Blue Dragon NZThe Trust held its annual Film Fundraiser on Sunday 9 November at Wellington’s Penthouse Cinema. We had a record number attending and managed to almost fill two theatres, raising more than $5000 for the Blue Dragon Children’s Foundation in Vietnam.
.jpg "one of the two cinemas filled")
Trustee Sue Gifford introduced the evening, noting it was our 14th film fundraiser. Some people donate without coming to the event and of course many people buy a raffle ticket, which all adds to such a great result.
Sue reminded the audience that the Trust has been supporting the Blue Dragon Children’s Foundation in Hanoi for 15 years and that when the remarkable Australian Michael Brosowski set up the organisation in Hanoi in 2004, the New Zealand Embassy there quickly became involved.
Ambassador James Kember’s wife, Alison, volunteered to teach girls at the drop-in centre and that’s how we became involved. Alison encouraged her friends to contemplate holidays in Vietnam, to visit Blue Dragon’s centre in Hanoi. Several of our current trustees did so and came back inspired to set up a New Zealand Trust to help Blue Dragon.
Support from four Wellington schools
Here's more from Sue’s talk.
“Each year we are sending around $60,000 to $80,000 for Blue Dragon to use as it sees fit. Mostly this amount is raised through direct donations to the Trust’s bank account but we are also grateful that four Wellington schools – Wellington College, Wellington Girls Interact Club, Hutt International Boys School and Scots College – have all chosen Blue Dragon as their charity to support.
“They raise such a lot through their own fundraising endeavours, and these young people are learning valuable knowledge about giving and gifting to the global community.
Can you help with our book fair?
“The Trust’s biggest fundraiser is the annual Blue Dragon Book Fair held in the Ngaio Town Hall around April/May. We are still waiting on confirmation of the date for 2026 but hoping it will be on 18 -19 April.
“If anyone wants to help with this fun and busy fair, please let us know. Any help is welcome. It’s a great book fair and at least one secondhand book dealer thinks it’s the best in New Zealand. “We are in constant contact with Michael and his team at Blue Dragon in Hanoi. They always let us know what they are working on and we can see on their website too that they are very productive.
"A very human charity"
"The Blue Dragon philosophy is that every child has the potential to thrive. They put their motto into practice and at the bottom of every email we receive from Hanoi, we can see their results. So to date they have:
- rescued 1,901 people from trafficking
- represented 355 people in Court
- sent more than 7000 kids back to school and training
- provided shelter to 2048 girls and boys
- served more than 700,000 meals at the centre
- built 305 homes for families
- reunited 887 runaways with their families
- obtained legal papers for 13,604 people
- played 3,761 games of soccer.
“We love that last statistic – this is a very human charity.”
Sue concluded by thanking everyone for coming to the film. After the raffle was drawn, we watched a short video provided by Blue Dragon in Hanoi, with Michael expressing his personal thanks to our audience.
After the screening of Not Only Fred Dagg but Also John Clarke, people left the theatre with a smile on their faces, their hearts uplifted by the story of a very funny, kind and comic genius.