Sim Chiyin

The Mean Streets of Vietnam

Tens of thousands of rural children live on the margins of Vietnam's cities, eking out a living shining shoes, selling postcards or pirated books, or trinkets. These children get on buses in their rural towns and head for the glittering cities to work, sending home the money they earn.

Like street children elsewhere, their menial jobs offer no prospects for the future and expose them to the immediate dangers of prostitution, drugs and crime.

Official statistics show that Vietnam has 21,000 street children, the bulk of them in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.

The pictures were shot for the Blue Dragon Children's Foundation, a Hanoi-based grassroots charity that helps street and other disadvantaged children break out of the poverty cycle. For updates, please bookmark its blog.

Chi Yin, a photographer with particular interest in social causes, first went to Hanoi in early 2004 to take pictures as a volunteer for Blue Dragon Children's Foundation. Struck by the life-changing work the charity was doing, she returned several times to take pictures which she hoped would tell the stories of kids and the charity. The images have been used in fundraising calendars and cards for Blue Dragon.

Photographer's Note: Names of the young people photographed have been shortened to protect their identities.