The rise of the birthday king
When Kin’s first day as a social worker at Blue Dragon landed on the birthday of a girl in his care, he resolved to make it a day to remember.
“Phuong smiled shyly and said she wanted a cake because she’d never had one or celebrated her birthday before,” shares Kin. “So I promised to bring her a gift, buy a cake and invite her friends to join.”
Phuong spent the whole day laughing and playing excitedly, finally experiencing the thrill of just being a child. From then on, Kin’s teammates began referring to him by a nickname that he embraced with great pride: the birthday king.
Phuong choosing her very first cake.
Phuong ate her cake with friends.
The path he chose
Kin’s rise to the birthday king was swift, but he had been dreaming of working at Blue Dragon for a long time. Then, when he saw the call for social workers in Ho Chi Minh City, he applied immediately and got the role.
“It felt like my time had finally come,” shares Kin. “I knew clearly that this was the place I wanted to work.”
The job was tougher than Kin expected, as the emotional toll of caring for street kids threatened to overwhelm him.
“I could see the work was getting to him a bit, so I made sure he had all the support he needed,” shares Thanh, a social worker who leads Kin’s team. “We have a psychologist and a program with sessions on how to look after each other. It’s a kind of unique job, and you need people who share the right values. It is the most important thing to take care of my team, because if I don’t, we won’t be able to help kids who need us.”
Every day, he turned up to work and gave his all to each child in his care. And over time, he could see how his actions – and those of his team – kept adding up to change a child’s life, a family’s life, and the future of whole communities.
While Kin understood that his role wasn’t going to get any easier, he knew that it was worth it – and that as long as he did his best day in, day out, he could handle whatever obstacles came his way.
“I soon realised that this is the path I chose and I’m sticking with it.”
Kin never gave up.
The path of most resistance
“This is the path I chose” is a phrase that Kin likes to remember whenever things get tough – which is very often when your everyday work involves helping people living in such delicate and complex circumstances.
“Many children and families I work with have moved to Ho Chi Minh City from faraway provinces,” shares Kin, describing some of the things that make social work particularly tricky. “Their housing is temporary, they move from place to place, and parents struggle to care for their children because they’re working constantly to survive.”
And sometimes, even after spending months building a family’s trust, all Kin’s hard work falls through at the final hurdle.
“One experience that I found hard to digest was about a 16-year-old street kid who we supported to return home. His family had agreed to a care plan and discussed his future. I and my colleague, Thanh, travelled by motorbike to visit them, look for schools and find a place where they could set up a small business. But one evening we realised the mother had blocked all communication with us. The boy ran away again and we lost track of him.”
While the experience was tough to take, Kin reminded himself of the philosophy that has helped him through time and time again: “This is the path I chose.”
Setbacks are inevitable. The heartbreak of seeing a child on the cusp of turning their life around only to fall back into a vicious cycle of poverty will happen again. Blue Dragon will always be there whenever they return for more help – a philosophy that Kin is determined to stick to.
Kin and Thanh ride far and wide supporting families.
Much more than birthdays
One story that inspires Kin to keep pushing every day is that of Ha’s family, who have received some special birthday parties while turning their lives around under Kin’s care.
When Blue Dragon first met Ha’s family, all seven of them collected scrap for a living. None of them could read or write and they lived in a makeshift home on the edge of the city.
There are four children in the home, and only Ha is the mother’s biological child. She took in the other three children because their own parents couldn’t raise them and she was afraid of what might happen to them if they had to live alone on the streets.
While Kin was building the family’s trust, he organised a birthday party for Ha on the street one evening. When she saw the cake, she was so excited that she ran up and down the street screaming in delight before finally sitting down to eat.
Ha with her first ever birthday cake.
A few months later, after Kin had successfully built a strong relationship with the whole family, he organised a party for Ha’s cousin, Tuan, at their home. By that time, two of Tuan’s cousins were in school for the first time in their lives, and Ha joined them just a few weeks later.
Finally, Tuan began a vocational training course and now works for a moving company. “Now that I’m working, I can earn money to support my family, my aunt, and help my grandparents with medical treatment,” shares Tuan.
A year after Kin first met the family, all four kids and young adults in the home are either in full-time work or education, leading their beloved family along the path to a bright future.
Ha was so excited to put on her new uniform.
Tuan prides himself on being an efficient worker.
The path they choose
Everything Kin does – every decision he makes and every ounce of effort he puts into his work – is all about giving children the power to live how they choose.
His job is to be there; to pick children up when they fall; to support them on the best days of their life and to accept them time and time again without judgement when they waver. He knows that action by action, child by child, he and his team create a world where every child has the right to just be a child; to play, discover passions and see their dreams through to the end.
“When I play games or sports with the children, I can imagine what kind of person they could become, the kind of future they might have. Whether they become an athlete, a barista or work for a moving company, the important thing is that they have the opportunity to develop in the way they wish and to do well at the path they choose – and I will be there every step of the way wherever that journey takes them.”
Every child should be free to choose their own path in life.
