s.When I ask him about Ninh’s family, I realise we’ve gotten to the core of the problem.“They don’t like me,” he says. “Ninh tel

s.

When I ask him about Ninh’s family, I realise we’ve gotten to the core of the problem.

“They don’t like me,” he says. “Ninh tells me it’s better that I don’t visit them too often.”

“Why not?” I ask, even though I can guess the answer already.

“They don’t like that I used to be a street kid,” he tells me. Yep, just as I suspected.

A street kid in Hanoi.

He goes on: “They don’t think it’s a good life for their daughter to marry someone who used to be so poor. They think that street kids are bad people.”

I’ve heard this many times before, and every time it infuriates me. It’s one of the reasons that so many of the Blue Dragon kids want to hide their own true history as they grow up, afraid that they’ll experience this discrimination and prejudice.

For the girls, it’s even worse.

Most of the girls and women we rescue from s*****y have been sexually exploited. They’ve either been sold as brides or forced into brothels.

Finding them and getting them to freedom is just the beginning of their healing.

Once home, these girls have extreme trauma to deal with. While I am amazed at how many return to their homes and start their lives over, I know how unbelievably difficult it is. I am painfully aware of those who are shunned by their own communities – and sometimes their own families – and will never be able to hold their head high again.

I think it’s worth adding that this stigma isn’t unique to Vietnam or to Asia. Street kids and victims of s****l crime in every country are looked at with judgment and suspicion. (Surely you could have just stopped it or called for help… And what were you doing wrong in the first place that you ended up in that situation?)

But here’s the thing.

Tay is a wonderfully kind, clever, hard-working young man. I can’t imagine the inner strength that he needed as a child to leave an abusive family, survive on the city streets from the age of 13,  and then turn his life around when finally someone offered help. Once he met Blue Dragon, Tay returned to education and later got a job that he loves. He lives with such dignity; his experiences have strengthened him, not made him weaker.

And then there are the girls we rescued from trafficking.

The courage that they have to call for help is superhuman. Those who make that call and then trust us to find them and bring them home are taking a huge risk. They can be killed if the trafficker knows they plan to escape.

After all they’ve been through, I don’t know how they have the strength to keep going. But they do, and their bravery should win them awards, not scorn.

It’s sad that these kids grow up to face discrimination when they deserve admiration and respect. These young people are an asset to society: resilient, creative, determined.

Yes, they are victims of a crime, but they are also heroes who have overcome extreme hardship.

Kids who have been through traumatic events deserve our support to take back control of their lives. Those events may shape them, but they don’t define them.

And above all, a terrible experience – like homelessness or trafficking – does not make them bad people.

Thanks for reading Life Is A Long Story. To find out more about Blue Dragon’s work, drop by the website: www.bluedragon.org.

Posted onFebruary 5, 20231 Commenton Bad people

Perfectly imperfect

Blue Dragon rescued Tan from s*****y. A year later, he was on his way to prison for a serious crime.

One question I’m often asked about our work with young people: What is Blue Dragon’s success rate?

Here on the blog and in Blue Dragon’s public communications, we want to share inspiring stories.

Stories of kids we met in extreme circumstances like s*****y or homelessness, but who are now thriving. There are plenty of such tales to tell.

But do all the kids ‘make it’? Are we cherry picking our stories? Or worse still, are we cherry picking the kids we will help based on those we think have the most potential?

Part of the answer to these questions lies in the name of my blog. Life is a long story. It’s never smooth or easy, and there’s no true story without major challenges along the way.

And not every story has a happy ending.

Something I’m proud of at Blue Dragon is that we embrace the nuance. We accept that things don’t always turn out as we would wish. After all, that’s life.

One of my colleagues recently commented to me that our work is “perfectly imperfect” and I’ve been thinking a lot about what she means.

About 12 years ago, we rescued a little boy named Tan from a sweatshop. He had been trafficked by a g**g that preyed on extremely poor families, promising them free vocational training for the kids and a chance to earn good money. It was all lies. But these families were desperate, living in plastic and bamboo shacks and hadn’t been to school themselves.

So after Blue Dragon brought Tan home, we helped his family to turn things around. We built them a new house and paid for all the kids to go to school. We even helped Tan’s mother sta