Open Tabs
Learn about Blue Dragon
Since its small beginnings in 2003, Blue Dragon has become a powerful force for change on the streets of Vietnam, both in bustling cities and in rural areas where poverty is widespread.
Blue Dragon offers children and families in crisis the chance to turn their lives around, providing practical solutions to the daily problems that are keeping poverty alive.
Building houses for families in extreme poverty
For families in Vietnam who are born into poverty, there is little hope for the chance of a better life.
More than 66% of the population lives in rural areas, where rice farming is the major industry and whole families earn as little as $1 – $2 a day.
Children growing up in extreme poverty often have no choice but to quit school and move far from home, exposing them to dangers such as trafficking, homelessness, sexual exploitation, drug abuse, and illness.
In rural areas of Vietnam, and particularly in regions where ethnic minority communities live, many families live in extreme poverty. This hardship makes them highly vulnerable to being trafficked into slavery.
People in extreme poverty are most likely to live in unsafe housing and to be unemployed.
This cycle of hardship is passed from generation to generation because families can not afford the luxury of education for their children. Family members try to change their fortunes by traveling away from home on the promise of employment but become vulnerable to exploitation and slavery.
Blue Dragon is breaking this cycle of poverty by building homes for families whose living conditions are a serious barrier to their safety and well-being, and when a family moves into their new home, they are assisted to set up a small business or buy livestock for a farm. This means that they have a new house and a means of earning an income.
Each house is designed and built according to local standards and the needs of the individual family. The community and the local government contribute by donating land, materials, or labor to keep costs low.
For an investment of $5,000 to build the house and a further $1,000 to equip the house with furniture and to start a business, a family is lifted out of poverty and on their way to independence.
Help For Hope and Blue Dragon Children’s Foundation have collaborated to start building houses for these selected families early this year, and have now completed 15 houses this June 2023.