Safe shelter and happy home for abandoned children
The pagoda, which is located at No. 201A, Group 2, Ward 7 in
Despite being abandoned by their parents, the children here still have a happy family with love and care, and of course, grandma Hien. She has brought them up since they were just new-borns.
“I was also abandoned as a child, so I can understand the children better than anyone else,” grandma Hien said. “No one can replace a parent in a family but I always try my best to compensate for them.”
She recalled the first time she received a baby in May 2003. “As usual, I was coming to tidy up the pagoda when I saw a young woman sitting at the gate, holding a newborn baby in her arms. She cried and begged me to bring up her child because its father and family did not accept it.”
With the consent of superior monk Thich Nhat Quang, grandma Hien has by now received 13 children from their parents with that same compassion. She gave all of them the same mid-name: “Le” which means tear.
“The children’s mothers all share the same situation: poor, young and unmarried,” Hien continued. “Their boyfriends left them when they got pregnant and because of old-fashioned misconceptions, the think they must give the child away in order to have better chance of getting married. Some of them cannot support children”
Gandma Hien shares that raising this big family is no easy work but she is happy watching them growing up healthy and happy everyday. “I can see my childhood in them because I was also sent to pagoda when I was 4,” she said. “They are very cute and sometimes my tiredness is washed away with just their smiles.”Hien carefully keeps profile of each child, including photos, address, and date, so that when they grow up they can find their parents if they want.
“We are trying to bring them up and give them the best we can,” superior monk Thich Nhat Quang said. “When they grow up, some may want to stay here with us, others will leave, but we only hope that they will become good people.”
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