Thanks to the time and energy of Ryann Beck and the generosity of the Marquette International Law Society, Armed with a Paintbrush raised almost $600 at a pair of events at Marquette Law School. The first, an international food tasting, hosted a handful of nonprofit organizations. Attendees were asked to cast their ballots for the most worthy nonprofit, and AWAP earned the most votes. The second event was a cocktail party held exclusively to benefit AWAP by Marquette’s International Law Society.

Both events are signs of AWAP’s growing support. The money will be applied to AWAP’s continuing drive to raise $25,000 to open a permanent gallery and provide job-training to street children in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

To date, AWAP has raised $10,000 towards its goal. To lend your support, please visit the How You Can Help section of our website.

Vietnam has halted all adoptions to would-be American parents of Vietnamese children, CNN recently reported. The ban is in response to allegations made by the United States Embassy in Hanoi that some families were ”paid, tricked, or forced” into relinquishing their children.

The ban will put a premature end to an adoption agreement between the two countries. Applicants who have not yet been matched with a child will likely be left out in the cold, despite the time and money they’ve so far invested. It is uncertain when or if the program will be renewed.

Guatamala has also banned American adoptions in response to similar claims.

This news is a crushing blow to legitimite adoption agencies in Vietnam.  Last year, Americas adopted 828 Vietnamese children.

World Street Children News recently reported on the obstacles faced by organizations providing services to street children in Vietnam. The blog post reports on the following troubling issues:

• Despite the decline in the number of street children in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi, an influx of migrant children is complicating the methods by which the population is measured. Moreover, most of this decline is due to state institutionalization of street children, rather than adoption or family reunions

• The pace at which the measures of the international conference on the rights of children the government signed onto in 1999 is not keeping up with the needs of street children. Consequently, most street children do not possess birth certificates, barring them from government work, university, and even access to care at hospitals. These barriers are feeding the cycle of low-wage work and poverty.

• Organizations providing care to street children are still not allowed to build networks, preventing them from sharing resources and anecdotal evidence to provide better service.

To contribute to Armed with a Paintbrush’s ongoing donation drive to fund job-training and scholarship programs, please visit the How You Can Help section of our website. Or to provide immediate support to our partner organizations serving street children (and to put a smile on an artist’s face!), buy a painting from our online store.

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Along with the charitable work we do with disadvantaged youth in Vietnam, Armed with a Paintbrush also supports a comprehensive peace accord between Myspace and Facebook users. So to do our part, we’ve set up simultaneous outposts on both fronts of the social networking divide.

Over on Facebook, you can show your support for AWAP by joining our Cause. By doing so, you can help recruit members and raise money towards opening an AWAP gallery in Ho Chi Minh City. Myspacers can help spread the word about AWAP by becoming our friend (and placing us in your top friends list for maximum exposure!).

Join our cause. Become our friend. Here’s hoping for a one-state solution in social networking’s future.

Hey there and welcome to the Armed with a Paintbrush blog! If you’ve found us, you’re likely one of our long-time supporters. Otherwise, you’ve got a lot of passion for helping out disadvantaged Vietnamese youth and some remarkably accurate search engine skills.

So in the case you don’t know that Armed with a Paintbrush is a charitable non-profit established to support organizations that serve disadvantaged and displaced youth in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, it is. How do we go about our work? By running painting classes for Saigon’s street kids and helping them sell their artwork, the proceeds of which go to our partner organizations, all of which provide services to our artists.

So whether you’re a new or old friend of AWAP, we hope you’ll swing by often to catch up on the latest development news, samples of our artists’ newest work, and other resources to keep you educated about and provide you with an outlet to aid the youth we serve.