How Michael Brosowski is using his Master of Education to stop human trafficking

What began as a passion for teaching English as a second language led Michael Brosowski to found an NGO in Vietnam with a big mission – putting an end to human trafficking.

“I only have what I have in life because of the good luck of where I was born,” says Michael Brosowski. Growing up in rural New South Wales, Michael didn’t have a lot. His family was “very, very poor”. For years, they lived in caravans on a block of land, growing their own vegetables and collecting water from a nearby stream.

So, when Michael first travelled to Vietnam and saw children working on the streets to survive, the connection was immediate. “It was quite powerful for me to think that if I had been born in Vietnam, that almost certainly would have been what happened to me,” he says. “There’s no way I would have been able to continue school, just like the kids here.”

That realisation became the foundation for Blue Dragon Children’s Foundation, the NGO Michael founded in Hanoi in 2004, which provides education to victims of human trafficking, homelessness and child exploitation. Today, the organisation works across rescue, education, care and prevention – helping young people build safer futures while tackling the systems that put them at risk.

The beginning of a lifelong connection to Vietnam and ESL

Michael’s connection to Vietnam began long before Blue Dragon. As a teenager at a remote high school in north-west New South Wales, he met a group of Vietnamese refugee children.

“They ended up in this little country town where there were not many non-English speakers,” says Michael. “I got to know them and taught them some English, and that kind of really inspired me to be an ESL teacher.”

That early experience led Michael to study to become an ESL teacher at UNSW. Arriving on a city campus, however, was a world away from the life he had known.

“Being accepted into university and being able to walk onto the campus with its wonderful buildings and gardens, it was something that I maybe had never really thought that I would experience,” he says. “It was kind of over-awing at times.”

It took time to find his feet. But with support from UNSW, Michael began to settle into university life. “I had some really wonderful staff who I would go to and ask for help and guidance,” he says. “They always made things so easy and straightforward when I was having a panic attack about something.”

After graduating from UNSW in 1995, Michael taught English and ESL in south-western Sydney before returning to complete a Master of Education. While studying, he worked in UNSW’s Gifted Education Department. “I didn’t know much about gifted education beforehand – I thought it sounded elitist and like something I could never be a part of,” says Michael. But working in the department “shook my preconceived notions,” he adds.

When he started working with young people in Vietnam, he realised that, in another context, they may have been recognised and nurtured much earlier. “If they had been born in a different time, a different place, they would have been in the class for gifted children,” he says.

From street lessons to systemic change

In Blue Dragon’s early years, Michael was often learning as much as he was leading. He didn’t even speak Vietnamese when he first moved there. “Twenty-four years on, my Vietnamese is still street kid Vietnamese,” he laughs. “But I can communicate with the Blue Dragon kids, and that’s the most important thing.”

“I was totally out of my depth most of the time,” he says. “What did an Australian ESL teacher know about Vietnamese street kids or kids who’d been trafficked? So, I had to learn everything.” That meant learning by doing, often in situations where the stakes were high.

“Mistakes can be costly when someone’s relying on you,” he says. “But putting that effort in and seeing the change that happens in the lives of individuals and the broader community is really magical.”

In two decades, Blue Dragon has rescued more than 1,900 people from modern slavery, reunited more than 2,800 children and young adults with their families after trafficking or homelessness, and supported more than 7,600 children and teens to stay in school, training and university.

Today, the organisation has grown from a small group helping children on the streets of Hanoi into a 170-person NGO operating across Vietnam. Many of its staff have lived experience of the issues Blue Dragon addresses, including former street children and survivors of trafficking.

While Blue Dragon continues to work directly with children and families every day, its mission is evolving. The organisation is now focused on sharing what it has learned with government, civil society and other NGOs, with the aim of ending human trafficking in Vietnam.

“We’re conscious that we can’t reach every single person who needs help, but the Vietnamese government or Vietnamese civil society can. Other NGOs can be part of this, but not if we keep all this knowledge to ourselves. That’s what progress for all means to me.”

Progress is never a straight line

What began as English lessons for children on the streets of Hanoi has become a national effort to end human trafficking in Vietnam. Michael knows Blue Dragon’s story is still being written.

“If you had talked to me every five years throughout Blue Dragon’s history, every time you’d have heard a completely different story from me,” he says. “And in five years’ time, you might also be hearing another story.”

After more than 20 years with Blue Dragon, one of the biggest lessons Michael has learned is the need to take the long view. 

“I can't succeed every day in every case. Some of the kids we help need years and years and years before they're really okay. Some are absolutely great today but, and tomorrow something will go terribly wrong. Yet tomorrow can be completely different.”

Progress, after all, is never a straight line and that’s as true of one’s career as it is of Blue Dragon.

“You start at university thinking, ‘This is the direction I’m going in’,” he says. “And when you leave, you realise that actually, you don’t really know what’s going to happen, because you’re still learning who you are.”