Founder's Blog
Blue Dragon's founder, Michael Brosowski, shares the lessons he has learned from the children and young people he meets from day to day.
From Michael’s blog lifeisalongstory.com
This is how we do it
The weeks leading up to Lunar New Year (just 6 days to go!) are all about celebration and festivity. As they should be!But at Blue Dragon, we also have an eye on something a little more serious… Because the weeks after Tet are prime time for child tr…
Biggest night of the year
In January every year, Blue Dragon in Hanoi organizes an event that we call the Tet Awards. It’s a night of celebration, games and fun to put the spotlight on each and every girl and boy who belongs to the Blue Dragon family.
The workplace
On Tuesday this week, Blue Dragon found a nondescript house in Ho Chi Minh City where 3 teenage girls, all from ethnic minority communities in north-west Vietnam, were being forced to work against their will, for no salary.Locating this house was the r…
New year, new house
Here’s some good news to start the new year.When Blue Dragon found 13 year old Lanh enslaved in a garment factory and brought him home, we were shocked to see the state of his family home. It wasn’t just a little run down; it was barely habitable. Brin…
A New Year’s Resolution
2014 marks the beginning of Blue Dragon’s 10th ‘birthday’. Sort of.We started in late 2002, as a few volunteers helping out some street kids in our spare time. During 2003, we got serious about becoming organised and finding ways to help for the long t…
What did Blue Dragon do in 2013?
Here’s a snapshot…- 162 street and homeless children received help from the Street Outreach team.- 56 street children were reunited with their families. – 19 rescue trips brought home a total of 82 victims of human trafficking from brothels and…
The Year of the Crisis
2013 has been a challenging year.And that’s putting it nicely. Looking back, I will have to call this one the Year of the Crisis.It’s often been difficult to share the stories of what has happened at Blue Dragon during the past 12 months. There have be…
Make me legal
Khanh* was a 13 year old orphan when we first met him on the streets.Both of his parents had died several years before, and he had been raised by uncles and aunties who were basically good people but didn’t want to be burdened with somebody else’s chil…
Farewells and wedding bells
This weekend, two of the Blue Dragon boys are setting off on new and great journeys.Duy Nam first joined Blue Dragon in our early days: August 2003. Nam was shining shoes near a television station when I met him, and he was so eager to climb out of pov…
The best and the worst
In the last few weeks, Blue Dragon has been focused on intervening in human trafficking, particularly of children from Dien Bien province.Dien Bien is a beautiful part of Vietnam, with diverse ethnic groups and beautiful scenery as far as the eye can s…
A new home
Six months ago, 13 year old Tiep* thought that life had no hope.Deceived by a trafficker pretending to have ‘training opportunities’ for disadvantaged youth, Tiep’s parents agreed for him to leave home and learn a new skill, which they hoped would guar…
It’s all about people
Before moving to Vietnam in 2002, I was a school teacher for 4 years and also worked in an Australian charity for 6 months. Blue Dragon Children’s Foundation has now been running for about 10 years. So all up, I have a fair bit of time working in servi…
