Thursday night.

Blue Dragon's main role through this has been to provide guidance and advice for Hai and his family. Before coming to us, they had not been told that Hai needed to exercise in order to recover some strength from the stroke: they believed that no recovery was possible.

Hai, in the trendy green hospital outfit, with his cousin. 

They were also expecting to wait until February for the operation to take place, even though there has been some urgency about correcting the problem quickly. Our staff were able to help the family, who have no experience of Hanoi bureaucracy, navigate through the hospital system and get much better care for no extra cost. 


While Hai had his surgery, 2 Blue Dragon staff set off on an operation of a different sort: looking for a young woman who was trafficked from Vietnam into China to be sold as a bride. The young woman is with them now, but they are still a long way from home so I can't say much. Until they are back, it's hard to rest. Every such trip has an element of danger, and while this trip has been relatively simple so far, I'll be very happy to see the 3 of them safely home.

And to top the week off, Hanoi delivered up a typhoon on Friday evening. Fortunately it has worn itself out sufficiently to allow us to get back to work on Sunday with a meeting for all of the families of the children we work with in Hanoi.

As always, there's much to hope for. More news to come soon.

... and closer...

Work at the new Blue Dragon centre is switching now to extending the drop-in centre, where the kids will play and join in activities. The foundations have been put down, and soon the frame will be put in place... 

Closer...

With just over a month to go before the new Blue Dragon centre opens, preparations are coming along fine.

Internal renovations are more than halfway done, and the next step is to build an extension of the Drop-In Centre. If the rain holds off in coming weeks, we will get there on time!

Where have all the street kids gone?

It was about 10 years ago that I first arrived in Hanoi, fresh from the south of Vietnam to teach English to post-grad economics students.

On the surface, Hanoi was a very different place then. There was much less conspicuous wealth at that time; people were stashing their gold under mattresses, afraid to 'flaunt it' as they do now. But the wealth was there, it was just hidden.

The situation of street kids has followed an opposite pattern. Ten years ago, street kids were very visible in Hanoi. The photo above, taken in 2003, shows a few shoeshine boys from Hung Yen province, working on Hang Gai street, famous for its boutique silk shops. Such scenes were typical at the time. Street kids were pretty much everywhere.

Today, I often hear people commenting that Hanoi "doesn't have street kids." And on the surface, the city does seem strangely void of children begging, selling, and cleaning shoes. Just as often, people ask me: Why don't you work in Cambodia, where there's 'real' need?

Comments like this miss the point that, as with so much in Vietnam, there is always more than meets the eye. Far, far more.

Street kids in Hanoi try to camouflage themselves to fit in and hide among the mainstream. Standing out means discrimination, and possibly even detention in a "Social Protection Centre" or Reform School.

The camouflage takes many shapes. Street kids now try to dress like everybody else; they have learned that dressing in the cheaper, simpler clothes of their countryside makes them easy to identify.

The kids have also learned that certain times and places are safer to work. Safer, because the chance of being caught is considerably less. What times are safest? The kids have found that late at night is their best chance to earn money. Problem is, what kind of work can they do at night? Legitimate ways of earning money are much more difficult, so many kids have turned to theft and prostitution. These "jobs" also yield much greater income than the traditional jobs like shining shoes and selling bread.To avoid getting in trouble with the law, many kids have turned to breaking the law.

And finally, the kids are masters at finding places to sleep where nobody can find them. For those who hit the jackpot with a big income one night, they may head off to a hotel for a few days, often inviting their friends to join them until the money runs out. Others become expert tree climbers and hide out right under the noses - or, more accurately, above the heads - of tourists around Hoan Kiem Lake in trees like these.

It's been fascinating to watch the development of Vietnam these past 10 years. I find it hard to say that the lives of street kids are any better than they were when I first arrived, but there's no doubt that things are very different for them.

Bluey gets busy

Blue Dragon is moving. We're opening 2 new centres, relocating our classrooms and offices, and expanding our services.

It's all very serious business.

And that's why we've given the task of showing our renovation / construction process to Bluey.

Be warned: prepare to smile.

Bluey gets busy.

And now for the wedding

For 4 years, Diu and Duyen spent every day, every hour, together. Not because they wanted to, but because they were enslaved in a garment factory in the south of Vietnam.

On July 4, Blue Dragon staff took part in a police raid on the factory - the culmination of weeks of detective work by our legal advocacy team.

Now back home in north western Dien Bien province, high up in the mountains away from the bustling cities, Diu and Duyen have decided that they want to spend the rest of their lives together. With a very humble ceremony in their village over the weekend, they celebrated their wedding. As is the local custom, Duyen's hair is now tied up in a bun, symbolising that she is married; no longer does she wear her hair long, as the unmarried girls do.

It was a beautiful honour that they asked our staff back to take part in the wedding; and they were thrilled at the prospect of their photo being on the Blue Dragon blog! 

This is a beautiful young couple who deserve the best in life. The last few years have been terrible to them, but for now they are excited about their future together.

Things I don't believe in...

I don't normally link to other people's blogs, but I came across a great post today that made me say "Yes!"

For some reason, there's a general belief around that handicrafts are a good industry for disadvantaged people (especially trafficked women) to get into. I've always been perplexed by this. There's nothing wrong with handicrafts, and I am sure there are people all around the world who are interested in careers in the industry. But some trafficked women would prefer to go to university. Or get into hospitality. Or marketing. Or work in a factory. Or finish high school. Or...

So while there's nothing inherently wrong with handicrafts, there's also nothing inherent about people in poverty that makes handicrafts a good career choice for them.

Today I stumbled across this blog post - Things I don't believe in: Handicraft projects and wanted to share it, as it's the first time I have found someone who I agree with on this topic!

This is how it begins

Renovation and construction is underway. Thanks to our friends around the world, Blue Dragon is preparing to open a new, much larger, centre for Hanoi's street kids.

Before the workers could do anything, a ceremony had to take place... Not really 'the norm' in western countries, but construction cannot take place in Vietnam without some kind of ritual first! 

And then, the work begins...

We're starting on the ground floor, adding some bathrooms (yes, with disability access) to the space that will soon be the drop-in centre. 

We believe the work will all be finished in 5-6 weeks... so the next thing for us to do is prepare the opening party!