One Man and His Dream

Giving hope to disadvantaged youths in Vietnam

MORE THAN A SCHOOL: Jimmy Pham (bottom left) and his students (www.ourmaninhanoi.com)

KOTO is no ordinary restaurant.

KOTO is the brainchild of Jimmy Pham, the ‘Jamie Oliver’ of the streets of Hanoi. Since 1999 his charity has helped some of the most deprived young people in Vietnam. It has educated and trained them, given them a home—and a future more stable than they could ever have dreamed of.

Jimmy Pham was born in Saigon (Ho Chi Min City). He was two when his mother, like so many others at that time, fled from war-torn Vietnam. She and Jimmy eventually settled in Australia, and it wasn’t until the 1990s that he returned to the land of his birth, as a tour guide. What he found shocked him. Thousands of children literally living on the streets, homeless and without hope.

The legacy of the war in Vietnam is that the country’s population is young and poor. Sixty per cent are under the age of 25. Many who travel from the countryside to the cities with dreams of finding jobs and making enough money to support themselves fail to find the life they were searching for. They end up living on the streets, selling postcards, shining shoes and are horribly vulnerable to a world of drugs, exploitation and prostitution.

Jimmy befriended a group of nine of these street children in Hanoi. Each time he passed through the city he would meet up with them, feed them, and buy them clothes.

(www.ourmaninhanoi.com)

"Meeting the kids of the streets of Hanoi and seeing the lives they were being forced to lead transformed my life and changed me forever," says Jimmy. He asked them what they wanted out of life. They simply replied, "We need skills so we can find stable jobs." Jimmy abandoned his tour guiding and in 1999 opened up a small sandwich shop which he and the street children ran. Thus KOTO was born. "KOTO" stands for If you Know One you should Teach One.

"KOTO is about creating a safe environment where a small group of extremely vulnerable young people can learn and grow – because through education and skills comes empowerment and the path to a brighter future," says Jimmy.

In just seven years that humble sandwich shop has evolved into a magnificent 120-seat restaurant which opened at the end of 2006. It is open seven days a week and serves over 400 covers every lunchtime. The Vietnamese and European cuisine is professionally cooked and served by its trainees—street children who have found new hope and skills through its training.

"Meeting the kids of the streets and seeing the lives they were being forced to lead transformed my life and changed me forever."

Every six months KOTO accepts 25 vulnerable young people, referred to them by vocational schools and detention centres—and, of course, by other students. Sadly only about one in seven of those referred can be taken in. The new recruits are given vaccinations and health checks, provided with uniforms, and paid a small allowance. They are given accommodation in group-houses each with a member of staff who tries to help them come to terms with what, in many cases, are quite traumatic pasts.

For the next 18 months the students undertake an intensive life-skills programme, learn English, and study either Front of House service, or Commercial Cookery, which gains them an internationally accredited qualification from the Boxhill Technical Institute in Australia. Much of the trainees’ practical experience is gained through working in the KOTO restaurant. During their last six months they are also expected to mentor the newer trainees. The drop-out rate is extremely low (under 15 per cent) probably because the competition for entry is so very high.

Chien Le, a typical student, is aged 23. Chien came from Hai Phong City, about a hundred kilometres east of Hanoi. He is visibly upset when he speaks of his mother, and finds his family situation extremely painful to talk about. He was brought up by his maternal grandmother, but she is very frail. His mother disappeared 20 years ago, and he never knew his father. As a teenager he was taken in by a Japanese run charity and taught to read and write, but his future was bleak until he was accepted to train at KOTO.

His face lights up as he talks about it. "KOTO is my life, my dream, and my future. It is my family," he says smiling broadly. He is soon to graduate. He will doubtless find work, but the move from the womb of KOTO to the outside world is a daunting one for a boy who has never really had a family before. But Chien now does have a family and a future.

(www.ourmaninhanoi.com)

KOTO’s association with the students doesn’t end when they leave. The students keep in touch and help each other. Many of them, often after they have had experience working elsewhere, return to KOTO to train newcomers. In fact 35 per cent of KOTO’s current management are returnees, and the number is growing.

In Hanoi a new Chief Executive has taken over, Daragh Halpin, an Irish Australian whose arrival has enabled Jimmy to concentrate on his plans to replicate KOTO elsewhere.

KOTO can never help all those in need, but Jimmy’s vision is that KOTO in Hanoi will soon be sustainable, and that in 2008 he will be able to replicate it in Saigon (Ho Chi Min City), and then perhaps in Cambodia, and other countries in need. He will initially bring graduates from Hanoi, and they in turn will help the poor of Ho Chi Min, after all, as Jimmy says, "The greatest accomplishment for the person who has helped you, is to see you stand on your own two feet and then in turn help someone else who reminds you of yourself, because if you Know One, then you should Teach One. "

He says his dream is that, "One day I will go into a room where there will be KOTO graduate giving a talk about the organisation, and its achievements, and I will stand at the back of that room and nobody will know who I am."

It’s a rather an improbable hope for a man with as much charisma and energy as Jimmy, but his vision that KOTO will be self-perpetuating is very feasible. The bond these young people have with KOTO and one another is very strong. While Jimmy will always be hailed as its founder, the organisation has every chance of becoming self-sustainable.

In the meantime, KOTO’s fame is growing. Barbara Bush had lunch there during the APEC Forum in Hanoi in 2006, and tour guides from western tour operators such as Travel Indochina make a point of taking their clients to eat there—"Good food for a great cause".

If you are interested in helping Jimmy to perpetuate KOTO, and are planning to visit Hanoi, do make a point of visiting KOTO—you wont regret it! KOTO is located at 59 Van Mieu Street, opposite The Temple of Literature, one of Hanoi’s tourist landmarks. But even if you have no plans to visit, you can also sponsor a trainee, or make a donation.

More information can be found at www.streetvoices.com.au.

Postscript: Since this article was written Chien Le has obtained a job as a waiter at the Hanoi Club, a five-star establishment in the city, and he is progressing well. He is hoping to bring his granny to Hanoi so that she can see where he is living and what he has achieved.

Play on street kids a rousing success

(23-06-2007)

When the play ends, the street kids have returned home and are no longer lost and lonely in the big city, but back in the arms of those they love.

The tearful teenage audience applauds with all its heart.

The well-received play Ve Dau? (Where are we going?) depicts the hardship and endurance of street children in the face of poverty and isolation.

The central character is a 15-year-old orphan who heads a group of homeless shoeshine boys and lottery tickets sellers in HCM City.

Despite the harsh life in the city, the boy is always kind to the other children.

In the most moving part of the play, the boy offers train tickets home, bought with his own savings, to other street kids who miss their families.

But the young boy stays behind because he does not know where to go and he wants to work to earn money to help more kids return home.

Last week, when she saw the play at a shelter for street children in HCM City’s District 5, a young girl cried out: "Mother! I miss you very much."

The play is one of three short plays in the Tieng Noi Tre Tho (Children’s Voices) programme now being performed in the city with financial assistance from the Swedish International Development Co-operation Agency (SIDA).

The other plays, Tieng Hat Dong Song (Songs of a River) and Con Trai-Con Gai (Boys&Girls), also have received an enthusiastic response from the audience.

Another play, Songs of a River, calls on youth to protect the environment.

When the play was performed in suburban Thu Duc District on Tuesday, many small boys and girls clambered onto the stage to collect garbage floating in a river.

The message was clear: After the show, the audience was seen picking up debris around their seats.

The enthusiasm of the audiences is so high that a spirited question-and-answer session between the cast and the viewers usually ensues after the performance.

SIDA will sponsor the Children’s Voices drama programme for three years until 2009, with VND700 million (US$43,750) given each year.

Over 15,000 young people have seen 40 performances of the three plays, organised this month at the Small Theatre at 5B Vo Van Tan Street in District 3, and at culture houses and shelters for street children in the city.

After HCM City, the plays will be staged in schools for underprivileged children in the Tay Nguyen (Central Highlands) province of Lam Dong.

Performing in the plays are actors Trinh Kim Chi, Le Hoang, Thanh Van and Minh Beo and many young artists of the Small Theatre.

Admission to the performances is free. — VNS

Project helps protect street kids

(15-05-2007)

Vien Thi Thuy can continue attending school with help from the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs and the European Union. — VNA/VNS Photo Duong Ngoc

HA NOI — A project initiated by the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs and funded by the European Union is offering new beginnings to thousands of children who have toiled with life on the street.

The project, which aims to provide universal rights – like adequate education and health care – for all needy children was carried out three years ago in 10 provinces and municipalities throughout the country.

According to statistics supplied by the Commission on Population, Family and Children, in 2004 there were 12,000 street children nationwide.

In 2006, the efforts of the Commission and the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs cut the number down almost by half to 6,700.

More than 7,000 children nationwide are now under the care of social service professionals; nearly 5,000 have access to basic education and healthcare services; about 1,000 are learning a trade through vocational courses; and 600 have been adopted.

According to Le Tuyet Nhung, manager of the project, the most successful pilots of the programme have been in Thanh Hoa, Vinh Long and Phu Yen provinces.

The success of the project lies in synchronised solutions: educational support, vocational training and health care, she added.

But in struggling provinces like Quang Ngai, Phu Yen and Thua Thien-Hue, the high frequency of detrimental typhoons results in a high poverty rate, forcing kids out on their own. — VNS

Street kids pick up new weaving skill

(08-05-2007)

GIA LAI — Some adolescents in the Central Highland’s Glar Commune who could previously be found in the streets are now spending most of their days in a two-year-old brocade weaving programme.

Faced with a growing number of delinquent youth, in the spring of 2005 A Lung, president of Glar’s Youth Union Association, proposed plans for a youth weaving club to local authorities of the commune, located in Dak Doa District of Gia Lai Province.

The traditional handicraft has helped make adolescent unemployment a thing of the past in only two years of operation.

With his mother acting as chairwoman of the club, A Lung got started with an initial loan of only VND15 million. This could only part of the needed materials for the 35-member club.

A Lung solicited reputable weavers to become teachers at the club. Teachers and students travelled to different provinces, including Lam Dong, Kon Tum and Dak Lak, to find new designs and learn modern methods. He then sold finished products to shops in Gia Lai and the neighbouring province of Kon Tum.

Little by little, the reputation of his members’ quality work grew within the region. A Lung says he now receives orders from domestic agencies as well as Vietnamese people living overseas who swear by the product quality of the club’s young weavers.

Membership now touches 85, a number A Lung says usually increases during the summer because of the possible 1-million dong earnings per month. — VNS

Street kids get new lease on education

(02-05-2007)

HCM CITY — Children whose families were migrants living in slums in the City’s Ward 10 gained a chance to study when the evening class of Nguyen Thanh and friends began last year.

The three young teachers are members of the residential quarter’s Youth Union.

Ten years ago, when he was a 10th-grade student, Nguyen Thanh left his birthplace in Nghia Hanh District, Quang Ngai Province, for the city to earn money to continue schooling.

He stayed at a rented house in the Ward 10 slums, the home to many migrants who had left their native lands in the southwest region to seek work in the City as well as of citizens whose houses had been torn down to make way for construction projects.

There, he gained a thorough understanding of the disadvantages and lack of study opportunities that local children suffered.

"They sell lottery tickets and ice cream and clean shoes to help their families," Thanh said. "They have no idea about education, but they have learned a lot of bad things at a tender age. Some can not even go to school because they do not have birth certificates."

He realised that it was time for less talk and more action. "What I can do for them?" he thought.

Thanh asked Hoang Ha and Minh Tien, two friends and both members of the local Youth Union, to help him out in starting a class at the Union offices.

At first, he was rejected when he visited the slum tenements to encourage children to attend his class. Undaunted, he began the class with just a couple of students.

Nguyen Van Tuan, 15-years-old but looking even smaller and younger than his age, came to the class every evening. Earning a living by selling ice cream at the Cho Lon bus station, Tuan supported his family in the southern province of Dong Thap with the hope that he could save up enough money to return to his native province and build a house for his family.

The class for poor children lacked almost every necessary educational facility, but Thanh and his friends even spent their own money to buy books for the kids.

Gradually, the children learned not only how to read and write but also how to behave themselves.

Now, the class has around forty students and is a source of pleasure and pride for the local Youth Union branch of Residential Quarter No 2. Some parents who used to reject Thanh are now asking him to teach their children.

They now have use of the offices of the residential quarter to study and have desks donated by the Phu Dinh primary school.

The class has been called "5-in-1" because students from the first grade to the fifth grade sat in the same room under the guidance of members from the Youth Union.

Many of the kids were older than their grade levels so Thanh has had to talk them into sharing their dreams and troubles in life. He also taught his students martial arts afterclass.

"To learn martial arts is to learn how to behave which can help them realise what’s good and what’s bad to become useful citizens in society," Thanh said. — VNS

VIETNAM
A “support network” for 22 thousand street children
by JB. VU
65 Drop in centres and hospices in Ho Chi Minh City not only offer new hope to the small abandoned children, they also give fresh opportunities for work experience to students who want to work in the field of social welfare.

Ho Chi Minh City (AsiaNews) – Over a hundred social workers of different religions are keeping alive a network of 65 drop in centres and hospices for over 22 thousand street children across Ho Chi Minh City. The 100 social workers are Catholic Buddhist or of no religion at all but they are all dedicated “to the same love and devotion” .  

Sister Thao, Tam Hiep OP,  told Asianews, “the social workers’ club is a place where we can support and help one another in our work. Besides social activities we need to share cultural and spiritual issues for better living. I feel happy when working here. The members are good and helpful  to me. We bring  happiness and  hopefulness to the children, by being good social models”.

Buddhist nun  Hue Tri has attended the club since 1994. She told Asianews, “ I hope that in my next incarnation  I am still Hue Tri so I can work with children. Carrying out my work, I am still faced with difficulties from local government. But with time they will understand us, because we are working for the basic rights of unlucky children.”

Gia, working for one non-government organization  in Ho Chi Minh City  met and shared his views with members of the social workers’ club, “the club is very important for us. In Vietnam there are 28 universities permitted by the ministry of education to open majors in social work and community development. But we lack social work practice. Some provincial universities are also lacking places for field work. So students can not gain new knowledge and skills.  The club is an ideal place to learn and share experiences with one another”.

All the social workers - 60% of whom are Catholic, dedicate themselves with great humanity to their work so these children will feel neither marginalized or discriminated against.  The teachers and assistants understand the difficulties these children face, often because they too have come from similarly difficult situations. 

Michael Brosowski in Vietnam | photo supplied

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Blue Dragon’s Michael Brosowski

Last Update: Tuesday, March 27, 2007. 1:31pm AEST

Michael Brosowski was working as an English teacher in Sydney when one day, he decided to pack up his life and move to Vietnam. He was all set to spend his weekends on the beaches of Saigon, but he ran into a group of street kids who changed his life. Michael now runs the Blue Dragon Children’s Foundation in Vietnam, supplying food, education, medical help and a future to 700 Vietnamese street kids every year. He treats them as extended family and now is boldly tackling child trafficking rings.

The son of a German immigrant, Michael had a childhood that was far from comfortable - the family actually built their house, and struggled financially. "Looking back on it, I’m so glad that I had that experience," he reflects. "I think it’s made me a bit more resilient to changes. I grew up in Sydney and then spent my teenage years on a little farm with nothing but trees and kangaroos for miles."

Michael first became interested in Vietnam after teaching Vietnamese refugees English when he was a high school student - and when he became a teacher himself. "A lot of my students were the children of Vietnamese and Cambodian refugees. I’d always had some Vietnamese friends, now I had Vietnamese students as well and I was fascinated by their work ethic, by their loyalty, by their determination. I wanted to go to Vietnam and see for myself where they were coming from."

Michael moved to Vietnam when he was 28, and a chance meeting with street kids changed his life’s direction. "Anyone who’s been to Vietnam has met street kids, you know, they’re around the place. It’s very easy just to chat. Vietnamese people are very friendly and open. They love to talk and they love to practice their English. I really enjoyed just sitting down by the side of the street and having a chat, letting them shine my shoes and I’d use that as an excuse to talk to them."

Michael formed the Blue Dragon Children’s Foundation in Vietnam, to help the street kids build themselves a more promising future. "It’s still growing organically - I think that’s part of our success. You don’t know what’s going to happen next year. Street kids in Hanoi, in fact street kids in Vietnam are now a totally different population to when I started this work four years ago."

The Blue Dragon Children’s Foundation works with each child individually. "We work with kids on an individual basis, so it’s individual and wholistic at the same time. Poverty is a multi faceted problem - there are always health issues. There are always family issues and of course, money issues. You’ve got to tackle all of those problems at the same time and the only way to do that, that I can see, that really works is one-on-one."

Now there’s no such thing as an average day for Michael. "There are no two days alike and I really love that. I love the anarchy and the constant flow of surprises. I live above the Blue Dragon centre, so I’m always there. We get kids coming around for all sorts of needs or if they’re in some kind of crisis."

These days it’s something of a shock for Michael when he returns to Australia. "Whenever I come back to Australia, I spend my first week in shock, trying to work out where everyone is, what’s going on, why can’t I see people all over the streets. And of course everyone here is so big. The differences are enormous. It’s a real culture shock coming back!"