At 6am, Bi stumbles out of bed, washes his face, quickly gets dressed and rushes out of the Blue Dragon shelter on his way to the hospital. Bi first came to us last year, turning up in Hanoi lost and alone. He’s 16 now, and as he tells the story he came to the city to...

In any given week, Blue Dragon receives calls for help from girls and women who may have been trafficked just a few days ago, or maybe have enslaved for several years. Last week, one of the more exceptional cases came to us as a matter of extreme urgency: A woman...

With kids coming and going from the Blue Dragon centre every day, I try my best to get to know everyone so I can call them by name when I see them and make them feel at home. But there’s one group of young people who pass through the centre who I rarely get to know at...

Coming home from dinner on Sunday night, I had a message waiting for me from one of the Blue Dragon staff. He was on his way to meet a young man who had just come out of prison, a former Blue Dragon boy named ‘Hao’ who was caught up in the pedophile rings that ran...

Long’s story reached us through a woman whose son we were already helping; a random conversation on no particular day, almost incidentally. “I wonder if you can do something for my neighbour,” she said. “Their son, Long, is quite naughty so they have locked him up in...

Since the terrible fire at Notre Dame, the online world has been alive with debate. Who should pay for the repairs? Is it right that several billionaires have so quickly agreed to fund the restoration, when there are countless other crises and disasters which also...

Human trafficking is a multi-billion dollar international industry, with estimates that it generates up to $32 billion a year. Fighting against it requires substantial resources, time – and money. Among the many organisations which are devoted to ending human...

There’s an awful lot of bad news about. It’s hard to know where to start. In a world that’s too familiar with mass shootings and terrorist attacks, the horrific events in Christchurch stand out because New Zealand seemed such an unlikely place for this kind of thing...

Last week, Blue Dragon held one of those events that NGOs sometimes do – the launch of a new program. Meetings and workshops drive me crazy. They rarely feel productive, and I sometimes wonder if the whole purpose of conferences is just to make people feel like...

This afternoon, my high school English teacher, Shirley McCoombe, passed away after a battle with cancer. It has been many years since I saw her, and yet her passing leaves me at a loss. She was one of the great influences on my life, and I have no doubt that without...

People sometimes think that leading a charity like Blue Dragon is a glamorous job. We’re out rescuing people from slavery, staring down pimps, taking on gangs that recruit kids. And yes, some days it’s like that. Of course, in reality our work rarely feels glamorous....

Hanoi is a grey place at this time of year, with fog and pollution hanging low over the city. But standing out from the drabness: swarms of blue, purple and yellow hair. Every year, right before Tet (Lunar New Year), the Blue Dragon kids dye their hair as a way of...

The first time he tricked a woman and sold her to a brothel, Mr Nam earned about $50. He had thought it would be  more, and was promised that next time he would be much happier. The buyers were right.  In between his on-again / off-again job as a xe om (motorbike...

I lived on a farm in the outback of Australia for 6 years as a teenager. I hated it, and they were the best years of my life. At the time, I hated the isolation. We were 30km from the nearest village; to get a haircut was a 120km round trip. There was nobody my age...

“Son is just fantastic,” the cafe owner said. “He’s one of my best staff. To be honest, I don’t know what I’d do without him.” You can imagine my pride at hearing this. Son is a terrific barista, and I always enjoy dropping in to the cafe where he works, in the centre...