Where do the girls come from?

The girls come from a variety of backgrounds:  some are orphans, but most have one parent dead or gone and the other too poor or sick to look after them, or they have been abandoned, or maltreated by stepmothers.  Many were found sleeping in the Ba Chieu market and selling lottery tickets for a living.  One came from a family of seven who had come from the countryside and were camped in a one metre muddy space between two houses. Some were begging at railway stations or pagodas. Others were living on rubbish dumps scavenging and recycling rubbish, or living under canal bridges.  Some are referred by neighbours or by state social workers, or found by WOCA staff. 

What do they get at the Home?

Once they come to live in the Ba Chieu Home they have a house to live in, three meals a day, their own bed to sleep in, a safe environment with someone to look after them and they can go to school.  They inherit a lot of new sisters who look after them.  They have a full time home manager to care for them, Miss Yen and a cook, with visiting social workers who attend to their special needs.  Being able to go to school is very important as it gives them a future.