The Right to Shine: Compassion for others and how we like to be treated

The last week of the 'Conciousness Raising' phase of the project, was Big! We introduced a story about a 13 year long child exploitation case from Hanoi which caused an outrage amongst members of the community and all over Vietnam. This story about a girl named Binh made it to the newspapers, and what caught our eye was the response from the readers in letters to the editors. We wanted to show the kids that there are local people who care about the well being and future of the children in Vietnam. People who are against child labour and are trying to find ways to keep children safe in the workplace and off the streets.

It has been an intense and incredibly rewarding week, seeing what the kids would like to do or say to prevent exploitative and abusive employment from happening to other kids in the future, and also seeing their acceptance of these difficult situations as a normal part of their reality. Some feel that it is just bad luck to end up in a situation like Binh's in Hanoi. I think there is more to it than Bad luck!

Some of the responses to Binh's story

• If I met the employers I would look down on them

• The employers are the devil

• I felt emotional about Binh’s situations, she had to endure great suffering

• Binh is very strong to have survived 13 years of this abuse

• The employers have no sense of humanity and no conscience

• I hope that Binh finds happiness after all the suffering

• I would gather the neighbours to fight against the employers, because we would be stronger as a group

• It was the mother’s fault, her mistake for leaving her child with these people. Parents need to take care when they leave their children to work somewhere

• The mother should have observed the facial expressions of the employers carefully to see their character – if they are good or bad people, before she left her child there.

• As a child you should try to go to work with a friend so you have some support inside. Better to have 2 people, than 1

• Society ignored Binh for 13 years

• I imagine if I was a neighbour, I would try to convince the employers to treat her better or to free her. But the scars on Binhs body will not fade, and the scars will always remind her of her experience.

• I can not help, because I am too young and small

• I can not do by myself, so I will ask many people to come with me. If the employers don’t co-operate then I would ring the authorities

• I would help her to runaway and help her to find a better job

• I would ask my parents to bring Binh to stay or ask them to find Binh’s family

• If I was Binh’s friend I would advise her to run away, or I would take her to the orphanage, or employ her to work in my house as hired help, but I would treat her well
• I would ask Binh to come to my house to play

What would you say to the world to change how children are treated?

· People in the community need to come together and contribute to help the poor people

· You need the children for the future of the country

· Don’t exploit children, help them if you see them in bad situations

· Share the social responsibility of disadvantaged children

· Don’t exploit or abuse children

· Contribute money to help kids to runaway from their employers

We also explored how the kids like to be treated and if they felt they were understood by adults.

It was very interesting to hear the kids express how they would like to be treated and how they can make other adults understand them better. They really put thought into how they could resolve misunderstandings in their lives.

How to make your teachers understand you?

· We could write a letter to our teachers to explain some situations

· We could ask the teachers permission when we are not able to come to school

· Explain to the teachers, our reason for bad hand writing is that we have an abnormal feature in our hand – we are left handed

How to make your parents understand you better?

· Show parents our wants by talking directly to them or use our actions to demonstrate the truth

· Run away from home until parents calm down, then try to explain to them

How to make the neighbors understand you better?

· Ask neighbors for evidence to demonstrate that they misunderstand

· To tell the whole story from the beginning to end to help neighbors understand in the right way

· Talk in a nice way to the neighbors, advise them not to interfere in our business

· Argue with the neighbors when they judge us wrongly