Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Developments

Although I'm in Sydney now, the team back in Vietnam has been taking care of things (as usual!) and it's a great relief to know the kids are in good hands.

A couple of important updates...

- Although we couldn't locate the 4 missing children from Hue last week, we have some new information about which factories they might be in. A local journalist, who has been following this case, and some police will be following up these leads in a day or two. We're really hopeful that this matter will be resolved soon.

- The very first trafficked child we ever rescued, Ngoc, is starting this week as a kitchen hand at Pane e Vino restaurant in Hanoi! Ngoc is still at school, but as his classes are only in the afternoons he's been studying cooking at a vocational training college and now he's ready to start earning some money. We're all really proud to see Ngoc taking these steps to independence.

- There are several Blue Dragon kids about to start in apprenticeships or training courses - ranging from hairdressing courses to mobile telephone repair to English classes at Language Link. At the same time, we're speaking to our older kids who are thinking about university. This August we're expecting to have at least 5 of the Blue Dragon teenagers applying to uni and college.

- And I'm getting ready for a big fundraising dinner in Cabramatta this Saturday night. The Vietnamese Australian community is putting on a special evening to raise support for the victims of trafficking who we have been helping. If you're in Sydney and want to find out more, contact the organiser, Vuong, on vuongkevin@gmail.com. It will be a great night...

I plan to post another blog in a day or two - sorry for the recent silences!


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