HO CHI MINH CITY // Outside a church in the main commercial district, Mai helps her mother and aunt sell chewing gum and lottery tickets to tourists in this busy city of 8 million.
It is a standard occupation for many of the city’s hundreds of street children, a term used for those with no employer or fixed income, some of whom sleep on the streets.
Some shine shoes. Some sell drinks to office workers and holiday-makers. Some simply beg.
Others, among a community who have been termed “dust of the earth”, face greater hardship still. All are vulnerable, with many at risk of malnutrition, sexual and economic exploitation, and trafficking.
Yet Mai’s is far from a hopeless existence. Unlike many, the 13-year-old girl, whose father left her mother during the early stage of her pregnancy, also has a life separate from working on the street.
She is enrolled in full-time education at a mainstream secondary school and is thriving at it. She aced her most recent end-of-term exams. She shines in music and modern dance.
She won a painting competition sponsored by a nearby hotel. Granted a choice of anything she wanted as a prize, she picked a badminton racket so she can join in games with her friends.
She might even be considered the “teacher’s pet”, the type of child who could be targeted by bullies — if she was not quite so rock-hard, that is.
As well as everything else, Mai excels at taekwondo, a combat sport which rewards kicks to the body and head.
“When I started taekwondo, I was a little scared,” she said, via a translator. “But I chose to do it, by myself. I wanted to do it for self-defence.”
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The only time she misses training is when her mother asks for help with work. In high tourist season, they can make as much as US$10 (Dh36.7) per day. On such days, the need to work is more pressing than practicing taekwondo.
Rather than being a diversion, an enjoyable distraction of the type sport was invented to be, taekwondo has practical merit for her.
She received her chance from the Christina Noble Children’s Foundation (CNCF), a non-profit organisation committed to alleviating child poverty in Vietnam and Mongolia.
Located in District 3 of Ho Chi Minh City, it shares a site with what was formerly the main processing centre for orphans after the Vietnam War.
“The more time they spend on the streets, their chances of being abused are increased,” said Nguyen Bich Loan, CNCF’s art, sport and music coordinator.
“They are just children and are very vulnerable. With taekwondo, the first point is they know self-defence. That is why we chose it. The other reason is it makes the children physically fit.”
The organisation’s founder, Christina Noble, 70, lived first in an orphanage in her own childhood, then on the streets in Dublin after her mother died.
In nearly 25 years since she set up her foundation in Vietnam, the foundation estimates the effects of its work have impacted a million children and their families.
Health care, shelter and academic education are its most pressing concerns, but the charity sees sport as a vehicle for good, too. It devoted around $30,000 specifically to its sports project in 2014.
The Sunshine Sports Programme also focuses on football and badminton, but taekwondo, a martial art originally from Korea but highly popular in Vietnam, has been the most productive.
The taekwondo classes have around 40 students drawn from each section of the foundation. These are the Sunshine School — where Mai first studied — for primary age children, the Centre for Social Assistance for Disadvantaged Children and two shelters, one for 25 boys and the other for a similar number of girls.
Tran Thi Kim Lan is one of the successes of it. When she arrived at CNCF at age 10 in 2001, her father was earning 700,000 dong (Dh114) per month as a tricycle driver. Her mother was a domestic labourer making 50,000 dong per day.
Now 24 and having recently had a child of her own, Tran earns an income as a referee and coach of taekwondo, and she is a member of the Ho Chi Minh City Taekwondo Federation.
“Some children do really well in academic life, but for others, the drop-out rate is high,” Nguyen said. “For those, we try to direct them towards a career in sport. Sport was a way out for Lan. Studies and sport: each can be suitable routes for children.”
Part of the CNCF’s mission is to give children the means to develop beyond the social sphere into which they were born and create the opportunity to choose their own course.
As if to help prove the idea that education can help break the poverty cycle and bring about a positive upward change, Tran was also Mai’s first taekwondo coach and mentor.
“I remember Miss Mai when she had her first lesson,” Tran said, via a translator. “She was so shy. She was so little and small, and she was definitely afraid of fighting.”
Her coaches would be pleased if Mai followed the path of her mentor in taekwondo, but they realise she is lucky to have many other attributes, too.
“When we see our kids grow up and have a stable life, that makes us feel proud,” said Pham The Dung, CNCF’s sports assistant.
“In Vietnamese tradition, we very much focus on academic achievement, but we would be happy to see Miss Mai become an assistant to the taekwondo coach. That way she can earn some money and continue supporting herself.”
For now, though, Mai competes merely for the joy of sport. She is still a child, after all.
Her happiest moment was when she won a gold medal for the CNCF team — her coaches hoped she might win silver, at best — at a tournament in a province 60 kilometres from the centre of Ho Chi Minh City.
“When I compete in front of lots of people, I feel a little shaky because of nerves,” she said.
“I felt happy to win the gold. I keep my medal on my wall at home and have taken it around and shown everybody at school and in my neighbourhood.
“My mum was happy, but she didn’t say anything. You know when they are happy for you.”
*Editor’s note: The names of the children in this story have been changed to protect their identities
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