Blue Dragon Children's Foundation

Blue Dragon has two major goals.

First, we seek to make sure that every homeless child in Hanoi has access to care, shelter, and opportunity to turn their lives around.

Second, we aim for the end of human trafficking.

Blue Dragon takes a long-term, holistic approach to reaching our two major goals.

We start with rescue, to free children and young people from places of slavery and danger and get them into safe, caring accommodation where all their needs can be provided for. Social workers and psychologists provide comprehensive care focused on helping children overcome the trauma they have experienced, and developing the skills and knowledge to build successful independent lives.

Once a child is safe, we advocate for their legal rights and represent them as their abusers are prosecuted.
We take all we learn and find ways to feed it into long-term systemic change. We advocate for better policies; we lead law reform initiatives; and we train those agencies and institutions which carry responsibility for the protection of the vulnerable.

In Vietnam, Blue Dragon has been working for more than 15 years, and now has over 100 staff.

Our team includes former program beneficiaries as well as a diverse range of talent: lawyers, social workers, psychologists and teachers form a multidisciplinary team to assist children, families and communities.

Blue Dragon's track record includes leading revisions to laws; rescuing over 1,000 people directly from the places where they were slaves; and helping thousands of children return to school.

We are the leading non-profit organization combating human trafficking in Vietnam, and have pioneered interventions for children in crisis that are demonstrated successes.

Blue Dragon has made a significant contribution to Vietnam’s development through our work with some of the most disadvantaged children, families and communities in the country. We have rescued over 1,000 victims of human trafficking, helped them return to their homes, and ensured that they are able to overcome the trauma they experienced to build new, independent lives. We have helped over 1,200 children to get off the streets and over 600 to return home to their families. We have ensured that over 5,000 highly vulnerable children were able to return to or attend school, and helped 350 teenagers to get a job.

Beyond these numbers, Blue Dragon has developed effective models and demonstrated them to both government and non-government partners. When we began, social work was highly under-developed in Vietnam. Blue Dragon developed a social work model, trained young social workers and demonstrated to relevant government agencies the effectiveness of such an approach for street children. We have developed a curriculum for training grassroots social workers at the village level, to ensure that the most vulnerable can receive help in their own communities.

We have developed an effective, comprehensive model to fight human trafficking including rescue and reintegration for survivors, as well as effective prevention that ensures that vulnerable people understand the risks, and that there are mechanisms in place to raise the alarm and respond when someone goes missing.

We have represented over 130 victims of trafficking and child abuse in court, and in the process demonstrated to the legal system the importance of effective legal representation and victim-friendly investigation techniques. We are sharing our experience and knowledge with government agencies responsible for child protection and counter trafficking, and have provided training for over 7,000 government officials.

For the next period, Blue Dragon intends to expand our advocacy and experience-sharing in order to ensure wider application of successful models of child protection and counter trafficking. We are committed to serving children and families who need us most, while at the same time ensuring that the responsible domestic government and civil society agencies are better equipped for this important work. We will invest further in research and documenting and sharing our experience. We are working closely with the government on improving and reforming laws related to child protection and human trafficking to ensure that the legal framework is soundly in place.