[Impact Update] Cattle Banks: Transforming The Lives Of Families In Ethnic Minority Communities

During the AusCham Golf Scramble event celebrated in September 2020, generous members of AusCham donated a total of 52,270,000 VND to fund cattle banks for poor families in remote communities of northern Vietnam. Your willingness to help disadvantaged communities to turn their lives around has made a huge difference.  This update outlines some of the incredible impacts resulting from your generosity.

Transforming the lives for poor families from ethnic communities

Ha Giang and Dien Bien provinces are among the poorest and least populated areas in northern Vietnam. This, along with the long border both provinces share with China, makes them hotspots for human trafficking. A large part of the population in these two provinces are ethnic minority communities such as H’mong, Thai and Dao. Since 2019, Blue Dragon has been working to provide livestock for families from ethnic minority communities living in extreme poverty. To carry out this trafficking prevention initiative, Blue Dragon collaborates with the local women’s group and the families. Because of the mountainous terrain and the heavy rainfall in this area, cows, pigs and goats are the best suited animals to raise in Dien Bien and Ha Giang.

The support is provided through a ‘cattle bank’ model, whereby recipients raise the farm animals and when the animals have offspring a few months later, some of those calves, kids and piglets are given to other poor families to continue that cycle. The remaining offspring is sold, and the income generated from those sales helps entire villages to secure their daily needs, keep their children in school and prevent trafficking in persons. Thanks to the support from generous members of AusCham, the first cattle distribution in October ensured 47 families had cows, goats and pigs to raise. At the moment, 6 months after the first distributions, an additional 30 families in Dien Bien and Ha Giang have benefited from the cattle banks without any additional funding. The income generated selling cattle has already been used to repair the houses of several families, buy food for the families and pay for children’s school fees. Click HERE to view the full Impact Update. www.bluedragon.org

To date, Blue Dragon has:

Rescued 1008 people from trafficking

Represented 122 people in court cases

Sent 5,273 kids back to school & training

Provided shelter to 1133 girls & boys

Placed 353 teens in jobs

Served 599,539 meals

Built 125 homes for families

Reunited 611 runaways with their families

Obtained legal papers for 13,515 people

Played 3,077 games of soccer!