Raffle entries closed yesterday and a huge “thank you” to the entrants, of which there weren’t many but each was very generous indeed. Please, if you missed the competition do consider still making a donation. As happens annually, the east coast of Vietnam has taken a weather-related battering and Blue Dragon needs your funding to help them rebuild their homes, and eat in the meantime.
I snipped up a few bits of paper and dropped them into a hat (actually a Tescocarrier bag, but let’s not be picky). A quick rummage and the winner that came out was…
Which is good for me as I think she’s the only UK-based entrant so it will keep the postage cost down. I actually met her a few days ago and I could have handed her the football shirt personally. Instead, I will trust it to our increasingly dodgy postal service. Keep an eye open for it in a week or so, Janice.
Again, thank you all for your entries and generosity!
OK, folks. Here is a chance to own a very exclusive Real Betis Vietnam football shirt as worn by the amazing kids at the Blue Dragon Children’s Foundation. There were never many of these shirts and BDCF are looking for new sponsors so there simply will not be any more of this particular design.
Featuring the Real Betis badge and name, BDCF logo and Catholic Relief Services on the sleeve, the shirt has a large number 7 on the back along with the charity URL. It’s lightweight material with “breathable” fabric under the arms and down the sides. It is brand new – I’ve worn it once to check it for size and fit.
The size is “XL” and this is a western XL by my judgement, not a Vietnamese one. The V-collar means it hangs off me. I’m an average size for a 35 year-old white guy.
Back of shirt
So here’s how it works. I will cover all costs involved in this little raffle including postage to wherever the lucky winner resides. Hopefully we’ll raise more than the overheads! “Tickets” are one Australian Dollar each and you “buy” them by making a donation to Blue Dragon via PayPal. When you donate, please leave a comment here (or if you’d rather not make it public, contact me directly) and tell me how much you donated and therefore how many times your name will be popped into the hat.
We’ll say the deadline is October 15th 2009 which gives you the thick end of a month to save up. I’ll pick the winner at random then and get in touch with them via email, so please include a valid mail address on your comment. Don’t worry – nobody can see your email address except me and I promise with hand on heart that I will only use said address to let you know if you’ve won and to get a mailing address from you.
Michael has posted a link on his blog today to an article on a Vietnamese newspaper’s website. Don’t worry, the article is in English!
Essentially it details the costs involved in sending a child to school in Vietnam. Yes, costs. Schooling is not free in Vietnam and is out of the financial reach of a lot of people. Judging by the article it’s not helped by some schools using children and parents as a means of extracting further cash.
To put the sums in context, 2 million dong is around £70 or US$110. This is a “fee” some schools are asking for before registering a child. And a further 2 million for clothes and equipment. Other sums mentioned may seem small to us (40,000d is around £1.50) but remember that many people in Vietnam earn as little as US$ per month.
Putting their children through school, if they can afford it at all, can plunge a family into huge amounts of debt. Many simply don’t bother, which is why the country has so many street children. Runaways who don’t want to be a burden on their parents, children who need to work to help the family break even each month and so on.
Social security simply doesn’t exist in Vietnam and – as in many other countries – the children are amongst the first to suffer. And with them, the future of the country as a whole.
This is why I wholeheartedly support the Blue Dragon Children’s Foundation and the other similar NGOs which it works in partnership around the country. This is why I’ve banged on about them for over three years. This is why I spent six weeks in Hanoi in 2006 working with those children and helping them develop a new, self-maintained web site. This is why I walked from Monaco to Newcastle to raise money for them.
This is why I won’t stop. Children matter in every country. Vietnam just happens to have gotten its hooks into me in a way no other country has managed.
Please pop by the BDCF web page and make a donation. As you can see by the sums above, what seems fairly small change to you or I could get a child through school for a year in Vietnam. Even a small donation will make a difference. Blue Dragon’s admin costs are kept to a minimum with the vast majority of incoming funds being used for the purposes that you, the donating public, expect them to be used.
I’ll be cross-posting this to the other blogs shortly so apologies for duplication. I just heard from Mike at Blue Dragon about an author, John Shors, who’s written a novel based on street kids in Vietnam. Mike read the draft and has approved it – which is impressive given the usual stereotypes of street children. Apparently Shors has avoided all of these and Mike should know, given the fact he’s been working with these kids for so many years.
The book, Dragon House, is published by Penguin and available pretty much anywhere. You can order an autographed copy direct from John at the official web site… or if you go to Blue Dragon’s page and donate upwards of $100, John will send you a free one! Either way, part of the proceeds from the novel will be wending their way to the kids in Vietnam.
I just spotted that a UK company called Photobox are prepared to make a donation to one of three charities when you make a purchase through them. The charities are the Alzheimer’s Society, TreeHouse and – I’m very happy to say – the Blue Dragon Children’s Foundation.
So if you happen to be in need of a greetings card (or a box of them) then do take a look. I think I’ll be using them for Mother’s Day!
As an alternative, Blue Dragon do their own line of cards. Email them at info@bdcf.org to ask about them.
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