A Plea for Help for Hai and Yen

By Margaret Sheard

We bumped into Steve Sydenham Snr at the new market in the Alsancak Lemar car park and he told us a very sad story and his efforts to help an exploited Vietnamese couple.

It seems that the couple, Hai and Yen, came to North Cyprus from Vietnam to try and make a better life for themselves and their 6 year old son who was staying with his grandmother in Vietnam until such time they could send for him to join them here.

Steve told us that the couple thought they had a legal job at Bamboo Beach, where they worked extremely hard, but when Al August Jnr. decided to flee from North Cyprus, they discovered they had been conned and had not been made legal workers and in fact they were not paid either. Hai and Yen have been left high and dry, stranded with no means of support.

There are others who have lost a lot of money with the failure of Bamboo Beach Club but hopefully they will be able to recover but for Hai and Yen this is not the case. What a terrible experience they have had here. They have managed to scrape together enough money for Hai to fly back to Vietnam but this leaves Yen with nothing and no means to be able to support herself.

Steve Sydenham Snr is pretty incensed about this whole situation and has vowed to help Yen to get back to her family in Vietnam. He has therefore organised a fun evening on Monday the 19th August at the Habana Pool Bar at Santoria Village from 6pm till late. The sole aim of this evening is to attempt to raise enough money to get Yen home safe and sound to her little boy. Steve has 5 children and he cannot even begin to imagine being parted from any of his children when they were at that tender age and it brings tears to his eyes when he thinks of the diabolical situation this couple have been left to face. In the event that more than the fare required is raised, the surplus funds will be given to Yen to help give them a bit of breathing space once she is home and also to buy something nice from everyone for her little lad.

Steve is asking all of you to help, not only to come and join him for the evening, but to also bring with you a couple of items of your choosing to go into a raffle, a tombola stall and if there is enough left over there will also be a bring and buy stall. Anything to raise a bit of cash. It doesn’t matter what you bring. It doesn’t have to be expensive but you will be dead chuffed to win a bottle of plonk or anything else, whatever it may be, for a good cause.

Rebecca & Gary, who used to do the teas & coffees at Bamboo Beach, now do the catering at Santoria and have offered to do a chilli (and if you had one at Bamboo you will know how good they are) for 15tl per person and have kindly offered to donate 20% of the takings for the evening to the fund. In addition they are kicking off the prize fund with a donation of a crate of wine.

You will find a wide selection of drinks available at the Habana Bar and at very reasonable prices too. Currently on offer there is Heineken and Carling at 4TL, John Smiths, Strongbow and Efes at 5TL, and just in – McCaffrey’s. So something to suit all tastes.

If you are planning to enjoy a nice chilli on the night, please make   contact with  rebecca.hughes55@yahoo.co.uk so that they will have an idea of the numbers to cater for on the night. Hopefully there will be lots of people there to help Yen to be able to make her homeward journey

Breaking News:  We have been informed by Steve that a 300TL donation has been made, all will be revealed on the night!  So they are well on the way to getting Yen safely back to Vietnam to her husband and little boy.   Thank you to the kind person who has made this donation.

More good news received on 9th August :

“We are to receive another 300TL donation, kindly donated by the Little Kyrenia Society.

So to date we have nearly 700TL towards our minimum target of 1500TL  with the evening fund raiser still to come.”