US actor extends hands to street kids in wartime Vietnam

Dick Hughes (C) Amid the escalating Vietnam War where everyone saw evil, Vietnamese street kids saw something else. During the 8 years Dick Hughes was in Vietnam, the US actor had offered sanctuary to them, in the thousands.

Dick visited Vietnam after graduating from a Master’s degree in drama and was going to start on his promising career when news of the war shelved his acting plans. He said he wanted to do something to help Vietnam. So, in April, two months after the 1968 Tet Offensive, he set foot on Saigon, now Ho Chi Minh City as a correspondent from the Carnegie Mellon University, where he graduated. With two sets of clothes and around US$1,500, Dick called a cab to a press center but the driver instead took him to the US General Consulate. While standing in front of the imposing building and rearranging papers, a dirty Vietnamese kid with a baggy pullover apparently suffering from scabies asked him in a pidgin English if he was civilian or military. Seeing his pitiable state, Dick decided to help them. Dick was only 24 years old. Charity houses After the first month living in a hotel, he left and rented a small house on Pham Ngu Lao Street in district 1 where he had numerous occasions to meet homeless kids. The street today is famous as the backpackers’ quarter. Everyday, he approached street kids including shoeshine boys and newspapers vendors and invited them to his rented house to eat, take baths and sleep. He recalled the job was not easy because the children could not believe their ears. But after trying different techniques, 11 came and slept. The next day, they started out to work and came back for the night. To finance the project, Dick visited many agencies to brazenly ask for blankets, soaps and food. A little while later, he moved out, rented another house near there, and had a volunteer teach them reading, writing and the such. In 1970, his compatriots in the US knew of Dick’s charity actions and helped him form the Shoeshine Boy Foundation in New York. The foundation received contributions from thousands, which were sent to Vietnam. This enabled Dick to rent five more houses in Saigon to accommodate more children. During the years he was in Vietnam, his program has helped 2,000 street kids and around 300 always lived in those houses. Over 18,000 people all over the world have contributed to the program. Kiet, now an owner of a bookstore on Pham Ngu Lao Street, recalled his poverty years with Dick. “He used to walk in and out of police stations because of us”. Police at that time would take Kiet and other kids to workhouses if they were caught shoeshining. It is Dick who bailed them out. “Without him, we would not be what we are today”, Tam Lan, a guard in district 1, said. In 1976 after the war was over, Dick returned to his home country to his acting career, and transferred all his charity houses in Ho Chi Minh City and Danang City to the new regime. He later told the New York Times and Life that he learnt a lot from those kids, especially about their optimism in a situation where only darkness and hopelessness reigned. He said those kids had every reason to resort to crimes but they did not and strived to make their lives better. Late January this year, Dick returned to Vietnam, to the warm welcome from all those who he once helped. Some are now successful and they live all over the country but on hearing Dick’s return, they all flocked to Ho Chi Minh City to be reunited with their patron. He is now living in New York and is a theatrical actor. He has not rested but still campaigning for funds to help Agent Orange victims in Vietnam.

Street Children in Hanoi, Vietnam - SJ Vietnam
This video is about a street child living in Hanoi. SJ Vietnam organizes activities with these children and is running an international youth and international workcamps. SJ Vietnam is member of CCIVS and NDVA. Visit their website to find out more about their work http://www.sjvietnam.org/

Photography show has street kids get behind the camera

15:49′ 20/11/2006 (GMT+7)

VietNamNet Bridge – More than 50 photos taken by HCM City street kids will be on display beginning on Sunday in the Metropolitan Building in District 1, HCM City. Through a glass lightly: More than 50 photos taken by street kids will be on display at the Kids’ Insight exhibition in HCM City, following a project to give disadvantaged kids living skills and photographic training. The exhibit at 235 Dong Khoi Street showcases 16 youth, aged between 15 and 19, who are from poor families and live in city shelters. The students studied photography through the Street Vision Project of the HCM City Child Welfare Foundation (HCWF), a non-profit organisation which gives help and support to disadvantaged children. Their photos, which will sell for US$35-$42, are of various subjects and on different themes. "Our project aims to provide poor and working children, particularly street kids, with living skills and training in photography, helping them to live more confidently and earn a living," said Nguyen Thi Ngoc Anh, deputy chairman of the HCWF. Some of the children now work at local photography studios, she said. The welfare foundation offered 12 short-term training courses, attracting more than 200 children from different backgrounds. Some of the photos, such as Tinh Mau Tu (Mother Love), Nu Cuoi Tre Tho (Kids’ Smiles), Hon Nhien (Natural Life), and Giup Gia Dinh (Working to Help Family), portray beautiful moments of children at play and at home. "Kids’ Insight is a result of months of study and work," said Hoang Dinh Huy, who lives in a shelter for street children in Binh Thanh District. Huy’s work, Noi Thap Co (The Ancient Tower) features a Cham Tower and is skillful in its use of colour and layout. As did all the students, Huy took fact-finding tours to tourist sites in the southern provinces to learn more about the world. The 19-year-old said that the project’s makers invited well-known photographers from the city’s Photography Association "to teach kids photographic skills but also a love for the art." Huy’s friend, Tran Thanh Tung, 17, who shot Tinh Mau Tu (Mother Love), said: "I can earn money from my skills and share my views with others through my work as well. Huy and Tung are working as trainees for a studio in District 1 at a salary of VND600,000 ($37.5) a month. Sponsored by BP Vietnam, the exhibit runs until December 6. All of the photos will be auctioned. The event’s opening celebration will be a buffet dinner on Saturday, at the Duxton Saigon Hotel, 63 Nguyen Hue Street, District 1. Each ticket is $12 for children under aged 18. For adults, tickets are $17 each. A table for 10 is $150. For reservations, call the HCWF’s telephone number: (08) 8406177. (Source: Viet Nam News)

Street children roundup `common’
Hadi DP Mahmud
HANOI

 

15-Nov-06

A JAPANESE delegate to this week’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation says it is “common'’ for governments around the world to try and clean up their countries from “unpleasant sight'’ when preparing for such major events as Apec.

Speaking to The Brunei Times on condition of anonymity, the delegate was responding to the Human Rights Watch’s report that Hanoi rounded up homeless children and mistreated them in detention centres to clear its streets before important events such as Apec.

“It is one thing to put homeless people in detention centres for the duration of the event, but to put homeless children in the same place? That’s just strange,'’ he said.

The US-based rights group reported last Monday that its research over three years showed street children “are subject to routine beatings, verbal abuse and mistreatment by staff'’ during detentions that last two weeks to six months in the Dong Dau Social Protection Centre near Hanoi. “Human Rights Watch is concerned that street children are particularly vulnerable to arrest now, as the Vietnamese government attempts to present its best face,'’ the group stated.

A government spokesman did not immediately comment on the 77-page report, “Children of the Dust: Abuse of Hanoi Street Children in Detention'’, which documents cases of abuse of the children, who are sometimes called bui doi in Vietnamese, meaning the dust of life.

The report said police routinely round up street children in random sweeps and deposit them at state “rehabilitation'’ centres called Social Protection Centres, where they are detained for periods ranging from two weeks to as much as six months. Drawing on testimonies from street children interviewed over the past three years, Human Rights Watch detailed the particularly harsh treatment at one of the rehabilitation centres, Dong Dau Social Protection Centre.

Children there are locked up in filthy, overcrowded cells for 23 hours a day, sometimes together with adults, with only a bucket for excrement.

The lights remain on night and day. They are released for two half-hour periods per day to wash and to eat. They are offered no rehabilitation, no educational and recreational activities, and no medical or psychological treatment. Their families are often not notified about where they are.

Hanoi is hosting the 21-member forum’s leaders’ week from November 12 to 19 including US President George W Bush, President Hu Jintao of China and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the biggest conference in the Communist-run country’s history.

The report covering 2003-2006, said there were similar campaigns to remove homeless people before the 2003 South East Asian Games and the 2004 Asia-Europe Summit Meeting in the capital.

Vietnam has one of the fastest-growing economies in the world after China and like its giant northern neighbour, there has been an increase in migration to cities from the countryside.

Homeless children are seen walking the streets offering to polish shoes and they sell chewing gum, postcards and copies of guide books and novels to tourists. They earn about 20,000 dong (US$1.25) or less a day, the rights group said. Government statistics estimate there are 23,000 street children in Vietnam, about 1,500 of them in Hanoi. The Brunei Times

Vietnam rejects ‘fabricated’ report on street children abuse

Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Le Dzung Hanoi rejected Monday an international human rights group’s recent report claiming street children in Hanoi were being maltreated, calling the information "a complete fabrication".

The Human Rights Watch report said prior to the APEC 2006 Week street children in Hanoi were taken to care centers where they were treated brutally. Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Le Dzung said Vietnam “has always placed importance on the protection, care, and education of children, including underprivileged and street children." The country had undertaken a number of projects to reunite street children with their families. Those who could not be reunited families had been provided healthcare, support, and vocational training. "All the measures are aimed at creating conditions for disadvantaged and street children to be protected, cared for, and educated … so that their lives become better," he said. Vietnam had been one of the first nations in the world to sign and ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The country had actively met its commitments to, and cooperated with, the international community to improve child welfare despite its poverty. Caring for children was the “responsibility of the state, society, and every family” and “tradition and principle of the Vietnamese nation.” "Vietnam’s efforts in child care and protection have been recognised and well received by the United Nations, including the UN Children’s Fund," the spokesman said. Source: VNA

Vietnam Accused of Detaining Street Children During Summit
By Matt Steinglass Hanoi 13 November 2006

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A U.S.-based human rights group says Vietnamese authorities are taking homeless children off the streets of Hanoi in the run-up to international events such as this week’s Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit and putting them in detention centers, where they are mistreated. But other agencies dispute the Human Rights Watch claims, saying the government’s policies towards Vietnam’s street kids are not all bad.

Vietnamese walk past APEC banner in Ho Chi Minh

Hanoi shoeshine boy Ba left his home in Vietnam’s impoverished Phu Tho province two years ago to find work in the capital. He earns two dollars a day cleaning shoes, sometimes working inside a Hanoi bia hoi, or beer garden, and sometimes walking the streets looking for customers.

But right now, Ba is staying inside the beer garden. He is afraid that if he tries to find work on the street, he will be arrested.

As Hanoi prepares for this week’s Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, which will be attended by the leaders of 21 countries, police have been rounding up homeless kids in an effort to clean up the city.

Ba says when his friends have been arrested, they have been held in what’s called a Social Protection Center named Dong Dzau outside Hanoi. They are held for 15 days for a first offense, and three months for a second offense.

Traffic swirls around young female beggar as she is pulled through early morning traffic

Human Rights Watch has issued a report on Vietnam’s street children called "Children of the Dust", which is based on three years of research. The report says conditions at the Dong Dzau center are terrible - detainees are beaten by guards, refused medical treatment, and given inadequate food.

Human Rights Watch also says the roundups of street children intensify around international events like the APEC summit.

The organization says that conditions at another Social Protection Center near Hanoi, named Ba Vi, are better, but that both camps violate Vietnam’s obligations under the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The Vietnamese government denies the allegations. Nguyen Thanh Chau, the deputy head of the APEC Secretariat says it is not true that Vietnam is sweeping street children up and taking them out of the city. He says Vietnam is trying to protect children’s right to an education by sending them back to their families in the countryside.

Some of those who work with Vietnam’s street children say the situation is not clear-cut and that Human Rights Watch and the government are both right. Those workers say the government is trying to send street kids back to their families, but the policy is misguided and results in abuse.

Bui Quang Minh is the senior program officer at the children’s development organization, PLAN International, in Hanoi. He says the government sees the rounding up of the street kids as part of an attempt to guarantee the children’s rights.

"According to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, they are not allowed to work on the streets," Minh explained. "I think that the main purpose is protecting them, but the way of protecting them may be not so appropriate."

The Human Rights Watch report says trying to return street children to their homes is futile. They tend to come from impoverished areas, and usually return immediately to the city, to try to earn money on the streets.

Other approaches are more promising. PLAN cooperates with the Vietnamese government to provide centers for migrant children and families in Hanoi, where they can get schooling and health care.

These children are on their way to school at the "May 19 Warm Shelter" in Hanoi. Some are with their families, migrants who lack residence permits for Hanoi. Others are here alone, and work selling gum on the street.

The children say they are unable to work during APEC. The teachers at the center have signed a pledge to keep the children off the street for the duration of the summit.

But, shoeshine boy Ba says he is happy the APEC summit is being held in Hanoi.

Ba says he is making more money lately, because most of his competitors have either gone home to their villages or been arrested.

Vietnam: Street Children at Risk Before APEC Summit

Police Roundups in Hanoi Land Children in Harsh Detention Centers

(New York, November 13, 2006) – Government roundup campaigns to clear Hanoi’s streets of “wanderers” and “vagrants” are landing street children in detention centers, where some are beaten and subject to other forms of abuse, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.

Vietnamese authorities need to protect street children from abuse, not condemn them to further harm by throwing them into detention centers. Sophie Richardson, deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch.

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Human Rights Watch is concerned that street children are particularly vulnerable to arrest now, as the Vietnamese government attempts to present its best face for this week’s meetings in Hanoi of world leaders, including US President George Bush, for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit.  
 
“Vietnamese authorities need to protect street children from abuse, not condemn them to further harm by throwing them into detention centers,” said Sophie Richardson, deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch. “Visiting world leaders should press Vietnam to uphold basic rights and freedoms.”  
 
Vietnam should abide by its commitments to protect children under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, especially children deemed especially vulnerable to abuse, Human Rights Watch said. Vietnam was the first country in Asia and the second in the world to ratify the treaty.  
 
The 77-page report, “Children of the Dust: Abuse of Hanoi Street Children in Detention,” documents cases of serious violations of the rights of street children in Hanoi. Police routinely round up street children in arbitrary sweeps and deposit them at state “rehabilitation” centers – euphemistically called “Social Protection Centers” – where they are detained for periods ranging from two weeks to as much as six months.  
 
Drawing on testimonies from street children interviewed over the past three years, Human Rights Watch detailed the particularly harsh treatment at one of the rehabilitation centers, Dong Dau Social Protection Center. Children there are locked up in filthy, overcrowded cells for 23 hours a day, sometimes together with adults, with only a bucket for excrement. The lights remain on night and day. They are released for two half-hour periods per day to wash and to eat. They are offered no rehabilitation, no educational and recreational activities, and no medical or psychological treatment. Their families are often not notified about where they are.  
 
Even more disturbing are reports that children at Dong Dau are subject to routine beatings, verbal abuse and mistreatment by staff.  
 
“Staff members in the so-called rehabilitation center have slapped and punched children, and beat them with rubber truncheons,” said Richardson. “Children report being placed in isolation, deprived of food and medical treatment, and denied family contact. This violates both Vietnamese and international law.”  
 
After being beaten, the children rarely receive medical treatment for their injuries, nor are staff persons who carry out the beatings disciplined.  
 
“Rather than serving as a rehabilitation center, Dong Dau is a de facto jail,” said Richardson. “Upon release, the children return battered, bruised and even less well-equipped to survive on the streets of Hanoi.”  
 
None of the children Human Rights Watch spoke to were provided any legal representation or told what, if any, charges were being brought against them; nor did their cases go before a court of law.  
 
Officially, the government’s policy is to round up street children in order to reunite them with their families. In practice, staff members at Dong Dau rarely make an effort to link children with their families or even notify the families about their children’s whereabouts.  
 
At the end of their detention, efforts are rarely made to take the children home or reunite them with their families. Instead, the children told Human Rights Watch that they are deposited at the gates of the center – more than 20 miles from Hanoi – and expected to find their way back. Most do not return to their homes in the countryside, but end up in Hanoi with no new alternatives.  
 
Although Vietnamese law outlines policies and programs to assist street children – most of whom are poor children from the countryside who go to Hanoi to find work – Human Rights Watch found that government authorities are often doing the opposite of what is called for in Vietnamese and international law.  
 
“On paper, Vietnam has good policies to protect street children,” said Richardson. “But the reality for Hanoi’s street children is not rehabilitation, but institutionalization and abuse, which leaves children in even worse shape.”  
 
Human Rights Watch called for an independent audit of conditions and practices at Dong Dau and for development of a plan of action to halt abuses there. In addition, Human Rights Watch recommended that the Vietnamese government put in place systems to protect children from arbitrary arrest and detention and ensure that street children do not suffer abuse at the hands of government authorities. Centers for street children should meet international standards, promote rehabilitation and family reunification (when appropriate), and provide adequate education and health care.  
 
Testimonies from the report:  
 
“I didn’t know how to queue when I first arrived. The guards came and hit me with a rubber club. They hit me everywhere … more than 20 times, on the right side of my back, lower and upper arms. It still hurts. Then they sent me back to the room without food. It was too painful to eat anyway. My back and right shoulder were swollen. I had scratches all over my arms. … I didn’t eat for two days – it was too painful to eat.”  
– 17-year-old street child  
 
“When I had to fill out the form, [the staff person] asked me how many times I had been there. I told him twice, but he thought I was lying. He thought I must have been there four times. I told him he was wrong, so he hit me. He used a rubber club to hit me all over my body. He hit me twice on the back and shoulder, and twice on the back of my thighs.”  
– 15-year-old street child  
 
“On the first day, eight people [were sent to Dong Dau] with me. We were all very sad. Some people cried all day, and they didn’t eat anything. When I was lining up for dinner, I didn’t feel like eating anything, so I was moving slowly. So were the others. The guards came and made us kneel down in the middle of the room. We weren’t allowed to eat anything. The first time we got to eat was the next day at 10 a.m.”  
– 15-year-old shoe shiner  
 
“There were windows, but they were shut … tied with metallic string. Day and night was the same because the light was on all the time. There were some wooden surfaces to sleep on but there were not enough, so people who were there first got those. Others slept on the floor. We had just enough space to lie down. I couldn’t even turn my body. Staying there for one day is like staying there for one month. We just sat in the room. We couldn’t do anything.”  
– 17-year-old street child, talking about his detention at Dong Dau when he was 16  
 
“I was always depressed, sad, bored. Many nights, I was lying on my bed, thinking how it’s so unfair to be somewhere like this. I don’t deserve it. There shouldn’t be any violence in a Social Protection Center.”  
– 15-year-old street child

Nhan Dan — Citibank-funded vocational training course for street children opens

September 26, 2006
A vocational training course for 50 street children in Hanoi, which is being funded by the Citibank Fund, opened on September 25.

Total funding for the course, the third of its kind, will be VND 240 million (US $15,000).

During the three-month course, the children will receive training in hotel services, refrigeration equipment repairs and welding.

The Citibank Fund has so far granted VND 700 million (roughly US $44,000 ) to help provide vocational training for 132 street children in Hanoi. All the children who attended the first two courses have found jobs.

Statistics released by the Ministry of Labour, War Invalids and Social Affairs show that there are now around 21,000 street children in Vietnam, mainly in major cities such as Hanoi, Hai Phong, Da Nang and Ho Chi Minh City. (VNA)"

City tackles issue of homeless children

14:01′ 01/08/2006 (GMT+7)

Street kids should be better educated on the dangers that surround them, a conference held by the department of Education and Training and the city’s Street Children Management last month was told. The charity classes combine education with life skills and vocational training to impart street kids with the ability to live better and earn more. According to estimates by the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs (MOLISA), the number of street children in Vietnam is estimated to be around 23,000, including 1,500 in Hanoi and nearly 9,000 in HCM City. Le Thi Hong Lien, vice director of HCM City’s Education and Training Department said that children who work and live on the streets face danger as they lack education and are unaware of health risks and basic rights. "Street kids are mainly children who migrate to the city and need to be educated to better protect themselves from dangers that they don’t even know exist," Lien said. HCM City’s Education and Training Department co-operated closely with the local Population, Family and Children Committee and city schools to organise over 500 evening classes for street children in 189 schools. The department even organised classes right in the railway stations and markets where they live. The charity classes combine education with life skills and vocational training to impart street kids with the ability to live better and earn more. "We also helped kids to take up vocational training programmes which bolster their skills in weaving, hair styling or vehicle mechanics," Lien said. She added that with such a dangerous lifestyle, life skills also educated them on the risks of a life on the streets, including sex abuse and drugs. To help street children raise their awareness about dangers of HIV/AIDS and teenage pregnancy, the educarionsector has co-operated with other organisations like the Youth Union, the Women’s Union and the Committee for Population, Family and Children to set up teams of social workers to impart vital knowledge to children. To support kids who actually attend the education sessions, city’s authorities and the education sector have also encouraged other organisations and benefactors to provide them with study aids and scholarships. In Binh Tan District, the Population, Family and Children Committee provided VND20mil (US$1,250) for 100 street children to attend schools and gave VND5mil (US$313) as vocational training fees for 5 street children in the 2005-06 school term. For street children without proper identification, HCM City authorities instructed judiciary offices in all districts to comply with the necessary formalities for them to go the city’s schools. Shortcomings remain Educators and provincial authorities have committed efforts to create favourable conditions for street children to attend schools. However, Lien said educating street children is a difficult task. At the conference, Le Thi Hoa, vice director of the Department of Education and Training in the central coastal province of Khanh Hoa said that financial issues and poor management were limiting what could be accomplished in terms of training for street kids. "Capital to implement charity classes is limited, leaving most classes that do get up and running without teaching aids and textbooks, and kids cannot always attend as they must work to live," she said. Hoa said another complicating factor was the fractured level of education among street kids, of which, some have graduated from primary school, while others have never attended a class. She said that fact made it hard to organise classes, as financial limitations meant that kids of different education have to study together. To improve the quality of charity classes, Hoa suggested that schools need to better classify students during intakes, prior to enrolment. Vu Thi My Hanh, principal of District 3-based Luong Dinh Cua primary school said that educators, need to create a friendly and safe environment for street children to attend school. "Educators also need to organise extra-curricular activities like music concerts and summer caps," said Hanh, adding it gives street kids a chance to integrate into a social community. Lien added to ensure the quality of study, educators should tighten co-operation with kids’ families and encourage them to let their children attend school. (Source: Viet Nam News)

Nha Trang, Vietnam - More news from Nha Trang

(blog entry)
"Yesterday morning I decided to go to ‘Krazy Kim’s’ which is a restaurant/bar that teaches the street kids English each morning. I thought I’d stay there for one lesson, but ended up staying for both - it was great fun and most of them had a good grasp of English (although 2 of the boys in my first group got into a fight and I had to pull them apart!!!)."