A good outcome

Thien Nhan is getting "back on his foot" following his latest round of surgeryin Hanoi. The 5-year-old is healing well and is in good spirits.

All of the 31 other boys who underwent genital surgery at the Hanoi Paediatrics Hospital have also returned home to their families. The all-volunteer surgical team, which included Italian, American and Vietnamese specialists, were pleased with the outcomes of all 32 operations.

Fundraising is now underway to raise money for another 60+ Vietnamese boys to receive surgery to repair or rebuild damaged or malformed genitals.

Bubbas for the Holidays

In time for Christmas, Bubbafish soft toys -- 100% of profits go to Thien Nhan -- are now available at OUT-2 Studio, Fafilm Annex, 6 Thai Van Lung Street, D.1, HCM City, and at Breeze, on the corner of Nha Tho & Nha Chung Streets (in front of the cathedral) in Hanoi.

Bubbafish toys were sold at 3 Christmas fairs in HCMC (SSIS, The Deck & BIS) and 1 in Hanoi (Craftlink), raising more than VND25 million for Thien Nhan. Special thanks to Ms. Jessica and the three lovely Filipinna ladies who helped at Bubbafish's BIS booth on Dec. 5th.

Also thanks to SmartKids Preschool in Thao Dien, HCM City, which supported Thien Nhan by buying gifts for their smallest students from Bubbafish.

Saigon Reunion

Following an eventful Friday morning marching to promote traffic safety in Saigon, Thien Nhan, his parents and big brother Little Minh enjoyed a festive dinner with some of Thien Nhan's loyal supporters in HCM City. Some 30 people attended this gathering.

On Saturday, Thien Nhan's mom Mai Anh met with Greig Craft and Na Huong of the Asia Injury Prevention Foundation, Son Michael Pham of Kids Without Borders and Elke Ray of Bubbafish toys to map out fundraising activities for Thien Nhan over the coming months.


In preparation for Christmas, Elke and Mai Anh will be selling Bubbafish toys at various shops and markets in Vietnam, while Son Michael Pham is working on offering these cute toys in the USA. As well as employing deaf and disadvantaged female workers, Bubbafish uses a percentage of sales to fund Thien Nhan's medical care and to support other child-related projects in Vietnam. If anyone has leads to toy distributors/retail outlets overseas, Team Thien Nhan would love to hear from you! A small selection of bubbafish toys may be seen at http://www.bubbafish.com/

(The photo shows Greig Craft holding Thien Nhan, who slept through lunch.)

Stretch & Shop!

As well as leaving you fit, energized and relaxed, tomorrow's Saigon Yoga Mala is a fantastic way to support Thien Nhan! Starting at 3pm, Nicky Poole of Breathing Room Yoga and other international volunteer yoga teachers will lead participants through a series of 108 sun salutations. Entry is via donation, with all proceeds going to support Thien Nhan.

To raise further funds for this special child, Elke Ray will be on hand to sell bubbafish toys. Founded and co-owned by Elke and Thien Nhan's adoptive mom Mai Anh, bubbafish produces quirky, handmade soft toys and baby accessories. Since 30% percent of bubbafish sales at the Yoga Mala will go to the Help Thien Nhan Fund, why not buy your Christmas presents early this year? This is your first chance to buy bubbafish's newest characters like Gertie the Goat (above, $10).

Where: Dancenter, 46/2 Nguyen Cuu Van, Binh Thanh District, HCM City

When: Sunday, September 21st, 3pm (but come early for check-in)

Contact: nicky@breathingroomyoga.com

Magical Evening

Thien Nhan is still smiling about his second birthday party, which was everything that a little boy could dream of. A beautiful birthday cake, sumptous buffet, baloons, gifts, and even a magician helped to make the night perfect. Many thanks to the Le Club for their generosity, and to everyone who contributed to the VND80 million (US$4,770) raised at this magical event!

No scam

We received an email from Bruce Travis, accusing us of running a scam. Read on to learn Bruce's concerns and our reply:

From: Bruce Travis [XXXX@gmail.com]
Sent: Friday, May 09, 2008 10:50 AM
To: thien
Subject: Re: Disabled Baby Charity

Who are you trying to kid?You should get real. This is not how people go about raising funds for injured children. And there is no surgical procedure on the planet that costs $150'000 in Viet Nam. I suspect that you people are scam artists.

OUR REPLY:
From: elkeray@yahoo.com
To: xxxx@gmail.com, thien , MaiAnh Tran ,
Subject: helping thien nhan

Dear Bruce,

While there are many scams out there, this isn’t one of them. If you read through our blog at http://help-thien-nhan.blogspot.com/ you’ll discover the extent of this child’s injuries. His story was covered extensively by the local and foreign press. See a recent AFP story here: http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/080411/world/vietnam_society_child_people

Our fundraising target of $150,000 is an estimate at best. A hospital in Thailand has quoted $5,000 (excluding doctor fees, which the surgeons have offered to waive) for the dilation of his urethra. We are now waiting to hear back from a hospital in Boston, which has expertise in this field. But the urethral dilation is just the first, simple step to recovery. So far, no doctors have been willing to even guess at the cost of rebuilding a sensate, functional penis. We have based our fundraising goal on the cost of sex change surgery (female to male). Thien Nhan’s case is obviously more complicated than these procedures.

Given that phallic reconstruction remains groundbreaking, our goal of $150,000 seems conservative. As for doing it in Vietnam, there's no way. While American researchers have grown rabbit penis cells, according to this 2006 article -- http://www.webmd.com/news/20060523/lab-grown-replacement-penis-in-future -- trials in humans remain “a long way off”. And the world’s first (and only) penis transplant took place in 2006; see http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2006/sep/18/medicineandhealth.china

If you, or anyone you know, has any expertise in genital reconstruction, hormone replacement or prosthetics, we’d love your input.

Thanks,

Elka Ray & Tran Mai Anh