Can you help Chinh in Auckland?

Since I have been living in Vietnam, I have become involved with Blue Dragon - a children's foundation that reaches out to kids in crisis throughout Vietnam - especially streetkids and children who have been trafficked. Last year Close Up did a story about Chinh and two other streetkids from Vietnam who got scholarships through Blue Dragon to come and study in Auckland.

Chinh, who is studying business, did so well that he has got a scholarship for another year. He will be in Auckland working on his business course until the middle of next year, and after that he hopes to have good enough grades to earn a scholarship to attend a New Zealand university.

But there is one problem - Chinh desperately needs to find homestay accommodation.  Blue Dragon staff and volunteers have been searching for months to find a suitable homestay for Chinh, but there have been no offers.  At one point, he was living in backpacker accommodation in central Auckland!

Currently, Chinh is living in an apartment in the central city, shared with two other international students. He works part time as a cleaner in a supermarket to help pay costs.  With the income from his job, Chinh would be able to make some contribution towards bills and other costs, but he would not be able to pay as much as most paid international homestay students do.

We are not just looking for a homestay to save costs: By living with a New Zealand family, Chinh will have the support and protection that a safe family environment can provide. He will have an opportunity to learn more about New Zealand and our culture, and living with native English speakers will help him to improve his English well enough to hopefully achieve his goal of attending university.

Please help us - Chinh is a good kid and has overcome unimaginable obstacles to achieve as much as he has already. I feel sure that if people knew about his situation, there would be somebody who would be proud to welcome him into their home - even if only for a short time. If you have space, or you know somebody who does, please get in touch with me at this email address: katrina.lawson AT gmail.com. 

Even if you can't offer Chinh accommodation, you can still help: Forward this message to your friends and family and spread the word.

You can find out more about Blue Dragon by visiting their website here: http://www.streetkidsinvietnam.com.

Or, "Like" their Facebook page to receive news and updates about their incredible work in Vietnam: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Blue-Dragon-Childrens-Foundation/49984917234

Thank you everyone for taking the time to read this.  If you have any questions, or think you can help - please contact me!

Helping Hand Saigon Book Day

What? 

Book fair!  Good quality second hand books in English (and other languages) for sale!

When?  

25th and 26th of June.  9am-3pm.

Where? 

Serenade Cafe, 84 Huynh Van Banh Street, Phu Nhuan District.

I have been working closely with Helping Hand Saigon on planning and getting funding for the Star Scholarship Program.

One of the regular fundraising events that Helping Hand Saigon hold to fund these scholarships is a book fair. I went to the last one and was delighted to see many (like four or five tables FULL) of English language books - both fiction and non-fiction.  And the price was very reasonable - from 25,000 to maybe 70,000 dong per title depending on the size and quality of the book.  I get a lot of books to read electronically on my iPod, but sometimes I still have a craving for paper.  If you're like me - I suggest you get down there and scoop up a few choice reads. 

It looked like this - but more.

 The Star Scholarship is a really great program all about giving scholarships to groups of disadvantaged children in remote areas.  The idea is that by helping many children from one school or area, we can hopefully enrich the whole school community - not just the individuals involved.  Because of what our funding allows right now, the scholarships are relatively small at around 500,000 dong per student per semester, but they are large enough to provide a contribution towards school fees, and purchase school supplies and small gifts for the children involved.   While primary education is compulsory in Vietnam it is not free, and significant numbers of children (especially in remote areas where there are many barriers) simply do not get even basic education. Even though they are small, the Star Scholarships are significant enough that they can allow children to continue to attend primary school.


If you have books to donate please contact (English on the phone is OK).

Hieu To: 0906 850 358
Suong Nguyen: 0934 005 224
or email: helpinghandsaigon@gmail.com

Painting t-shirts with the Smile Group

I have been doing some activities recently with a group called Helping Hands in Saigon. This weekend I was asked to help lead an activity with children from the Smile Group - a local group that works with children (and their families, where possible) affected by HIV and AIDS.

There were some kids visiting from Singapore who wanted to do some volunteering while they were here, and they wanted to do painting on t-shirts with the Smile Group children. So my job was to find plain t-shirts and some fabric markers.  It sounds easy - but it wasn't!

Actually, what I really wanted to use was fabric crayons - as I thought the easiest way to do this activity would be to get the kids to do a crayon drawing which we could then 'iron-on' transfer onto the t-shirts.  The activity was scheduled for Saturday morning, so I set out on Thursday to try and find the fabric markers or crayons.  I completely failed!

On Friday, I texted my young Vietnamese friend, Luyen, and asked her if she knew where I could find the markers and she came and picked me up on her motorbike after she finished her classes at university in the afternoon. Rainy season seems to have started, so I had to stop and buy one of those attractive disposable raincoats to wear on the back of the bike, making me look like a giant polka-dotted marshmallow.  Some markers and fabric paints ok.  I wasn't that happy with them - the markers are big and kind of difficult for little kids to use - and fabric paints are quite messy - but it was the best we could get.

Then we went off try and buy t-shirts and couldn't find them anywhere. It's not that you can't buy kid's t-shirts - they are available everywhere.  But you can't buy plain ones.  All the t-shirts have patterns, or big pictures or words on them.  Plain t-shirts just didn't seem to exist.  In NZ there are a lot of shops in malls and such that sell plain t-shirts and offer to print or embroider them with whatever pattern or words you choose.  You can always buy plain t-shirts at those places if you need to.  But I haven't even seen any places like that here in Saigon yet.

Luyen took me home, and unfortunately for her made an illegal left turn at the traffic lights. She was stopped by the traffic police - and this particular police-officer was absolutely incorruptible.  He would not accept a pay-off, no matter how hard she pleaded.  He also spoke quite good English.  Poor Luyen had her license confiscated and has to go to the station to pay a fine before she can get it back.

In desperation that evening, Martin and I headed out shopping again.  We would buy plain t-shirts of any colour if we could find them, obviously.  But if we couldn't find t-shirts we would buy maybe pillowcases, or baseball caps. Luckily I found some polo-shirts for sale at one of shopping malls.  It wasn't ideal, as polo shirts don't have smooth fabric so using the pens was a little bit difficult, but at least I didn't show up the next day with nothing!

I sat most of the time at a table with the two youngest - a 6-year old boy and 7-year old girl.  We got them to practise their drawings with crayons on paper first, before giving the t-shirts out. My kids in particular kept reaching for the crayons to use on the t-shirt - crayons are just a lot easier for little hands to use.  Most of the other kids were between 10 and 12 years old - so the activity was easier for them. 

I really enjoyed working with my little boy, in particular.  He was the less confident of the two, in the beginning.  When they were doing their crayon drawings he didn't know what to draw, and was copying exactly the picture the girl next to him was making - which was annoying her!

So I intervened and showed him how to draw a bicycle using and M as a starting point.  He was off! This is his t-shirt below:

The bicycle in the center he drew by himself with only a little bit of prompting.  Because the t-shirt fabric was quite bumpy, it was difficult to use the fabric paints to draw in a line.  So I showed a lot of the kids how to make a line by dotting the paint from the dropper.  The girls were getting me to make heart shapes on their t-shirts, and bunnies and other girly things.  But that doesn't appeal to the boys so much!  So I showed my boy first how to make a 5-pointed star, and next I offered to draw a helicopter for him to colour in.  That excited him so much he asked for two of them!

The final set of t-shirts drying