Today Lizzie takes us to visit the families of the two children who we are sponsoring through school – Trang and Luan and then we go on to see the shelter for street children which she is involved with. Our first stop is to see Trang, a 13-year old Vietnamese girl who lives in District X in one of the warren of alleyways off the main road. We are accompanied by Nhi who regularly visits the sponsored children to give them money for the school fees and check on anything they may need for their studies. It’s just as well we have Nhi with us as within minutes of entering the back alleys we are completely disorientated. The living conditions in this area are mixed but many people are living in very squalid and cramped conditions. Trang lives with her mother, father, grandmother and 4 siblings in a single ground floor room which houses not only the family but two motor bikes as well. Shocking as their living conditions are they cannot prepare us for those of Luan and her mother who live next to the street shelter in a lean-to shack. It is no bigger than a cupboard with a platform above for sleeping and is made from an assortment of old crates, boxes and the like. It is hard to comprehend how two people can live in such a minute and flimsy hut. The boys’ shelter is in a house just further down the alley and we are greeted enthusiastically and affectionately by the boys. The shelter offers accommodation to about 20 boys aged 12 to 16 and helps them to get vocational training and eventually jobs. It occupies four floors and is clean and spacious if rather empty. The boys sleep on mats on the floor – preferring this to western-style beds.
After our visits we decide to get a football and some sweets for the boys in the shelter and a small folding table for Luan so that she has somewhere to do her homework; at the moment she does it on the dirt floor of the lean-to. It’s hard to reconcile our privileged lifestyle which allows us to pull up in a chauffeur-driven car with the destitution of these children. But the biggest decision lies ahead – how to best use the money Andy raised to help in some small way.