Street Kids Archives - Life is a long story

Invisible

What happens when a child is loved, known and cared for — but unseen to the system meant to protect him?

Trong waved me over to the table as soon as he saw me.

It was lunchtime at the Blue Dragon centre in Hanoi. Kids were drifting in – some from school, some from the streets – and the meal was just getting underway.

There at the back of the room, sitting with a table of kids, was Trong.

He’s 7 years old but Trong was surrounded by a group of teens. They saw themselves as Trong’s protector, making sure he ate plenty – as Vietnamese families do.

It’s been a while since I saw Trong, so I joined his table and we chatted endlessly while we ate. When he finally had his fill, the teens helped him clear up his bowl. Trong raced out the door, back to the drop-in centre to play.

And that was it. A brief encounter over a bowl of rice. But I haven’t been able to get that moment out of my mind.

Trong’s mother and father are both Blue Dragon ‘alumni’.

His mother died when he was just a baby; I don’t think Trong has any memory of her.

His father is in prison. He’s a good young man, but grew up without the support of a loving family. As a single dad, he has struggled to get a job and settle down. He’ll be released from prison soon and I know he’ll be eager to start over, reunited with his son.

So Trong is living with an aunty who loves him very much despite her own difficult situation. A young woman in her 20s, raising her brother’s child is a heavy responsibility.

On top of it all, Trong has no birth certificate. His mother died before the paperwork could be completed and with his father in prison, there just hasn’t been a way forward.

And no birth certificate means no school. Trong was initially accepted into Grade 1, but partway through the year he had to leave because his family couldn’t provide the documentation that’s required.

So now he studies with Blue Dragon teachers a few times a week and while our lawyers are poised to help him get a birth certificate, there’s nothing we can do until his father comes home.

In the midst of this complexity, all this grief and hardship and loss, is this delightful 7 year old boy who loves to play and enjoys being doted on by the Blue Dragon teenagers.

There’s a predictable process that will take place here. When Trong’s father is released from prison, Blue Dragon will help him get set up with a home and a job – maybe some vocational training first. We’ll start work immediately on the birth certificate and aim to get Trong back into school when the new academic year rolls around in August. From there, we’ll continue as needed.

For now, Trong waits. Not because anyone denies his need to learn, or his right to be cared for—but because a system designed for order has no place for a child whose parents are absent.

Trong’s story asks to face a larger question: how many children in our world are quietly excluded, not by cruelty, but by procedure?

If we are serious about protecting children, then helping Trong is critical, but not enough. We also have to fix the systems that inadvertently make a seven-year-old invisible.

Blue Dragon’s work bridges the divide between helping children in immediate need and making systemic change for the benefit of all. You can read more about our legal advocacy here.

Starting over

It’s been a long hiatus. Time to return to the Life Is A Long Story blog.

I’ll be posting on the first Monday of each month (and sometimes more), starting February 2.

As always, I will share moments and insights from behind the scenes at Blue Dragon Children’s Foundation. My purpose is to inspire hope that our world can be a better place, but I’ll never gloss over the ugly truths of injustice and hardship.

Sometimes I will share important news and articles, and I’ll start that today with this link to a story we’ve just published: Fortresses of Fraud. In late 2025, some of our team went on an undercover visit to Cambodia to witness the development of online scamming compounds. What we saw was eye-opening and disturbing.

Keep an eye on your inboxes for coming posts!

The Road Home

A rescue operation to set free 21 people from slavery. Late-night street outreach in the city’s dark corners. These are powerful moments: but what comes next?

Blue Dragon’s work can get the adrenalin racing.

This week alone we rescued 21 people.

All were enslaved in one of Myanmar’s notorious “scam centers” where people are forced by armed criminals to work online under the constant threat of torture. Getting them to safety involved a swift escape from the traffickers, followed by a journey over land through a war zone.

Much of our work is less dramatic, but similarly complex. Working on the streets of Vietnam’s two biggest cities, our task is to meet children who are sleeping rough and offer them help.

When we first meet them, we never know what situation we are walking into. Are pimps controlling these kids? Are human traffickers watching from the shadows?

Unfortunately, there’s only one way to find out.

Reunion

But as exciting as all of this can be, what comes next is just as important: the journey home. True impact happens in the quieter, unseen moments that come next—moments like reuniting a child with their family or helping a community rebuild.

Whether we’ve met them on the city streets or rescued them from slavery, Blue Dragon takes great care when it comes to reuniting children with their families.

And that typically involves accompanying the child back to their home, however remote that may be.

Doing this allows us to understand how to help the family – and sometimes the whole community.

This week our staff traveled for 3 days to reunite a boy named Hung who we met on the streets of Hanoi. He’s just 14 years old and hadn’t eaten for days when we found him.

He came to the city looking for a way to earn money for his family. The journey home showed us very clearly why he needed to do that.

Following a very long bus ride into the mountains, the road became impassable by anything with more than 2 wheels. Hung and our staff took to motorbikes to travel from the main road to his home.

Here’s some video taken on the way:

The start of the motorbike ride to Hung’s home.

After some hours, the road was finished. The rest was by foot.

After the journey

Of course, the whole point of taking Hung home is so that we can find out what caused a child to make such a long and dangerous journey to the city – and then deal with that problem.

All of which means that getting Hung home doesn’t mark the end of the story. Just the end of a chapter.

Now he’s safely with his family and they know who Blue Dragon is. We’ve started discussions about helping them start some farming and improve their home. If we can make Hung’s living conditions better, he has no need of leaving at least until he’s old enough and has a plan.

Family reunions might not be the most exciting aspect of Blue Dragon’s work, but they are vital to our success.

Going beyond rescue means helping children and families to heal.

With Christmas and the new year coming, Blue Dragon is inviting our friends to donate for children like Hung. Just $1 is enough to provide a meal.

Always more to the story

There’s an anniversary that Bi never forgets: the day that changed his life forever. But he knows that his story is far from over.

Sipping our coffee by the lake, Bi looked over to me and said:

“November 8. It will be 6 years.”

I knew what he was referring to, because in years passed he’s mentioned this anniversary.

This is the date that, in 2018, he first encountered Blue Dragon.

It was such an important milestone in Bi’s life that he acknowledges it with every passing year.

He was still a child then. He had left his home in the village to come to the city, looking for an escape.

Life at home was hard.

His relationship with his father was fractured beyond repair. So after trying over and over, Bi eventually gave up.

Surely he could make it on the city streets alone. It couldn’t be worse than home, could it?

But it was. The streets are no place for kids to survive; not in any city, any country.

And so finding Blue Dragon was the turning point he needed.

Fine young man

Sitting across from me now, Bi is still the same smiling, optimistic person he was when I first met him.

What’s changed is that he’s vastly more confident now. He carries himself with calm purpose; kindness beams from his smile.

Bi is in his final years of high school. Even though he’s in his early 20s, he’s enrolled in a class and is working hard at his studies. When he graduates, he plans to apply for university and earn a degree in social work.

A few nights each week, he helps out at the Blue Dragon emergency shelter. Bi works alongside staff to care for kids who we’ve just met out on the streets – kids like he once was.

But this journey of 6 years has not followed a straight line.

The winding road

In fact, Bi’s story has had more ups and downs, more surprises along the way, than many of the young people we meet.

Over the years, there have been times when he enrolled in school… and then stopped going.

At times he’s been out sleeping rough on the streets again. For a while he returned to his village, hoping to repair his relationship with his family. When he ended up living alone in a house without electricity, he came back under the wing of Blue Dragon. And for a while he was working as a ‘shipper’, carrying goods around the city on his motorbike.

Finishing his coffee, Bi tells me that he’s not worried about the future any more. He has a plan and for the first time in his memory, he’s stable.

Above all, he’s grateful that for 6 years he’s had Blue Dragon in his life… through all the ups and downs.

And while Bi’s future is undoubtedly bright, he and I both know that there will be more to his story. More surprises, more changes along the way.

Because life is like that. It really is a long story.

And that’s OK. Bi is mature enough now to know that he doesn’t need to see the future in order to accept it.

He just needs to give it his best and to know that someone will always be there by his side.

Blue Dragon Child r en’s Foundation is on a mission to end human trafficking.

Relentless hope

In the face of endless suffering, how can we keep helping those in need?

People often ask me how I manage to keep going.

Blue Dragon’s work is intense. It’s rare for a day to go by without us receiving a desperate call for help from someone in slavery or meeting a homeless child in a terrible situation.

The numbers tell a slice of the story.

Since the start of this year, we’ve rescued 118 people from slavery: brothels, forced marriages, and forced labor.

In the same time, we’ve helped double that number of street kids – about 240 so far.

It’s only human for the constant exposure to traumatised, terrified people to affect us deeply.

*Meeting children in desperate situations is both traumatising, and what keeps us going.*

And it does. Among the staff of Blue Dragon – the social workers, psychologists, lawyers, counselors – there’s often someone experiencing their own stress or even burnout. On occasion, people need to take time off work or seek professional help to deal with their own emotions and psychological responses.

Both as individuals and as an organisation, we try our best but we have our limits.

Finding the way forward

Taking care of ourselves in the face of constant stress is the only way we can keep going. Being there for each other as a supportive team makes a world of difference. From an organisational point of view, there’s much we can do to provide for staff wellbeing and support people when they need it.

But in the end, the most important thing of all is hope.

We keep going because we believe it makes a difference. It’s worthwhile.

Even when we fail; even when we encounter cases that we’re unable to help; we know there’s still someone else waiting for us who we can help.

Should there come a day that I no longer think my contribution matters, I know I wouldn’t be able to continue.

What drives me – what drives all of us at Blue Dragon, from our frontline staff to our donors and partners around the world – is our relentless hope that our world can be better.

And so, no matter how hard things get, we continue.

Thank you to all who make Blue Dragon’s efforts possible. While our work continues, I’m taking a break from writing the weekly blog during July. I’ll be back with more stories of hope on August 4.

The truth about street kids

Years after coming to Blue Dragon, Long and Giang are leading lives they love. Their success challenges the misconceptions of who street kids really are.

Long and Giang were street kids when I met them.

Both were from provinces near Hanoi and came to the city as teens. They each had loving families at home but were looking for something more: an escape from the hardships of their daily lives.

Their experiences in the city were very different. Giang teamed up with a friend from his hometown and they were on the streets for many months. Long was a street kid for just a short time before he met Blue Dragon. A week later, he was happily home with his parents.

However, calling them “street kids” is a little complicated. It’s a label that summarises a whole set of traumatic childhood experiences, while saying nothing about the person.

Perception and reality

Whenever I speak in public about Blue Dragon’s work, I come across many different views of street kids.

Some people assume that they must be from dysfunctional families; others believe that they’re bad kids who just need some discipline. Of course, some show great sympathy, seeing street kids as victims of family breakdown.

So what’s the truth?

After 20 years of meeting and caring for street kids, I can confidently say this: Street kids are regular young people, no different to anyone else.

I’ve met street kids who are intelligent, ambitious, kind. Some are passionate about sports, or love music, or enjoy hanging out with friends. And yes, I’ve met some who are bad tempered, spend too much time playing online games and get into trouble with the law.

All of which makes them no different to any other teenager.

At the same time, I don’t deny that street kids do have one fundamental difference to others, and that’s their time living without the proper care and protection of a home.

That experience is traumatic for any person. For children who spend time separated from their family – or out on the streets with their family – the trauma of living in danger and poverty can stay with them for a long time. This is why getting help and care to street kids is a matter of urgency. The longer kids are exposed to risk and harm, the harder it will be for them to heal.

The next chapter

Long and Giang have been “street kids,” but their lives are not defined by that experience.

By chance, both Long and Giang – now in their early 20s – caught up with us at Blue Dragon in the past week.

*Long (on the left) catching up with Blue Dragon co-CEO Vi Do.*

Long has started a small business of his own, designing and installing shop interiors. Giang works in Japan, but was back in Vietnam for his engagement ceremony. He’ll be getting married in a few years, and until then will keep working abroad with his fiance.

Neither has forgotten their time on the streets. Both have worked hard to overcome the challenges of their teen years and make something great of their lives.

Being a “street kid” doesn’t have to be a life-defining experience. Because Long and Giang received the right help at the right time, their days on the streets have become a chapter in their lives – not the whole book.

Every child deserves to be safe and protected. Then, as they grow up, they can be the author of their own story and not be defined by any label.

Blue Dragon Child r en’s Foundation is on a mission to end human trafficking. Protecting street kids is a vital part of our work.

Ready to receive

Nam was in danger on the city streets. But the offer of help led to some unintended consequences and even greater danger.

I knew he was in danger the first time I saw him.

Nam was begging by the road, in the shadow of a giant statue overlooking one of Hanoi’s many lakes. He was 16 but looked much younger. Many passersby on motorbikes, stopped at the traffic lights, took pity on him and threw money into his outheld cap.

In the blistering heat, dressed in dirty rags, Nam looked pitiful. And his reason for being there was tragic. His mother had died many years ago and his father was brutally violent.

As a beggar, Nam could make good money each day. Even though it was boring and repetitive – and his daily income was dependent on the weather – he felt free. He didn’t have to care about following anybody else’s rules. If things ever got difficult at his begging spot, he could simply go elsewhere and start again.

Nam felt safe, but I knew that he wasn’t.

As a boy out begging on the street, he was extremely vulnerable to gangs, pimps, and traffickers. Many kids just like him had been taken advantage of: used, abused and spat out. Often left with drug addictions, sexually transmitted diseases and physical injuries.

*A boy begging on the city streets. Children working like this are highly vulnerable to harm and exploitation.*

And so I did what I could to help. Over time, I got to know Nam and urged him to accept Blue Dragon’s offer of help.

I persuaded and cajoled. I wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer.

Until finally, Nam relented. He agreed to stay in a Blue Dragon shelter while we helped him move on to training and employment.

Getting Nam to leave the streets was a great success. But it soon turned to disaster.

Nam fought with other kids at the shelter. He stayed out overnight whenever he felt like it and nobody knew when he might return. He sat in the bedroom smoking and swore at the staff when they told him to stop. Nam missed the freedom of the streets and he had never been in a home with clear rules and expectations before.

Nam was safe, but this wasn’t his decision. He had agreed to join the safe house because of my persuasion, not because it was what he really wanted.

A hard lesson

My mistake was one that many of us make at some time.

When you know that someone is endangering themselves… when you can see that they’re going to come to harm but you have no power to intervene… what should you do?

After a few weeks, Nam left the shelter and went back to the streets. As predicted, he met with a lot of trouble and ended up involved in some petty crime. He was lucky that he didn’t go to prison.

Only much later, when he saw for himself the danger he was in, did Nam come back to Blue Dragon. This time, he asked for help. And of course, it was freely given.

This was a powerful learning moment both for Nam and for myself.

Pushing someone to accept help is rarely successful. Helping them see how it might change their life, and keeping the offer open for when they are ready, is sometimes the only way.

But it’s a hard lesson to learn.

Blue Dragon Child r en’s Foundation is on a mission to end human trafficking.

Starts here, continues there.

Alone in the shadows, San had no idea how he would survive. A chance encounter changed that; but his story is far from over.

San was sitting alone, just out of the glare of the streetlight.

Blue Dragon’s social workers are trained to spot street kids among a crowd. But San was easy to identify: sitting in the shadows, his shoulders slumped, a backpack by his feet.

Hai, the social worker, has an easy going nature. Kids instinctively trust him. He pulled his motorbike over, introduced himself to San, and within minutes they were chatting away like old friends.

*Social worker Hai, on the ground, chats with 14-year-old San.*

With some street kids, it’s hard to build trust. San, however, was different. He’d only recently come to the city and very quickly realised that he had walked into a terrible situation. He just wished he could go home, but he didn’t have the few dollars needed for the bus fare.

San is 14 and from the northern mountains of Vietnam. He and one of his younger brothers have already dropped out of school. His youngest brother, in Grade 4 now, doesn’t plan to go back after the coming summer holiday.

A familiar story

Their family story follows a pattern we hear all the time.

Dad was in an accident and now suffers from poor health. He drowns his sorrows with rice wine and then quarrels with his kids. Their studies have suffered and they just don’t see much reason to keep going with their education.

Finally, San decided to head to the city and look for a job. At last that way, he could send money home for his parents to survive and he would avoid arguing with his father.

But the dream of going to the big city and earning money is just an illusion for young people from the countryside. They leave home hoping to find paid employment, but in reality there are few jobs to be found for young, untrained workers. It’s much more likely that the kids will be tricked and exploited.

And so San found himself homeless, broke and hopeless. Until he met Hai.

Where to from here

San stayed at the Blue Dragon shelter a few days to catch up on sleep and food. Then he was ready for the long journey home.

When Blue Dragon reunites young people with their families – whether they’re street kids or survivors of human trafficking – we don’t just put them on a bus and wave them off.

A couple of social workers get on that bus with them and travel with the child. These journeys can take a couple of days in each direction, so they are a significant investment of time and resources. And they are always worthwhile.

It’s only when we meet the family ourselves, talk to the community leaders, and go visit the child’s school, that we can fully understand how to help.

*San and a Blue Dragon social worker walking home.*

And when all the key people in the child’s life know us, it’s a lot easier to get things done.

Through long discussions over shared meals, the Blue Dragon staff learned about the challenges that San and his family are facing.

They have critically little income – so we will help with some money for a few months to see them through. While we do that, we’ll work with the community to buy a few farm animals that San’s parents can raise to begin earning their own money.

San’s school teacher advised that he will need to reapply to go back to study, but knowing what he’s been through, she was very supportive and we’re confident he will be back in class shortly.

And on it goes

So is that ‘happily ever after’?

No. They take a bit longer than a week!

Helping San, his brothers and their parents will take sustained effort over the coming years. They might not need very much help from Blue Dragon, because they have a supportive community around them who is ready to help now that they understand the situation.

We will stay in touch over the phone. We’ll check in with San’s teacher from time to time. And San knows that, should he want to leave home again, he can call us to discuss or ask for help.

With just this effort, San is no longer in danger of trafficking and exploitation on the city streets and his whole family has hope for the future.

But this story isn’t over. It started on the streets and it continues in a remote village, high up in the mountains.

Whatever happens next, Blue Dragon stands ready to help however we can.

The good work of Blue Dragon Children’s Foundation is possible only because of our amazing supporters around the world. Thank you to all who donate, volunteer, and cheer us along. Without you, San’s outlook would be very different.

Busting the boundaries

When Blue Dragon first started, many believed we were destined to fail. Had we listened to them, life for vulnerable children would be very different today.

You might have heard that it’s Blue Dragon’s 20th birthday this year.

We don’t often stop to celebrate milestones or achievements in Blue Dragon. But this time, we’re taking the opportunity to reflect and celebrate what we’ve done over the years.

A question that often comes up is: what do we consider our biggest achievements?

There are certainly a few successes that stand out among the many. Some of them are very clear. Our 1500 rescues of people from slavery is a key accomplishment that we are acknowledging this year.

And some of them are less easy to define. One such achievement is what I want to write about today.

Although Blue Dragon is well-known now as an anti-trafficking organisation, in our early days we were focused solely on protecting street kids.

It’s hard to remember and even harder for people to imagine what that work was like 20 years ago.

As a group of volunteers and friends who were doing our best to get kids off the streets and back to school, we had some good support. But we also had some extraordinary obstacles and opposition.

I can’t recall how many times people told me that street kids weren’t worth helping. One foreign embassy worker said to me: “Those kids don’t want help. They just want money.”

And then there were those who didn’t believe that we had any chance of succeeding. One well-respected aid worker spat down the phone at me: “You’re not an expert. This work should be done by people who know what they’re doing.”

The problem was, there were no “experts” to be found other than those sitting in offices writing reports. Hanoi simply didn’t have programs for street children. There were some excellent vocational training programs, but they relied on the kids being a certain age and academic level, and interested in a particular course of study.

For kids who were under age or had dropped out of school early or were traumatised from abuse, there was basically nothing.

So the idea of “leaving it to the experts” essentially meant: do nothing. Let the kids try to survive on their own.

Today our work protecting street kids is not controversial at all. We have won awards for it, both locally and internationally.

We have a center and shelters for street kids and we routinely advocate for the needs of children we meet on the streets.

What was considered outrageous and risky 20 years ago is mainstream today.

And that is one of the successes that I’m most proud of. It’s also something that nobody really notices, because the shift has been so gradual.

The people who tried to discourage me all those years ago probably don’t even remember it that way. They may look back at that time as giving me practical advice which was helpful to my development.

I look today at the thousands of kids we’ve helped to get off the street, back to school and home with their families. Many are now in great jobs, have families of their own, and some even work or study in other countries.

The ripple effect in those children’s families and communities is immeasurable.

What would have become of these kids had I let the criticism and discouragement stop me? It’s unthinkable what life would be like for street kids today if Blue Dragon had never begun.

*Rented room where street workers, including kids and adults, lived together, 2004*

In every corner of the world, there’s an accepted way of doing things. A socially acceptable set of boundaries that everyone is expected to work within.

Those boundaries serve a purpose. They unify society and set cultural norms. At times, they keep us safe.

But they can also stop us from fighting for what’s right, like protecting street kids when nobody else will do it.

This was a difficult time in Blue Dragon’s history. As volunteers on the frontline, we were standing up for what we knew was right and persisting even when people thought we were wrong.

We defied expectations, pushed past conventional limits and spoke up for people who had no voice.

It wasn’t easy. But sometimes, that’s the only way to make real change.

Thanks for following the story of Blue Dragon. You’re invited to join me and my colleagues on Tuesday March 26 for a webinar about human trafficking, including how it impacts street kids. Sign up here.

The best

There’s not much good to be said about living through a global pandemic, but experiencing such hard times has one silver lining: it brings out the best in us all.

I met Nhan on the streets when he was 14.

He was working with an aunty who sold flags and trinkets at a major intersection in the city. All day long, motorbikes, cars and trucks raced by – a constant chaos of honking horns and traffic jams.

It was late at night and I was just walking by, but Nhan stopped me with a huge smile and a friendly greeting. I stopped to chat, and immediately it was clear that this kid had something special about him.

His life was clearly very hard, and as I learned in later weeks his relationship with the aunty was not very warm. Nhan desperately wanted to go to school, but she wanted him to earn money. It broke his heart, but his mother had left years ago and his father struggled with alcoholism. He simply had no other means of support, so he did his best to make it work. From time to time, he eased his pain with drugs.

When Nhan learned about Blue Dragon he decided right away that he wanted to join us. He knew it was a way to turn his fortunes around and get back to school. Nhan’s aunty wasn’t too happy about it, but she agreed to let him live in our shelter so that he would be off her hands and someone else could look after him.

Nhan did everything to make the most of his time with us. He joined every activity and took every class at the centre. But he lived with the trauma of his childhood: the poverty he had been raised in, his years working on the street, and the grief of not knowing his mother. Even though he was still a child, he felt guilty that he couldn’t fix his family’s problems.

After some years, Nhan was ready to take some steps toward independence. He joined a training program where he was studying to become a chef, and he moved out of the Blue Dragon shelter. He was excited to be starting a new chapter in his life.

But it wasn’t long before things started to go wrong. Nhan found it difficult to keep up with classes and spent his nights remembering the pain of his childhood. Finally, he turned back to drugs to dull the pain and soon after dropped out of his training.

Life spiralled downward very quickly. Blue Dragon was still in touch with him, but Nhan felt that he had failed and wanted to hide. When he needed a caring hand more than ever, his shame drove him into solitude and he left the city. Before long he was in a drug rehabilitation centre, where he spent the next two years. He was angry and disappointed with himself. He was sure that his life was over – that there was no way he could ever be happy again.

When he was released from rehab, life continued to throw obstacles and challenges at him. Nobody would employ him so he borrowed money to start a business, which then failed. Despite another blow, Nhan refused to let this bring him down. He was determined to do things differently, so he reached out again to Blue Dragon. He was a young man by now and no longer a child, but he wanted to reconnect. Like any of us, he needed to know he still had people who cared for him and who wouldn’t judge him by his past.

So we invited Nhan to return to Hanoi and made plans for him to work in a farming project outside the city. It wasn’t exactly what he wanted, but it would give him an income for a few months in a nurturing environment, and we could provide as much counselling and support as he needed.

But still Nhan was to face one more challenge. He was staying in Blue Dragon’s emergency accommodation preparing to head out to the farm when the COVID pandemic returned to Vietnam. A lockdown was called, and Nhan’s plans were on hold along with everybody else’s.

It seemed like yet another blow to a young man who had struggled all his life. Yet this time, Nhan was stronger.

Instead of being stuck at the emergency shelter, he saw it as a chance to shine. This wasn’t a setback; this was a time to help others, just as Nhan had received help when he needed it.

Unable to leave the building anyway, Nhan joined with the staff to look after the boys at the shelter. He has become the big brother of the home, and spends his days taking care of everyone.

Nhan has put his training as a chef to work, cooking up incredible meals day after day, and teaching the kids along the way. He sits and listens to the boys share their stories of hardship and homelessness; and he shares his own, showing them that they don’t need to be ashamed. He can relate to their experiences, and they can relate to him.

In the early mornings and late evenings, when the summer days cool down, Nhan organises games and sports in the yard. You could easily mistake him for one of the kids, laughing hysterically and joining in the fun. But the kids look up to him with a deep respect and if he calls them out for speaking rudely or playing roughly, they quickly apologise and return to the game.

Boys at the emergency shelter making the most of lockdown.

Being in lockdown isn’t fun for anyone. For a group of teenage boys who were meant to be in an emergency shelter for only a few days, these weeks have been exceptionally hard. But having Nhan there, cheering them up and encouraging them to do their best, has made a world of difference.

There’s no sign yet as to when the lockdown will end, but Nhan is in no hurry. He’s now wondering if he should focus on becoming a social worker so that he can spend his life caring for others.

Nhan has had a rough start in life, and this is no fairytale ending. He still faces many challenges in the future and has yet to resolve some family issues that weigh on his shoulders. But it’s clear that this crisis has brought out the best in Nhan. He’s risen to the challenge and found a calling, even in these hardest of times.

Blue Dragon Children’s Foundation rescues kids in crisis.