It’s ok to be angry, or frustrated, or saddened by world events that you cannot change. But take control of what you can. It may only be a little bit, but it will make a world of difference.

Not For Sale Vietnam Director

No matter what your view, something we can agree on is that this is not how our world should be.

So what to do?

Looking at the big picture, it’s easy to be overwhelmed. How to end institutionalized racism, and a global pandemic, and hold back climate change? None of us can do that… can we?

On our own we can’t change the whole world. But there’s still something we can do – something small but powerful. And the times are calling on us to act.

It’s as simple as this: We each have to find our own little bit. The one thing that we can do to make things better.

For some people, that might mean volunteering at a local shelter to cook meals. It might mean donating to a charity that does work you wish you could do yourself. It might mean picking up the phone and calling someone who’s unable to get out of the house themselves at the moment. It might mean switching the way you shop, so that you buy less and give your business to more environmentally-conscious companies.

What’s your little bit? What’s the one thing that you can do that will make one patch of the earth a better place?

I want to share something that we did at Blue Dragon this week. Something small, but life-changing. Something that will never make headlines, but has changed the world for one little girl.

Since the coronavirus pandemic shut down schools throughout Vietnam, kids here have been doing it tough, especially out in the rural parts of the country where life is already hard.

When schools opened again a few weeks ago, plenty of students simply did not return to the classroom. In the months that schools shut down, many started working in jobs, or got married, or for whatever reason have set off down a path that prevents them from going back to school.

One of those kids is Chu. She’s a 6th grader, just 12 years old, up in the mountains close to China.

Chu’s mother died a few years ago, so Chu has long had an important role in keeping the family together. Her father works in corn fields far from home so while schools were closed, he came to rely on his daughter looking after her younger brothers.

When school started up again, he decided to keep Chu at home. He could work more, and earn more money, with her looking after the brothers.

When we heard about this, Blue Dragon’s staff in the province got on a motorbike and rode up through the mountains to talk to Chu’s dad. He didn’t agree at first. He didn’t see why it was so important for Chu to get an education anyway.

Over a few days, he heard what Blue Dragon had to say and he saw that his own little girl really wanted to go back to school. In fact, Chu revealed that her dream in life is to be a teacher for other ethnic minority kids like herself.

Chu’s dad changed his mind. He could see that Chu wanted, and needed, to be in school. So he agreed, and now she’s back to her studies.

That one little bit won’t bring world peace, but Chu’s life will always be better for it. It’s a well established fact that keeping girls in school is a powerful contributor to social and economic development.

And one day in years to come, I would think that she’ll do everything in her power for her own children to get an education too.

When you do your little bit, you may never know what effects will ripple out to others. You may never see the impact of what you’ve done. You should do it anyway.

It’s ok to be angry, or frustrated, or saddened by world events that you cannot change. But take control of what you can. It may only be a little bit, but it will make a world of difference.

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The challenges ahead are complex, but I’m confident that Blue Dragon and Not For Sale Vietnam can rise to meet them. After all, this is what we are here for.

Director of Not For Sale Vietnam

Mid-week, while focusing on cases of sexual abuse of street children, an urgent call came through from a boarding school way up in the mountains that had noticed two of their girls missing. Blue Dragon coordinated between the school and the police, eventually locating the girls in a mini-van headed to the border with China.

The traffickers knew they’d been detected so slipped off the bus before the police could get to them. The girls are now safely with us and police are investigating.

And then a call came to help a 21 year old university student from Ho Chi Minh City. She’d lost her part-time job because of the coronavirus some months back, so thought she’d finally got lucky when she was offered a waitressing position in a café. The café turned out to be a brothel, and for 3 days she had to fight to protect herself before finally being able to call for help. She, too, is safe now.

As these urgent calls for help came through, the street outreach team continued meeting record numbers of homeless children in Hanoi; our staff out in the provinces continued investigating cases of children failing to return to school to see where they are and what they need; and a street kid disclosed that there’s an organized ring pimping out boys at a lake.

So, a week of constant surprise and struggle.

There has been plenty of good news through the week too, of course.

Every one of the 100 Blue Dragon scholars at university and college is back in class. These are all young adults who grew up in Blue Dragon programs and are now pursuing a tertiary education.

We had some wonderful reunions of women who were rescued from trafficking but have been in quarantine for 2 weeks, including a young woman whose son has waited months for the day his mother would walk back through the front door.

And we even had the good news that an organic corn project we’ve been working on in the mountains is yielding excellent results – more on that in a future post!

At Not For Sale Vietnam and Blue Dragon, we’re familiar with turbulence. Our whole organization is set up to respond to crisis. And it looks like the coming weeks and months will continue to demand a lot from us.

While the coronavirus pandemic is largely over in Vietnam, we are seeing its impact in the desperate situations that so many young people are in.

Until the whole world recovers, no one country can return to normal. This really is a case of us all being in the same storm, even if we are riding it out in different vessels.

The challenges ahead are complex, but I’m confident that Blue Dragon and Not For Sale Vietnam can rise to meet them. After all, this is what we are here for. And we are not alone: we have friends around the globe who are cheering us on and donating to make sure the kids have what they need.

Our work now is like riding in two gears simultaneously. We are still dealing with emergency needs arising from the pandemic, while also starting the process of rebuilding lives and communities as they begin their recovery.

There are tough times ahead for the kids. We stand ready to respond.

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Whether it’s knitting for new mothers, or donating to charity, or even just sharing something on social media to lift someone else up, you will grow in strength when you make others stronger. You will have more joy when you give joy to others.

Michael Brosowski Not For Sale Vietnam Director

Guess who was more resilient in the aftermath of the crisis? Who do you think was more able to cope psychologically as the dust settled?

Without question, those who came through stronger were those who could help.

There’s something about being able to help that gives us strength. You see, helping others might begin with a selfless motivation, but it happens to give back many times over. The giver really does receive, even though that was (hopefully!) never the intention.

Helping others reminds us that we’re important. That we’re not powerless or useless. That we have agency.

And that lesson which so many learned on a terrifying day in 2001 in New York City – and in wars and earthquakes and bushfires and road accidents – is just as true today, in the days of coronavirus.

Here in Vietnam, the public message has been that staying home means helping the country. So, people have helped; they stayed home until community transmissions reached zero. And there is a tangible sense of national pride that everyone has done so.

Along the way, many have found means to help. I’ve had emails and phone calls from people wanting to give food, or money, or face masks to help the kids. Beautiful sentiments, often from people who have little themselves.

Community members have set up “rice ATMs” where hungry people can go and take a days’ supply of rice, no questions asked.

The Not For Sale Vietnam kids have helped out in their own ways. Some of our girls, high school students in central Vietnam, signed up as volunteers to cook for hundreds of people in quarantine camps. Others used their savings to buy food for others. One of our old boys who is now the head chef for a large company led a campaign to deliver hot meals to homeless people on the streets at night.

All of these acts were undertaken with no intention of personal gain, but each of these volunteers and donors is stronger because of their giving.

Wherever you are in the world, I encourage you to use your resources to help others. Whether it’s knitting for new mothers, or donating to charity, or even just sharing something on social media to lift someone else up, you will grow in strength when you make others stronger. You will have more joy when you give joy to others.

We’re all hurting right now. The secret to healing is not to try to heal ourselves.

The secret is to heal others.

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