The Journal of ERW and Mine Action Issue 16.1 by The Center for International Stabilization and Recovery

I s s ue16. 1S pr i ng2012

Azerbaijan National Agency for Mine Action (Issue 16.1)

Table of Contents

Editorial

Focus

Special Report

1/21/16, 11:16 AM

Notes

Book Reviews

Briefs

Country Profiles

Past Issues

CISR Home

Azerbaijan National Agency for Mine Action open pdf of this article In 1994, hostilities between Armenian forces and the Azerbaijani military ceased. Although a lasting peace agreement is still being negotiated, this ending marked the beginning of a long process of landmine and unexploded-ordnance removal in the region bordering Armenia. In 1999, the Government of Azerbaijan and the United Nations Development Programme signed an agreement that established the Azerbaijan Mine Action Programme to deal with landmine and unexploded ordnance clearance. The implementing agency of the Azerbaijan Mine Action Programme is the Azerbaijan National Agency for Mine Action, which is responsible for the planning, coordination, management and monitoring of all mine-action activities in Azerbaijan. ANAMA’s goal is “to create indigenous capacity to undertake survey, mapping and clearance in currently liberated areas and to prepare for dealing with the UXO problem in occupied areas after their liberation.”1 To understand the extent of Azerbaijan’s contamination, ANAMA undertook a Landmine Impact Survey from September 2002 to June 2003. The survey identified more than 736 million square meters (284 square miles) of contaminated land. However, the government ordered a re-survey in 2006, which reduced this figure to 306 million square meters (118 sq. mi.) of land. At the end of 2009, clearance and land-release operations led to the safe return of almost half this land; ANAMA now estimates only 184 million square meters (45,467 acres) of land are suspected-hazard areas—land likely contaminated with landmines and/or UXO. However, these numbers only include land occupied by Azerbaijani forces, and ANAMA suspects land occupied by Armenian forces is contaminated with 50,000–100,000 landmines.2

http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Focus/anama.shtml

Page 1 of 4

Azerbaijan National Agency for Mine Action (Issue 16.1)

1/21/16, 11:16 AM

ANAMA’s Principles ANAMA seeks to make Azerbaijani land safe for the return of internally displaced persons and recognizes that minefree land is crucial for the development of agriculture, commerce and infrastructure. Headquartered in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, ANAMA maintains two regional offices, three operational centers and employs a 602-person staff. Its projects focus on three main areas similar to the strategies of many mine-action organizations: clearance and land release, mine-risk education and mine-victim assistance.1 In all three areas, ANAMA operates according to the following principles: 1. Safety. Safety is the overriding principle and refers to the safety of deminers in the field and of civilians returning to their land after clearance. To protect both groups, ANAMA always adheres to the International Mine Action Standards as well as Azerbaijan’s national mine-action standards, which are consistent with IMAS. 2. Effectiveness. This principle refers to the degree to which clearance operations achieve their desired outcomes. ANAMA ensures this effectiveness through “systematic data gathering and processing, considering community needs, [and] adherence to national mine action prioritization criteria.”3 ANAMA also seeks open consultation and coordination with development and aid organizations, by which it can track its successes and remedy its failures. 3. Efficiency. Efficiency refers to the cost-effectiveness of clearance operations in Azerbaijan. ANAMA always works to enhance training, set realistic priorities and goals, improve operational procedures and strategically allocate resources.3 ANAMA Operations In the area of clearance, ANAMA made a great deal of progress, clearing and releasing 131,111,423 square meters (50.62 sq. mi.) of minefields and 52,504,256 square meters (20.27 sq. mi.) of battle areas. From this land, 241 antipersonnel landmines, 424 anti-tank mines and 665,201 items of UXO were recovered and destroyed. ANAMA estimates that these clearance operations directly benefitted around 100,000 civilians, who can begin rebuilding their communities and economies.1 ANAMA’s Special Operations Team continues operations in the former ammunitions-storage area in the Qaradagh region of Baku, which accidentally exploded in 1991, scattering thousands of UXO pieces throughout the surrounding areas.4 In August 2011, the Special Operations Team started battle-area clearance in the territory called Kirdagh Mud Volcano, a state resort near former Soviet military-testing areas. One of the UXO-contaminated territories inherited by Azerbaijan from the Soviet era is a testing and training base for military forces of the former Soviet Union located in the Jeyranchel area and intensively used from 1955 to 1991. This contaminated area of 64 million square meters (24.71 sq. mi.) poses a serious humanitarian, socioeconomic and environmental threat to the local population. After relevant negotiations and project preparation, the Jeyranchel Clearance Project was approved in October 2011 as the second NATO Partnership for Peace Trust Fund project in Azerbaijan. The U.S. is the lead nation for the project, and the Azerbaijan Government contributes 50 percent of the total project budget.Â The first phase of the project, anticipated to begin in the first quarter of 2012, involves clearance of UXO and mines from 19 million square meters (7.34 sq. mi.)over a period of 28 months.5 In Azerbaijan, ANAMA works to develop a national MRE capacity; integrate MRE into school curriculums, especially in mine-affected districts; and implement community-based MRE projects. Through 123 MRE training sessions, 2,335 teachers from 1,200 schools have learned techniques for instructing students about landmine dangers since 2004. As a result of this increased national capacity, more than 52,000 secondary school students receive MRE annually. Community-based MRE projects were also very successful at engaging local leaders, who organized awareness-training sessions, community discussions and MRE meetings attended by more than 37,064 residents attended. As a result of its MRE program’s success within Azerbaijan, ANAMA has expanded its mission throughout the region and has conducted and supported MRE in Afghanistan, Georgia and Tajikistan. Within the framework of the Azerbaijan Government’s initiative on nonmilitary assistance to Afghanistan, 25,500 MRE textbooks, translated into Dari by Afghan specialists, have been presented to the Afghanistan Department of Mine Clearance.6 In addition, ANAMA conducts landmine victim-assistance activities. ANAMA undertook one such project, The Community Based Small Business Trainings and Micro-credit Revolving Fund for Azerbaijan Mine Survivors, funded by http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Focus/anama.shtml

Page 2 of 4

Azerbaijan National Agency for Mine Action (Issue 16.1)

1/21/16, 11:16 AM

the Austrian Development Agency and the governments of Azerbaijan, Korea and Slovenia. Azerbaijan has more than 1,800 mine victims, many of whom suffer social and economic woes from their injuries. At the end of its first phase in November 2009, the program had helped 38 mine victims and 14 widows of victims to secure microcredit loans to begin small businesses.7 Now in its final phase, which began in May 2011, the microcredit program has provided 88 victims and their’ families with more than US$112,686 to finance small business and agricultural investments. In the future, ANAMA hopes to provide these victims and their families with vocational training in computer systems, Englishlanguage skills, tailoring and hairdressing.5 The Future ANAMA aims to “promote, plan and implement a safe, effective and efficient national mine action programme in Azerbaijan in order to remove the threat of landmines and explosive devices.”8 The program works to cultivate its capacity for planning, coordinating and managing all mine/UXO-related activities with donor help, including the Government of Azerbaijan, the Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement in the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs (PM/WRA), UNDP, the European Commission and the NATO Partnership for Peace fund.7 With ongoing support, ANAMA hopes to enable Azerbaijani citizens to continue rebuilding their homes, communities and futures through clearance, education and assistance. ~ Jeremiah Smith, CISR staff TOP OF PAGE

Contact Information ANAMA 60, Ibrahimpasha Dadashev str. Baku AZ1108 / Azerbaijan Tel: +994 12 97 38 51 Fax: +994 12 97 44 27 Website: http://anama.gov.az/ Email: anama@anama.gov.az Center for International Stabilization and Recovery James Madison University MSC4902 Harrisonburg, VA 22807 / USA Email: cisr@jmu.edu http://cisr.jmu.edu

TOP OF PAGE

Endnotes 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

“About.” ANAMA. http://www.anama.gov.az/index_en.htm. Accessed 25 January 2012. “Scope of the Problem.” ANAMA. http://www.anama.gov.az/index_en.htm. Accessed 25 January 2012. “ANAMA Principles.” ANAMA. http://www.anama.gov.az/index_en.htm. Accessed 25 January 2012. “Demining.” ANAMA. http://anama.gov.az/pages/demining.htm. Accessed 8 February 2012. Sabina Sarkarova. Email correspondence with ANAMA Planning and Development Department senior officer. 8 February 2012. 6. “Azerbaijan Mine Risk Education Program.” ANAMA. http://www.anama.gov.az/index_en.htm. Accessed 25 January 2012. 7. “Mine Victim Assistance, one of the pillars of the Humanitarian Mine Action.” ANAMA. http://www.anama.gov.az/index_en.htm. Accessed 25 January 2012. http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Focus/anama.shtml

Page 3 of 4

Azerbaijan National Agency for Mine Action (Issue 16.1)

1/21/16, 11:16 AM

8. “ANAMA Work Plan.” ANAMA. http://www.anama.gov.az/index_en.htm. Accessed 25 January 2012. 9. “Donors and Implementing Partners.” ANAMA. http://www.anama.gov.az/index_en.htm. Accessed 25 January 2012.

The Journal of ERW & Mine Action is sponsored by:

© 2012 All rights reserved. The Journal of ERW and Mine Action, Center for International Stabilization and Recovery at James Madison University. MSC 4902 Harrisonburg, VA / USA 22807 | Email: cisr@jmu.edu If cited properly, short sections (a sentence or two) can be used without permission. Written Journal of ERW and Mine Action approval is required, however, before longer sections of content published in The Journal may be used by another source or publication. ISSN 2154-1485 Past Issues * CISR Home * Subscribe

http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Focus/anama.shtml

Page 4 of 4

Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining (16.1)

Table of Contents

Editorial

Focus

Special Report

1/21/16, 11:17 AM

Notes

Book Reviews

Briefs

Country Profiles

Past Issues

CISR Home

Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining open pdf of this article The Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Deminingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mission is to serve as a leading center of mine-action excellence, and to help States Parties implement the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-personnel Mines and on Their Destruction (also known as the Anti-personnel Mine Ban Convention or APMBC), the Convention on Cluster Munitions and other relevant instruments of humanitarian law. GICHD bridges the gaps between research, lessons learned and practice. It promotes evidence-based policies and develops standards, making mine action faster, cheaper, safer, more effective, sustainable and inclusive. Following extensive consultation with partners, GICHD published a new strategy for 2012â&#x20AC;&#x201C;2014. It focuses on two strategic objectives: (1) global clarity on explosive hazards and (2) high-performing national authorities and national ownership. The first strategic objective is centered on accelerating progress toward a complete and accurate understanding of the extent of the explosive-hazards problem, and of the impact on countries, communities and people. To achieve this, GICHD supports partner countries in adopting effective survey and reporting methods, implementing sound information-management practices and documenting both the impact of contamination from explosives and mine-action results. High-performing national authorities and national ownership are the focus of the second strategic objective. Achieving results and documenting success requires a clear understanding of costs and benefits, planned and delivered. GICHD activities enhance the capacities of partner countries in designing and implementing program-based resourceallocation systems to improve performance, based on decision-support and quality-management solutions at operational and strategic levels. GICHD activities in support of these two objectives are undertaken through several programs which support national mine-action authorities in their strategic management, operations and information-management efforts, along with support to the International Mine Action Standards and international law, including extensive outreach activities. GICHD has 50 staff members from many countries, funding from 12 governments and several organizations, and visits

http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Focus/gichd.shtml

Page 1 of 3

Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining (16.1)

1/21/16, 11:17 AM

approximately 70 countries per year, while working very closely with partner organizations to achieve its goals. Composed by Lesley Macinnes-Gillies, Head of Communications, Deputy Support Director GICHD with assistance from Megan Reichert, CISR staff. TOP OF PAGE

Contact Information Lesley Macinnes-Gillies Head of Communications and Deputy Support Director GICHD 7bis, avenue de la Paix PO Box 1300 1211 Geneva / Switzerland Tel: +41 (0) 22 906 1660 Fax: + 41 (0) 22 906 1690 Email: info@gichd.org Website: http://gichd.org Center for International Stabilization and Recovery James Madison University MSC4902 Harrisonburg, VA 22807 / USA Email: cisr@jmu.edu http://cisr.jmu.edu

< TOP OF PAGE

The Journal of ERW & Mine Action is sponsored by:

ÂŠ 2012 All rights reserved. The Journal of ERW and Mine Action, Center for International Stabilization and Recovery at James Madison University. MSC 4902 Harrisonburg, VA / USA 22807 | Email: cisr@jmu.edu If cited properly, short sections (a sentence or two) can be used without permission. Written Journal of ERW and Mine Action approval is required, however, before longer sections of content published in The Journal may be used by another source or publication. ISSN 2154-1485

http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Focus/gichd.shtml

Page 2 of 3

The Halo Trust (16.1)

Table of Contents

Editorial

1/21/16, 11:17 AM

Focus

Special Report

Notes

Book Reviews

Briefs

Country Profiles

Past Issues

CISR Home

The HALO Trust open pdf of this article In 1988, following the withdrawal of Soviet Forces from Afghanistan, Guy Willoughby established The Hazardous Area Lifesupport Organization Trust—commonly known as The HALO Trust —a nonprofit organization dedicated to clearing explosive and hazardous remnants of war.1 Twenty-four years later, the organization is one of the world’s largest humanitarian demining organizations. HALO employs more than 8,000 full-time staff in numerous mine-affected areas across Central Asia, Southeast Asia, the Horn of Africa, Southern Africa and Eastern Europe.2 HALO also recently signed an agreement to begin work in areas of Colombia where violence has subsided. The organization’s operations include landmine removal, unexploded-ordnance destruction and weapons-and-ammunition disposal (known as WAD).1 HALO also provides sustainable economic development for local populations. HALO currently has just 28 expatriate staff based overseas—giving a ratio of 1 expatriate to 285 local staff. This is achieved by an organizational ethos of genuinely developing local management skills. Ongoing Projects In 2011, HALO completed surveys and clearance of all 336 known mined areas in Abkhazia, Georgia and announced that the region is now mine-free. In these efforts, HALO employed 530 local deminers and destroyed 9,788 landmines and 48,998 UXO items. The organization continues supporting the Abkhazia Mine Action Office, which will handle any remaining spot tasks to remove UXO found later and maintain records and data on the history and progression of Abkhazia’s mine-action efforts.4 Following the end of the war in Sri Lanka in 2009, HALO dramatically increased local staff to greater than 1,000 deminers, including more than 700 recently returned internally displaced people and 200 females.5 This emphasis on local employment offers an important economic boon for war-torn Sri Lanka, providing an opportunity for Sri Lankans uprooted by the conflict to earn a living while rebuilding their communities. Over the past nine years, HALO has http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Focus/halo.shtml

Page 1 of 3

The Halo Trust (16.1)

1/21/16, 11:17 AM

cleared more than four million square meters (988 acres) of mined land in Sri Lanka, including playgrounds, medical facilities, paddy fields, roads, homes, temples and fishing jetties. In a press release dated 20 August 2011, HALO announced that its deminers had cleared the 100,000th landmine in Sri Lanka, a mark of major progress in the struggle toward a mine-free Sri Lanka.6 In Afghanistan, HALO’s mine-clearance program is the oldest and largest in the world. Since its inception in 1988, HALO Afghanistan has expanded to employ in excess of 3,750 Afghans, including more than 200 demining teams focusing on battle-area clearance, WAD and explosive-ordnance disposal, as well as an operational support staff. Through regime changes and occasional heavy fighting in the 1990’s, HALO continued operation, clearing more than 736,000 mines and destroying 10 million items of large caliber ammunition and 45.6 million bullets.7 HALO calls on the international community for continued focus on the scourge of Afghanistan’s landmines, noting that the country had 4,270 mine and explosive remnants of war victims between 2004 and 2009, and will continue to have such losses in years to come if mines and UXO are not cleared.8 Current Situation HALO also conducts mine clearance and other post-conflict recovery efforts in Angola, the Nagorno Karabakh Region of Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Colombia, Georgia, Kosovo, Mozambique, the Occupied Palestinian Territories and Somaliland. In October 2007, HALO completed its clearance operations in northern Mozambique and is now expanding its staff and services to the southern provinces for the creation of 20 new demining sections.9 Although HALO receives substantial support from the public, it also receives support from many governments, including the United States, the United Kingdom and Japan; institutional donors, including the European Commission, UNICEF, the United Nations Mine Action Service and the United Nations Development Programme; and private organizations.10 HALO hopes to continue expanding its operations to other mine- and UXO-contaminated regions. ~ Jeremiah Smith, CISR staff TOP OF PAGE

Contact Information The HALO Trust P.O. Box 7905 Thornhill DG3 5BF / UK Email: mail@halotrust.org Website: http://halotrust.org/ Center for International Stabilization and Recovery James Madison University MSC4902 Harrisonburg, VA 22807 / USA Email: cisr@jmu.edu http://cisr.jmu.edu

TOP OF PAGE

Endnotes 1. “History.” HALO Trust. http://www.halotrust.org/about/history.aspx. Accessed 31 January 2012. 2. “Home.” HALO Trust. http://www.halotrust.org/home/index.aspx. Accessed 31 January 2012. http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Focus/halo.shtml

Page 2 of 3

The Halo Trust (16.1)

1/21/16, 11:17 AM

3. “Training.” HALO Trust. http://www.halotrust.org/about/training.aspx. Accessed 31 January 2012. 4. “Abkhazia Achieves Mine Free Status - 3 November 2011.” HALO Trust. http://www.halotrust.org/media/ news/abkhazia_achieves_mine_free_status.aspx. Accessed 31 January 2012. 5. “HALO Sri Lanka now employs over 1,000 national staff.” HALO Trust. 16 September 2011. http://www.halotrust.org/media/news/sri_lanka_1000_national_staff.aspx. Accessed 31 January 2012. 6. “HALO Trust’s Sri Lankan deminers clear 100,000th mine.” HALO Trust. 22 August 2011. http://www.halotrust.org/media/news/sri_lanka_100000th_mine.aspx. Accessed 31 January 2012. 7. “Afghanistan: The solution.” HALO Trust. http://www.halotrust.org/ operational_areas/central_asia/afghanistan/solution.aspx. Accessed 31 January 2012. 8. “Afghanistan: Requirement for continued clearance.” HALO Trust. http://www.halotrust.org/ operational_areas/central_asia/afghanistan/requirements.aspx. Accessed 31 January 2012. 9. “Mozambique: Requirement for continued clearance.” HALO Trust. http://www.halotrust.org/ operational_areas/southern_africa/mozambique/requirements.aspx. Accessed 31 January 2012.

The Journal of ERW & Mine Action is sponsored by:

http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Focus/halo.shtml

Page 3 of 3

The Humpty Dumpty Institute (16.1)

Table of Contents

Editorial

1/21/16, 11:18 AM

Focus

Special Report

Notes

Book Reviews

Briefs

Country Profiles

Past Issues

CISR Home

The Humpty Dumpty Institute open pdf of this article In 1998, a group of business entrepreneurs came together with a desire to tackle some of the world’s leading humanitarian problems. They developed the Humpty Dumpty Institute as a way to find creative solutions to global issues, such as explosive remnants of war and food security.1 True to its tagline, HDI is “putting the pieces back together” through unique public-private partnerships and development programs. HDI also encourages dialogue between the United Nations and the United States Congress to support mine-action programs around the world and help alleviate hunger.1 HDI has partnered with The HALO Trust, International Relief and Development, UXO Lao, Project RENEW, Land O’Lakes and Mines Advisory Group to implement its projects around the world. Funding Eliminating landmines and unexploded ordnance, mine-victims’ assistance and mine-risk education are all part of HDI’s core interests. HDI has raised more than US$15 million for mine-clearance efforts in Africa and Asia while managing several multi-million dollar mine-action programs. HDI’s founders also created the Adopt-A-Minefield Program, a campaign that raised an additional $25 million over the last decade and ended in December 2009.2 HDI currently has projects in Myanmar (Burma), Laos and Vietnam, with successfully completed projects in Sri Lanka, Angola, Armenia, Eritrea, Lebanon and Mozambique. In late 2011, operating under a grant from the Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement in the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs (PM/WRA), the Humpty Dumpty Institute became the first American NGO to initiate both mine-victims’ assistance and mine-risk education programs inside the borders of Myanmar. In her historic trip to Myanmar in December 2011, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced HDI’s newest initiative. In this program, HDI is partnering with Myanmar’s largest Buddhist organization, the Sitagu Association, to conduct pilot MVA and MRE programs in 30 communities inside Myanmar. In Vietnam, in 2009, with funding from PM/WRA, HDI initiated a large-scale mushroom-growing livelihood-assistance http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Focus/hdi.shtml

Page 1 of 3

The Humpty Dumpty Institute (16.1)

1/21/16, 11:18 AM

project for 1,000 explosive-remnants-of-war survivor families in one of Vietnam’s poorest provinces. Through this program, survivors are able to substantially supplement their monthly income because HDI and Project RENEW purchase all the mushrooms from the farmers and take care of packaging, sales and distribution. Money earned from these sales is used to clear unexploded bombs in Vietnam. Additionally, Vietnamese mushrooms will be exported around the world beginning in 2013 and “profits” will be used in a similar manner. Since 2006, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s McGovern-Dole Food for Education program has funded HDI and its mine-action efforts in Laos. More than $9 million has been provided to feed 25,000 kids in 175 villages and to remove UXO at school sites in these remote Laos villages. HDI has collaborated with UXO Lao to destroy nearly 8,122 pieces of UXO thus far.3 In Sri Lanka, in 2006, HDI launched a two-year mine clearance and agricultural development project valued at $4 million.4 Under the USDA Food for Peace program, HDI received 6,500 tons of red lentils and soybean oil. HDI monetized these commodities using a Sri Lankan broker who sold the products to buyers in country. HDI then used the funds to finance the project. Over the course of two years, HDI and its partner HALO returned more than 175 acres of contaminated land to productive agricultural use for smallholder farmers in northern Sri Lanka’s Jaffna District.5 More than 1,500 landmines were removed and destroyed. More Than Just Landmines Through HDI’s mine-action efforts, its agenda expanded in Laos and Sri Lanka to include food security and other development work. For example, while funding landmine removal in Laos, HDI began rebuilding schools, planting gardens and feeding 25,000 undernourished children. While clearing landmines in Sri Lanka’s Jaffna Peninsula, HDI worked to revitalize the area’s local dairy industry, increasing milk production by 45 percent, training 2,000 farmers on modern agricultural techniques and providing 10,000 mothers and children access to free health care. HDI is not, however, limited to food aid abroad. In 2008, it issued $125,000 worth of special coupons in Upstate New York (U.S.) to 20,000 food-stamp recipients that served to double their purchases of fresh, locally grown fruits and vegetables at 43 farmerâ€™s markets.3 Making Connections Implemented in 2011, HDI’s latest program is the Higher Education Alliance. The organization takes its mandate a step further by fostering dialogue between the United Nations and academia in an effort to globalize U.S. college campuses. HDI forges a relationship with students and the U.N. through hosting conferences and speakers from the United Nations, U.N. specialized agencies, the U.S. diplomatic corps and U.N.-related NGOs. For example, HDI hosted a lecture at Albany State University on health-related millennium development goals. Students also have the opportunity to visit U.N. headquarters and serve as interns in various international organizations. Eight campuses in nine states with almost 300,000 students are alliance members, which includes many U.S. Historically Black Colleges and Universities.6 For more information, visit http://thehdi.org. ~ Amy Crockett, CISR staff TOP OF PAGE

Contact Information The Humpty Dumpty Institute 29 W. 46th Street, 5th Floor New York, NY 10036 / USA Tel: +1 212 944 7111 Fax: +1 212 991 6413 Skype: conference.hdi Email: info@thehdi.org Center for International Stabilization and Recovery James Madison University MSC4902 Harrisonburg, VA 22807 / USA http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Focus/hdi.shtml

Page 2 of 3

The Humpty Dumpty Institute (16.1)

1/21/16, 11:18 AM

Email: cisr@jmu.edu http://cisr.jmu.edu

TOP OF PAGE

Endnotes 1. “About Us.” The Humpty Dumpty Institute. http://www.thehdi.org/about/index.shtml. Accessed 7 February 2012. 2. “Clear a path to a safer world.” United Nations Association of the United States of America. http://www.landmines.org/Page.aspx?pid=374. Accessed 7 February 2012. 3. “Mine Action Programs.” The Humpty Dumpty Institute. http://www.thehdi.org/mine-action/index.shtml. Accessed 7 February 2012. 4. “Food for Progress.” USDA, Foreign Agricultural Services. http://www.fas.usda.gov/ excredits/foodaid/ffp/foodforprogress.asp. Accessed 23 February 2012. 5. Email correspondence with Steve Ginther, 21 February 2012. 6. “The Higher Education Alliance.” The Humpty Dumpty Institute. http://www.thehdi.org/ HEA/HigherEducationAlliance.shtml. Accessed 7 February 2012.

The Journal of ERW & Mine Action is sponsored by:

http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Focus/hdi.shtml

Page 3 of 3

A New Name and Mission for the International Trust Fund for Demining and Mine Victims Assistance

Table of Contents

Editorial

Focus

Special Report

Notes

Book Reviews

Briefs

1/21/16, 11:19 AM

Country Profiles

Past Issues

CISR Home

A New Name and Mission for the International Trust Fund for Demining and Mine Victims Assistance open pdf of this article Since its formation in 1998 by the Slovenian Government, the International Trust Fund for Demining and Mine Victims Assistance has continuously expanded and enhanced its mission, widening its scope of activities to reflect the changing human-security environment, needs of beneficiary countries and priorities of the donor community. Now it has a new name to reflect its broader mission: ITF Enhancing Human Security. ITF recently adopted a new strategy for 2009â&#x20AC;&#x201C;2013 to address broader post-conflict challenges, such as conventional weapons destruction, security sector reform and disarmament, demobilization and reintegration programs. The new strategy reflects the realization that the failure to address these challenges poses a potential threat to human security that rivals the dangers from landmines and unexploded ordnance. Clearance and Rehabilitation Efforts Through contracts with specialized companies, nongovernmental organizations and public institutions, ITF has carried out more than 2,750 mine/UXO clearance projects and cleared more than 115,600 million square meters (45 square miles) of mine-polluted areas in South Eastern Europe and another 2,100 million square meters (519 acres) in the South Caucasus. More than 71,299 mines and items of UXO were found and destroyed in these efforts. ITF activities in the region of South Eastern Europe have contributed to the successful completion of landmine-clearance activities in Albania, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia. Major mine-action projects continue to be implemented in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia, which are still heavily contaminated. ITF has also contributed to the physical rehabilitation of more than 1,160 mine/UXO victims. More than 82,000 children and adults from mine-affected communities directly participated in programs to raise awareness of the mine/UXO problem, and more than 200,000 family members received mine-risk awareness education indirectly. ITF has implemented training for more than 880 experts in the field of humanitarian demining, rehabilitation and mineaction management, and supported the activities of national mine-action centers in the mine-affected countries of South Eastern Europe and the South Caucasus, as well as in Cyprus, Colombia, Jordan and Tajikistan. Since the adoption of its new strategy, ITF has also become more involved in conventional weapons destruction programs. ITF supported clearance of ammunition storage facilities in GĂŤrdec, Albania and Chelopechene, Bulgaria

http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Focus/itf.shtml

Page 1 of 3

A New Name and Mission for the International Trust Fund for Demining and Mine Victims Assistance

1/21/16, 11:19 AM

after both experienced accidental explosions. Almost 107,800 shells were collected and removed in Gërdec alone, after the 2008 explosion. ITF also supports destruction of surplus ammunition in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Lithuania and works for the improvement of physical security and stockpile management in Lithuania and Serbia. Partnerships, national primacy and capacity development are essential to ITF’s coordinated CWD efforts for stability, sustainable development and lasting peace in targeted regions, countries and communities. Donors The Slovenian Government is grateful to its more than 130 donors, including 28 governments, the European Union and the United Nations Development Programme, numerous local authorities, nongovernment and humanitarian organizations, businesses and individuals, who have entrusted more than US$354,900 million to ITF since 1998 and made its work possible. Almost 95 percent of the donations originate from public donors, while the rest of the funds were contributed by private donors. The Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement in the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs’ (PM/WRA) matching-fund mechanism for South East Europe’s Humanitarian Mine Action program ensures that every dollar raised by ITF is matched by an additional dollar from PM/WRA. This mechanism has proved exceptionally successful as a method of attracting and retaining donor support for humanitarian aid and development. ~ Sabina Beber Boštjančič, ITF, provided this profile with assistance from Megan Reichart, CISR staff TOP OF PAGE

Contact Information Sabina Beber BoÅ¡tjanÄiÄ ITF Enhancing Human Security Zabrv 12, 1292 Ig / Slovenia Tel: +386 1 479 65 80 Fax: +386 1479 65 90 Email: info@itf-fund.si Skype: sabina.beber.bostjancic Website: http://itf-fund.si Center for International Stabilization and Recovery James Madison University MSC4902 Harrisonburg, VA 22807 / USA Email: cisr@jmu.edu http://cisr.jmu.edu

TOP OF PAGE

http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Focus/itf.shtml

Page 2 of 3

A New Name and Mission for the International Trust Fund for Demining and Mine Victims Assistance

1/21/16, 11:19 AM

The Journal of ERW & Mine Action is sponsored by:

http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Focus/itf.shtml

Page 3 of 3

Life Line Consultancy and Rehabilitation (16.1)

Table of Contents

Editorial

Focus

1/21/16, 11:19 AM

Special Report

Notes

Book Reviews

Briefs

Country Profiles

Past Issues

CISR Home

Life Line Consultancy and Rehabilitation open pdf of this article At the age of 14, Kamel Saadi became a landmine survivor and amputee. On 16 March 1979, Saadi was enjoying a barbecue picnic with family and friends near Umm Qais, an area along the Jordanian-Israeli border contaminated with landmines from Jordan’s conflicts with Israel during the 1960s and 1970s. While walking along a hilly pathway, he stepped on a rock concealing a landmine that caused severe damage to his foot; eight hours later, doctors amputated his left foot.1 In the coming years, Saadi underwent rehabilitation and networked with other amputees. In 1985, he had to terminate his college studies at Glendale Community College in Los Angeles, California (U.S.), to return home for a third amputation to reach an eight-inch below-the-knee stump (a so-called perfect amputation). Inspired by his and others’ experiences, he founded Life Line Consultancy and Rehabilitation in 2007 to provide assistance to other landmine survivors and persons with disabilities. LLCR is a Jordanian national nonprofit that assists survivors with their physical, emotional and financial needs, while also striving to educate the public about persons with disabilities (particularly amputees regardless of the cause) and landmine hazards through mine-risk education.2 LLCR comprises a three-person staff and contracts with others when needed depending on the projects. According to Saadi, “Our style is based on simplicity, heart to heart, direct interaction, involving professional knowledge based on specific demands, and the provision of immediate needs; a hug or a handshake to your surprise may often be an immediate need.”3 Mission LLCR’s mission is to instill self-confidence in survivors and help them reach their goals and objectives by utilizing their capabilities. LLCR aims to create an atmosphere that encourages landmine/explosive remnants of war survivors and other amputees to be independent, productive members of society. Its training, rehabilitation and confidence-building courses, consultations and workshops seek to address survivors’ needs beyond physical rehabilitation. For successful reintegration into communities, LLCR helps create conditions within remote areas that allow survivors with limb loss and/or deformities to obtain their required care.2 LLCR employs various creative outlets, such as painting, drawing, sculpture, mosaic and carving into rehabilitation. In

http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Focus/llcr.shtml

Page 1 of 3

Life Line Consultancy and Rehabilitation (16.1)

1/21/16, 11:19 AM

addition, it uses theatrical production to teach schoolchildren in Jordan’s mine-affected regions how to identify and avoid the threat of ERW. LLCR developed a play called “We Love Life” in 2008 in partnership with James Madison University’s Center for International Stabilization and Recovery in response to Jordan’s landmine-stricken communities, their critical need for mine-risk education and the hopes of preventing future landmine incidents.4,5 Jordanian survivors and amputees serve as actors in the play. In addition to creating opportunities for survivors to find themselves through the theater, this project helps create job opportunities for them in the arts business. LLCR and CISR worked closely with Jordan’s National Committee for Demining and Rehabilitation which provided guidance regarding landmine incidents and assisted with selection of performance locations and implementation of the project.6 The play’s success led to the incorporation of MRE into Jordan’s local schools’ art and theater programs in mine-affected areas. Evidence of “We Love Life’s” success could be observed in the childrenâ€™s art projects, which demonstrated a heightened understanding of the play’s key messages. “We Love Life” was financially supported by a grant CISR secured from the Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement in the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs (PM/WRA). It was performed in Jordan for two years, in 2009 and 2010, with 29 performances. Although created specifically for Jordan, “We Love Life” is not exclusive to the country. According to Saadi, “The play is always tailor-made to fit the mine-awareness needs of each country and community.”3 In 2011, a “We Love Life-Hammana” was created and held during CISR’s Pathways to Resilience program in Hammana, Lebanon. Pathways to Resilience is an experiencebased learning workshop LLCR helped design in partnership with CISR to address the psychosocial needs of survivors through reflective observations, the managing of new emotions and making sense of traumatic events.7,8 It also was supported by a grant from PM/WRA. In 2011, LLCR expanded its MRE on an exploratory mission to the Amazon region in Peru. Accompanied by The Polus Center for Social and Economic Development, LLCR departed from Lima, Peru, via plane, then traveled by bus, car and boat, and more than 24 hours later arrived at a remote location at the confluence of the Rio Santiago and the Amazon rivers. The Peru Contraminas team led the mission. Saadi says, “We interacted with the community, delivered mine awareness to [more than] 250 schoolchildren and gave advice about … proper interaction with amputees/disabled members of the community to children and community members and leaders.”3 LLCR also held a brief “We Love Life” discussion, where Saadi and two Amazonian teenage students expressed the importance of mine awareness and safe behavior when living in a contaminated area. Looking Ahead LLCR continues to implement the strategic approaches of Pathways to Resilience and “We Love Life” in its ongoing efforts. Saadi hopes to combine the two projects into one program and reach other mine-affected areas such as Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan, Libya, Palestine, Sudan, Yemen and “anywhere we could be of any use and help to the people.”3 Returning to South America is also a possibility. LLCR plans to branch out into prosthetic development as well, and Saadi dreams of a “whole-package” prosthetic center offering not only prosthetics but athletics, art, psychological and physical therapy, peer support, gait training, selective challenges and social and economic reintegration. “LLCR has just begun,” Saadi says.3 ~ Amy Crockett, CISR staff

http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Focus/llcr.shtml

Page 2 of 3

Life Line Consultancy and Rehabilitation (16.1)

1/21/16, 11:19 AM

TOP OF PAGE

Contact Information Kamel GH K. Saadi Founder Life Line Consultancy and Rehabilitation P.O. Box 5799 Amman 11953 / Jordan Tel: +962 6 55 3 515 3 or +962 79 5400 440 Fax: +962 6 2500 666 Skype: Kamel-saadi E-mail: kamel.saadi@gmail.com Center for International Stabilization and Recovery James Madison University MSC4902 Harrisonburg, VA 22807 / USA Email: cisr@jmu.edu http://cisr.jmu.edu

TOP OF PAGE

Endnotes 1. Emerson, Wendy. “Out of the Ground.” JO Magazine. http://www.jo.jo/index.php? option=com_content& view=article&id=1125:out-of-the-ground&catid=39:land&Itemid=150. Accessed 14 February 2012. 2. “Life Line Consultancy and Rehabilitation.” Facebook. http://www.facebook.com/groups/86283260263/. Accessed 14 February 2012. 3. Email interview with Kamel Sa’adi. 20 January 2012. 4. “The ‘We Love Life’ Project.” Center for International Stabilization and Recovery. http://www.maic.jmu.edu/ welovelife/index.html. Accessed 23 February 2012. 5. Saâ€™adi, Kamel GH K. “‘We Love Life’: A Novel Approach to Explosive Remnants of War.” The Journal of ERW and Mine Action. Issue 14.1 (Spring 2010). 44-47. http://maic.jmu.edu/journal/14.1/SpclRpt/Sa'adi.htm. Accessed 24 February 2012. 6. “Project Partners.” We Love Life. http://www.maic.jmu.edu/welovelife/about/partners.html. Accessed 14 February 2012. 7. “Pathways to Resilience.” Pathways to Resilience. http://maic.jmu.edu/P2R/index.htm. Accessed 23 February 2012. 8. Stewart, Anne, Lennie Echterling, Cameron Macauley, Nicole Neitzey and Hasan Hamdan. “Pathways to Resilience Workshop Promotes Leadership and Peer Support.” The Journal of ERW and Mine Action. Issue 15.3 (Fall 2011). 58-62. http://maic.jmu.edu/journal/15.3/notes/stewart/stewart.htm. Accessed 24 February 2012.

[an error occurred while processing this directive]

http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Focus/llcr.shtml

Page 3 of 3

The Marshall Legacy Institute (16.1)

Table of Contents

Editorial

1/21/16, 11:20 AM

Focus

Special Report

Notes

Book Reviews

Briefs

Country Profiles

Past Issues

CISR Home

The Marshall Legacy Institute open pdf of this article The Marshall Legacy Institute is a Virginia-based nonprofit organization formed in 1997 to extend the vision of Nobel Peace Prize laureate George C. Marshall by alleviating suffering and promoting hope, growth and stability in war-torn countries. For many nations, a primary obstacle to achieving sustainable progress is the deadly legacy of landmines that halt agricultural production, slow development, impede the return of refugees, and kill and injure innocent citizens. Thus, MLI’s primary mission is to establish practical, affordable and sustainable indigenous programs to help severely mineaffected countries rid their land of the scourge of landmines. MLI operates three programs: the Mine Detection Dog Partnership Program, which provides Mine Detection Dogs to accelerate the pace of mine-clearance operations; the Survivors’ Assistance program, which helps those who have been injured by landmines; and the Children Against Mines Program (CHAMPS), which works with children to raise awareness about landmines, assist landmine survivors, promote mine-risk education, donate Mine Detection Dogs and promote global citizenship. MLI Programs MLI’s humanitarian programs have enjoyed many successes. As of February 2012, MLI’s Mine Detection Dog Partnership Program has generated millions of dollars from private and public sources to sponsor 170 lifesaving Mine Detection Dogs which are then donated to indigenous demining organizations in 11 countries: Afghanistan, Angola, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Eritrea, Iraq, Lebanon, Nicaragua, Sri Lanka and Thailand. A portion of the funding received from the Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement in the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Political Military Affairs (PM/WRA) has helped provide crucial MDD team integration training for local handlers and their new MDDs. Utilizing the MDD’s excellent sense of smell to detect explosive odors present in landmines, a typical MDD team can search upwards of 1,500 square meters (1,640 square yards) of land a day and can greatly accelerate the pace of mine-clearance operations when combined with other demining assets.

http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Focus/mli.shtml

Page 1 of 3

The Marshall Legacy Institute (16.1)

1/21/16, 11:20 AM

MLI places a high value on educational outreach programs to American schoolchildren. Since CHAMPS was launched in 2004, MLI’s CHAMPS team has traveled to hundreds of schools around the United States with a retired canine ambassador to educate children on the landmine problem and encourage them to get involved in the humanitarian initiative. The children have responded with great enthusiasm: CHAMPS kids have sponsored 27 of the 170 MDDs, which are serving in Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Iraq, Lebanon and Sri Lanka. MLI has also electronically connected CHAMPS kids in the U.S. to schools in Afghanistan, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Iraq, Lebanon and Vietnam, and the American children have raised money to help hundreds of mine survivors in those countries. Since launching CHAMPS in Afghanistan in 2008, more than 100 mine survivors in Laghman and Samangan provinces have been helped, and tens of thousands of members of the local population in the two provinces have received mine-risk education from Afghan CHAMPS students. MLI has offered additional assistance by providing computer and other vocational training opportunities to mine survivors in Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen, and training to medical professionals in Armenia and Iraq. MLI is currently partnering with the Mine Detection Dog Center in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the International Trust Fund Enhancing Human Security to implement a mine-risk education program in Bosnia with members of the Bosnian Fantomi Sitting Volleyball Team, who are themselves survivors of war. Organization and Participation MLI has a 15-member board of directors and a seven-member international advisory committee. The organization has eight staff members involved in the day-to-day work of its Virginia office. MDD donors include PM/WRA, the U.S. Department of Defense, foundations, Rotary Clubs, companies, individual caring donors and schoolchildren. Donors can sponsor MDDs, fund a child survivor’s recovery, help with general expenses, or initiate a CHAMPS campaign in local schools. The organization also holds an annual gala each fall, and the money raised contributes to MLI’s annual budget of about US$2.2 million. MLI’s Future Landmines unfortunately continue to leave a horrific legacy, and MLI will continue to fulfill its mission statement to alleviate suffering and promote hope, growth and stability in war-torn countries around the world. ~ Elise Becker, MLI and Rachael Weber, CISR staff TOP OF PAGE

Contact Information Elise Becker VP – Operations Marshall Legacy Institute 2425 Wilson Blvd., Suite 240 Arlington, VA 22201 / USA Tel: +1 703 243 9200 Fax: +1 703 243 9701 Skype: marshall.legacy.institute Website: http://marshall-legacy.org/ Center for International Stabilization and Recovery James Madison University MSC4902 Harrisonburg, VA 22807 / USA Email: cisr@jmu.edu http://cisr.jmu.edu

TOP OF PAGE

http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Focus/mli.shtml

Page 2 of 3

The Marshall Legacy Institute (16.1)

1/21/16, 11:20 AM

The Journal of ERW & Mine Action is sponsored by:

http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Focus/mli.shtml

Page 3 of 3

Norwegian People’s Aid (16.1)

Table of Contents

Editorial

1/21/16, 11:20 AM

Focus

Special Report

Notes

Book Reviews

Briefs

Country Profiles

Past Issues

CISR Home

Norwegian People’s Aid open pdf of this article Norwegian People’s Aid is the humanitarian organization of the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions (also known as LO). NPA is a politically independent organization but often takes political stances internationally in an effort to meet its strategic goals of “the just distribution of power and resources” and “the protection of life and health for all.”1 LO founded NPA to aid in recovery after the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) and to improve the public health of the Norwegian people. In order to provide aid to Finland after the Winter War (1939–1940) with the Soviet Union, NPA’s establishment was expedited to December 1939. In the past 70 years, NPA has provided extensive assistance throughout the globe: aiding in the recovery of Central and Eastern Europe after World War II (1939– 1945), participating in the global fight against tuberculosis in the 1950s, rebuilding Vietnam in the 1970s and running Norwegian refugee-reception centers today.2 NPA has four main working areas to help embody its vision of “solidarity in practice.”1 Nationally, NPA engages in rescue, firstaid services and refugee resettlement. Internationally, NPA focuses on mine clearance and development. NPA emphasizes that it does not provide charity but works in equal partnerships for sustainability. 1 International Mine Action Currently, NPA works in 20 countries worldwide that are contaminated by cluster munitions and landmines.3 As of 2010, on average, its 1,107 mine-clearance workers have cleared more than 105 square kilometers (65 square miles) each throughout the globe.4 According to NPA’s acting Secretary General Orrvar Dalby in 2010, “It’s a major victory

http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Focus/npa.shtml

Page 1 of 3

Norwegian People’s Aid (16.1)

1/21/16, 11:20 AM

every time we can tick off a country on the list of those finally able to declare themselves free of mines and cluster munitions.” 4 NPA played a key role in the work to achieve the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on Their Destruction (also known as the Anti-personnel Mine Ban Convention or APMBC) and the Convention on Cluster Munitions (2010). 4 NPA uses the APMBC and the CCM as frameworks for its international efforts. Spending more than US$40 million on work annually, NPA implements humanitarian demining and clearance programs, supports national mine-action structures and does advocacy work for efficient humanitarian aid. A sampling of NPA’s international work in Angola and Lebanon provides an overview of its efforts throughout the world. Angola. After achieving independence from Portugal in 1975 until peace accords in 2002, Angola was plagued by a civil war that left behind severe contamination from landmines and explosive remnants of war. NPA worked with partners to conduct extensive surveying and clearance work throughout Angola and was put in charge of clearing five provinces. Today, as donor funding for mine-clearance declines in Angola, NPA only maintains one base out of its original five and focuses on working with local authorities on land-release policy and capacity-building. NPA still employs 100 locals to continue mine-action and related work in Angola.5 NPA also carries out extensive development work in Angola, supporting the work of civil-society organizations to strengthen women’s rights, combat gender and sexual violence, promote human rights and involve young people in civil society.6 Lebanon. Lebanon has extensive landmine and unexploded-ordnance contamination from 15 years of civil war (1975– 1991) and 22 years of Israeli occupation (1982-2000). NPA and regional partners initiated victim-assistance and minerisk education programs in southern Lebanon in 2001. Through these continuing programs, NPA provides microcredit to survivors and organizes community meetings about the dangers of cluster munitions. After the 2006 IsraeliHezbollah War, in partnership with the Lebanese Mine Action Center and local authorities, NPA organized the Battle Area Clearance Project to clear submunitions. Its BAC project has 69 staff members.7 NPA also supports local organizations working with Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, providing vocational and rehabilitation services and advocating for human rights.8 Organization Secretary General Liv Torres oversees NPA’s 51-member board of trustees and nine-member management group at its main office in Oslo.9 Volunteers divided into more than 100 chapters throughout Norway complete most of the work.3 Globally, NPA has 37 external offices spanning four continents.9 NPA and its projects are funded by individual and international donors, from the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement in the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs (PM/WRA) to the United Nations. Through its website, NPA also accepts personal donations for a variety of urgent-need programs, including worldwide mine and cluster-munitions disposal. ~ Rachael Weber, CISR staff TOP OF PAGE

Contact Information Norwegian People’s Aid Storgt. 33 A, 9th fl Oslo 0028 / Norway Tel: +47 22 03 77 00 Fax: +47 22 20 08 70 E-mail: npaid@npaid.org Center for International Stabilization and Recovery James Madison University MSC4902 Harrisonburg, VA 22807 / USA Email: cisr@jmu.edu

http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Focus/npa.shtml

Page 2 of 3

Norwegian People’s Aid (16.1)

1/21/16, 11:20 AM

http://cisr.jmu.edu

TOP OF PAGE

Endnotes 1. “Norwegian People’s Aid – Solidarity in Practice.” NPA. http://www.npaid.org/en/about_us/. Accessed 19 January 2012. 2. “Milestone’s in NPA’s history.” NPA. http://www.npaid.org/en/about_us/history/. Accessed 19 January 2012. 3. “Leading within humanitarian mine action and work against cluster muntions.” NPA. http://bit.ly/oXeVA7. Accessed 19 January 2012. 4. “Solidarity in Practice: Annual Report 2010.” NPA. http://www.npaid.org/en/about_us/annual_report/. Accessed 19 January 2012. 5. “Mines and ERW in Angola.” NPA. http://www.npaid.org/en/mine_action/where_we_work/_hidden/ mines_in_angola/. Accessed 19 January. 6. “Development cooperation Angola.” NPA. http://www.npaid.org/en/development/where_we_work/_hidden/ development_cooperation_in_angola/. Accessed 20 January 2012. 7. “Mines in Lebanon.” NPA. http://www.npaid.org/en/mine_action/where_we_work/_hidden/ mines_in_lebanon/. Accessed 20 January 2012. 8. “Development Cooperation in Lebanon.” NPA. http://www.npaid.org/en/development/ where_we_work/_hidden/development_cooperation_in_lebanon/. Accessed 20 January 2012. 9. “Management Group.” NPA. http://www.npaid.org/en/about_us/management_and_the_board/. Accessed 20 January 2012.

The Journal of ERW & Mine Action is sponsored by:

http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Focus/npa.shtml

Page 3 of 3

Organization of American States (16.1)

Table of Contents

Editorial

Focus

1/21/16, 11:20 AM

Special Report

Notes

Book Reviews

Briefs

Country Profiles

Past Issues

CISR Home

Organization of American States open pdf of this article The Organization of American States was established in 1948 with the signing of the Charter of the OAS in Bogotá, Colombia.1 The OAS was created to help the member states attain “an order of peace and justice, to promote their solidarity, to strengthen their collaboration, and to defend their sovereignty, their territorial integrity, and their independence.”1 All 35 independent Latin American states are members of the OAS, which serves as the primary governmental forum in the Western Hemisphere in which states participate to implement their shared goals and resolve disagreements.1 The OAS serves a multitude of purposes, but the organization focuses on four main categories: democracy, human rights, security and development.1 The OAS’s continued involvement in Haiti following the recent earthquake exemplifies these principles. In January 2012, OAS Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza called on the international community to organize aid-coordination efforts with the Haitian Government.2 To support Haiti, the OAS not only created assistance projects and worked to manage the Group of Friends of Haiti organization but also agreed to provide millions of dollars in aid to Haiti.2 In addition, Ambassador Albert Ramdin, Assistant Secretary General of the OAS, stressed the importance of providing investment opportunities and building capacity in Haiti in order to provide long-term benefits and security to Haitians.2 Another area of involvement for the OAS is demining.3 In 1992, the OAS created the Program for Assistance to Demining in Central America to confront the threat of anti-personnel landmines in Central American countries, including Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua.3 In 1997, PADCA expanded into the Acción Integral contra http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Focus/oas.shtml

Page 1 of 3

Organization of American States (16.1)

1/21/16, 11:20 AM

Minas Antipersonal (Comprehensive Action against Anti-personnel Mines or AICMA) to effectively address the humanitarian impact of landmines. The OAS tackles this through its efforts to build and assist national capacity for demining, mine-risk education and victim-assistance services with the aim of restoring safe living conditions, returning land to productive use and assisting those members of the population who have suffered as a result of the use of landmines.3 AICMA’s efforts in Central America, supported by the Central American governments and a coalition of more than 20 donor countries and international organizations, including the United States, ultimately led to Central America becoming the first region in the world to entirely rid itself of the “negative impact of anti-personnel landmines left behind from past conflicts” in 2010.4 To accomplish this, the OAS managed more than US$100 million dollars in donor contributions and in-kind assistance to provide technical, logistical and administrative support to national mineclearance operations, as well as to conduct mine-risk education campaigns and provide assistance to victims of antipersonnel mines.4 AICMA in particular concentrated on the social rehabilitation of landmine survivors, which included mental and physical recovery and work placement.4 As Central America is now mine-impact free, the OAS has shifted its primary focus of support to South America, aiming to rid Ecuador and Peru of the impact of landmines by 2017, and to make Colombia mine-impact free by 2021.4 In 2012, AICMA plans to administer administrative and logistical support for humanitarian demining in seven mine-affected Colombian municipalities as well as attend to the formation of a canine-demining component.5 AICMA also continues to support mine clearance in the Cordillera del Condor region on the border of Ecuador and Peru, and plans to conclude mechanical clearance work in the Catamayo-Chira River by June 2012.5 Despite the numerous challenges it faces, such as the threat of Colombian illegal-armed groups that persist in using mines and improvised explosive devices against civilians and military forces, as well as the thousands of mines still located in remote areas near the Ecuadorian-Peruvian border, AICMA remains committed to its goal of making the Americas the first anti-personnel landmine-free region in the world.5 ~ Paul Gentine, CISR staff TOP OF PAGE

Contact Information Carl E. Case General Coordinator Comprehensive Action against Antipersonnel Mines Organization of American States 1889 F Street, NW Washington, DC 20006 / USA Tel: +1 202 458 3631 Fax: +1 202 458 3545 Email: ccase@oas.org http://oas.org/dsp/espanol/cpo_desminado.asp Center for International Stabilization and Recovery James Madison University MSC4902 Harrisonburg, VA 22807 / USA Email: cisr@jmu.edu http://cisr.jmu.edu

TOP OF PAGE Endnotes 1. “Who We Are.” Organization of American States. http://www.oas.org/en/about/who_we_are.asp. Accessed 12

http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Focus/oas.shtml

Page 2 of 3

Organization of American States (16.1)

1/21/16, 11:20 AM

January 2012. 2. “OAS Calls for Renewed Commitment to Be a Focus in Haiti Two Years after Devastating Earthquake.” South Florida Caribbean News. http://sflcn.com/story.php?id=11209. Accessed 12 January 2012. 3. “Comprehensive Action against Antipersonnel Mines (AICMA).” Organization of American States Department of Public Security. http://www.oas.org/dsp/english/cpo_desminado.asp. Accessed 12 January 2012. 4. McCaleb, Kelly. “Central America: Free From Landmine Impact.” U.S. Department of State Official Blog. http://blogs.state.gov/index.php/site/entry/central_america_landmine_free. Accessed 17 January 2012.

The Journal of ERW & Mine Action is sponsored by:

http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Focus/oas.shtml

Page 3 of 3

PeaceTrees Vietnam(16.1)

Table of Contents

Editorial

1/21/16, 11:21 AM

Focus

Special Report

Notes

Book Reviews

Briefs

Country Profiles

Past Issues

CISR Home

PeaceTrees Vietnam open pdf of this article In 1969, Jerilyn Brusseau’s brother, American Daniel Cheney, died when his helicopter was shot down over Vietnam’s southern provinces. Brusseau vowed that when the war was over she would work for reconciliation. Gathered with friends around the breakfast table one Sunday morning, the group decided on an avenue to build bridges of reconciliation between the United States and Vietnam: “We wanted to take the spirit of ‘citizen diplomacy’ fostered by 18 previous international PeaceTrees programs in other countries to a deeper level, by working with the Vietnamese people in removing landmines and planting trees.”1 As a result, Brusseau and her husband, Danaan Parry, founded PeaceTrees Vietnam in 1995. Until it achieved nonprofit status in 2005, it was a part of the Earthstewards Network, an international nonprofit supporting grassroots conflict-resolution projects.2 The Earthstewards Network has organized 25 PeaceTrees projects throughout the globe since its founding in 1979, including projects in Croatia, India, Kenya, Nicaragua, Northern Ireland, Palestine and the United States.3 Following Brusseau’s and Parry’s first visit to Hanoi in 1996 after the normalization of Vietnamese-U.S. relations in 1995, the program developed quickly. Three demining experts, formerly in the U.S. military, surveyed land in Quang Tri province and the Vietnamese Government gave PeaceTrees Vietnam official permission to begin humanitarian demining work. In September 1996, 43 international volunteers worked with 43 Vietnamese volunteers to clear the 6.5 hectares (16 acres) of mined land and plant 2,000 trees in this area near Dong Ha. Today, this land is the Friendship Forest Park.1 Ongoing Efforts Left over from the Vietnam War4 in the 1960s and conflicts with China and Cambodia in the 1970s, explosive remnants of war, landmines and cluster munitions still contaminate an estimated 15 percent of Vietnam’s land area.5 Since 1979, landmines and ERW have killed or injured more than 35,000 Vietnamese.1 http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Focus/peacetrees.shtml

Page 1 of 3

PeaceTrees Vietnam(16.1)

1/21/16, 11:21 AM

To address these challenges, PeaceTrees Vietnam takes a multi-faceted approach, including land clearance, survivor rehabilitation and mine-risk education. Under the organization of PeaceTrees, trained Vietnamese specialists conduct the demining.3 By the end of 2011 the PeaceTrees Explosive Ordnance Disposal teams had destroyed more than 63,343 pieces of unexploded ordnance and cleared more than 534 acres (216 hectares) of land.6 In 1997, PeaceTrees established the Danaan Parry Landmines Education Center to provide MRE.3 As of the beginning of 2012, PeaceTrees MRE programs have reached more than 72,750 children and adults, helping them to identify and avoid landmines and other ERW.6 Beginning in 2002, PeaceTrees’ Friendship Village program resettled more than 100 families on the reclaimed land of a former U.S. Army base in Dong Ha. The village facilities include a kindergarten and a meeting hall, and the program provides needed utilities for the newly built homes, including safe, running water. In 2010, another project cleared 42 hectares (104 acres) of land, which enabled 56 families to safely live and farm.1 PeaceTrees also provides rehabilitation assistance to survivors and families. Its victim-assistance program includes medical care for survivors and a microloan program to help survivors and families start businesses for support.1 As of the end of 2011, this program has helped more than 738 survivors.6 Continuing its tradition of establishing international bonds between the people of the United States and Vietnam, PeaceTrees organizes two “friendship/diplomatic” trips to Vietnam each year to build relationships between American, international and Vietnamese volunteers, and to participate in tree-planting and restoration efforts.1 To date, 585 people have traveled and volunteered in Vietnam through this program.6 Organization and Participation A 13-member board of directors oversees the work of PeaceTrees Vietnam. Three American staff members, headed by Executive Director Blair B. Burroughs, perform the daily administrative work of the PeaceTrees’ American team. In August 2011, cofounder and board member Jerilyn Brusseau was one of four recipients of an annual Women of Inspiration Award, given by the Seattle Storm, a U.S. women’s basketball team, for her work with PeaceTrees.6 Leading PeaceTrees work in Vietnam, Country Director Quang Le oversees the work of six other employees and two trained Explosive Ordnance Disposal teams. PeaceTrees closely cooperates with other organizations, including the Quang Tri Province People’s Committee, a regional government body similar to a U.S. state government, and the Women’s Union of the Quang Tri Province.7 The Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement in the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs (PM/WRA) has provided significant support to PeaceTrees Vietnam. In 2008 and 2009, PM/WRA funding allowed PeaceTrees to expand its EOD work and provide MRE in ethnic minority languages. Charitable foundations, nongovernmental organizations and individual donors also fund PeaceTrees’ ongoing work. The assistance and participation of volunteers is essential—from raising awareness about the work of PeaceTrees Vietnam to joining one of its biannual citizen diplomacy trips.3 On 23 February 2012, in partnership with the Vietnamese Friendship Organization, PeaceTrees Vietnam hosted a free public event, entitled “World Café: Exploring our connections to Vietnam and one another” in Seattle, Washington. Angie Chau, the author of Quiet As They Come, a collection of short stories about Vietnamese immigrants in California, was a special guest.6 ~ Rachael Weber, CISR staff Contact Information PeaceTrees Vietnam 1301 5th Ave, Suite 2500 Seattle, WA 98101 Phone: 206-441-6136 Fax: 206-389-7210 Email: info@peacetreesvietnam.org http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Focus/peacetrees.shtml

Page 2 of 3

PeaceTrees Vietnam(16.1)

1/21/16, 11:21 AM

Center for International Stabilization and Recovery James Madison University MSC4902 Harrisonburg, VA 22807 / USA Email: cisr@jmu.edu http://cisr.jmu.edu

TOP OF PAGE

TOP OF PAGE Endnotes 1. “Fifteen years of Service 1995-2010.” PeaceTrees Vietnam. http://www.peacetreesvietnam.org/history.htm. Accessed 2 February 2012. 2. “Welcome.” Earthstewards. http://www.earthstewards.org/. Accessed 2 February 2012. 3. “FAQS.” PeaceTrees Vietnam. http://www.peacetreesvietnam.org/faqs.htm. Accessed 2 February 2012. 4. The Vietnamese call this the American War. 5. “Vietnam.” Landmine & Cluster Munition Monitor. http://www.the-monitor.org/ index.php/cp/display/region_profiles/theme/1464. Accessed 2 February 2012. 6. Mikaila Gawyn, email correspondence with author. 6 February 2012. 7. “Meet Our Team.” PeaceTrees Vietnam. http://www.peacetreesvietnam.org/the-team.htm. Accessed 2 February 2012.

The Journal of ERW & Mine Action is sponsored by:

http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Focus/peacetrees.shtml

Page 3 of 3

World Education, Inc. (16.1)

Table of Contents

Editorial

1/21/16, 11:21 AM

Focus

Special Report

Notes

Book Reviews

Briefs

Country Profiles

Past Issues

CISR Home

World Education, Inc. open pdf of this article After nearly a lifetime of work as an educator in China and throughout the world, Welthy Honsinger Fisher returned to India to continue her work in education at the request of Mahatma Gandhi in 1947. She founded the Literacy House, a small school providing basic education and agricultural training for disadvantaged adults. Observing that literacy training was needed to empower men and women worldwide, in 1951, she and others founded World Education, an international nonprofit dedicated to world literacy.1 Today, World Education, Inc., based in Boston, Massachusetts (U.S.), supports literacy training and assistance programs in more than 30 countries, enabling individual and collective development.2 World Education’s core focuses include the education of women and girls, basic education for adults, vocational training, and improving access to and quality of formal education. In its literacy programs, World Education works to integrate “life skills in health, economic development, environmental protection, and civil society development.”3 As a part of this emphasis, World Education collaborates with partners to include mine-risk training in its educational programs and to rebuild conflict-torn communities.3 World Education Laos In 1992, World Education established a field office in Laos to support rural and community development in nine unexploded-ordnance-affected provinces.4 As a result of U.S. bombing campaigns between 1964 and 1973, Laos remains the most heavily bombed country per capita in the world, and decades later it remains contaminated by UXO.5 In 2010, 23 deaths and 91 injuries occurred from explosive remnants of war explosions. To date, landmines and ERW have claimed more than 50,000 casualties in Laos.6 Funded by the U.S. Department of State, U.S. Agency for International Development and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees from 1992–1998, World Education Laos worked with partners, including Save http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Focus/Wedu.shtml

Page 1 of 4

World Education, Inc. (16.1)

1/21/16, 11:21 AM

the Children U.S., World Learning, Inc. and the Lao Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare, on a comprehensive repatriation program focusing on food security, health care, education, microfinance and economic sustainability.4 World Education Laos continues much of this comprehensive work with the Laos Government and other donors. Between 1996 and 2012, World Education partnered with the Laos Ministry of Health, USAID and the Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement in the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs (PM/WRA) to provide medical training to more than 800 survivors in eleven provinces and train 1,160 medical-service providers (from surgeons, nurses and lab technicians to village health volunteers) in emergency medical techniques. Emergency/trauma medical curriculum has been developed and is used in these workshops. All course material is designed to “train the trainer” so that those who attend can teach others.5 Paying for treatment for survivors often devastates Lao families, taking most of a family’s annual income. In response to this challenge, the War Victims Medical Fund, co-managed by World Education and Lao provincial Departments of Health, distributes support to pay for complex treatments. The War Victims Medical Fund has assisted 855 survivors and their families since its inception in 1996. PM/WRA, the McKnight Foundation and the Dutch Embassy in Bangkok are among the contributing organizations. Personal donations also support this fund. Despite this support, not all survivors receive necessary medical treatment.7 Vocational training and economic support are also essential to help survivors reintegrate into society and daily life. World Educations’ Survivor’s Economic and Technical Assistance project helped 160 survivors through vocational training in animal husbandry, fish-raising, tailoring and weaving. The participants in the SETA training program regularly report making 30 percent profits in their work.8 In World Education’s other projects for sustainability, in southern Laos microfinance loans allow villages to create credit and savings programs to help families invest for the future.9 To support economic development in the Houaphan and Xiangkhouang provinces, World Education Laos organized a project enabling 40 communities to increase annual income by developing silk manufacturing and trade, capitalizing on local traditions of weaving and dying silk. This project was funded by the U.S. Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs.4 UXO incident survivors and their families, with the assistance of World Education, have set up a local association in Xiengkhoang province, where there is heavy UXO impact. This nonprofit, the Quality of Life Association, is now “educating the general public about the UXO legacy in Laos, providing psychosocial rehabilitation and livelihoods programs for UXO survivors and their families, and advocating for the rights of people with disabilities.â€10 World Education Laos implements a mine-risk education program for schoolchildren in the nine UXO-affected provinces in the region near the Plain of Jars using interactive and creative methods, including puppet shows and role-playing. Today, more than 150,000 children and nearly 5,000 teachers throughout the country have participated in the program since 1997. USAID, UNICEF and PM/WRA have funded this program.11 Organization Overseeing its multi-faceted approach to clearance and recovery efforts, World Education Laos employs 20 Lao staff members at its national office in Vientiane. A 24-member board of trustees and 72 staff members oversee the work and international partnerships of World Education, Inc. at its main office in Boston. From a basic literacy course with cell phones for women in Egypt to using the community-care structure to provide homes for more than 3,000 orphans in Tanzania, World Education works to help communities meet needs throughout the globe. In the future, World Education hopes to extend mine-action work to Myanmar (Burma), assisting landmine survivors in meeting their medical needs.12 ~ Rachael Weber, CISR staff TOP OF PAGE

Contact Information Program Officer

http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Focus/Wedu.shtml

Page 2 of 4

World Education, Inc. (16.1)

1/21/16, 11:21 AM

World Education, Inc. 44 Farnsworth St. Boston, MA 02210 / USA Tel: +1 617 482 9485 Fax: +1 617 482 0617 Email: anuja_kapur@worlded.org Website: http://worlded.org Center for International Stabilization and Recovery James Madison University MSC4902 Harrisonburg, VA 22807 / USA Email: cisr@jmu.edu http://cisr.jmu.edu

TOP OF PAGE Endnotes 1. Swenson, Sally. “Our Founder: Welthy Honsinger Fisher.” World Education. http://www.worlded.org/WEIInternet/aboutus/founder.cfm. Accessed 31 January 2012. 2. “Introduction.” World Education. http://www.worlded.org/WEIInternet/aboutus/index.cfm. Accessed 31 January 2012. 3. “World Education.” World Education. http://www.worlded.org/docs/we-brochure.pdf. Accessed 31 January 2012. 4. “About Us.” World Education Laos. http://www.laos.worlded.org/about_us.htm. Accessed 31 January 2012. 5. “Our Work: Supporting War Victims and People with Disabilities.â€ World Education Laos. http://www.laos.worlded.org/supporting_war_victims.htm. Accessed 31 January 2012. 6. “Lao PDR.” Landmine and Cluster Munitions Monitor. http://www.themonitor.org/index.php/cp/display/region_profiles/theme/1112. Accessed 31 January 2012. 7. “Our Work: War Victims Medical Fund (WVMF).” World Education Laos. http://www.laos.worlded.org/ wvmf.htm. Accessed 31 January 2012. 8. “Our Work: Survivors Economic and Technical Support (SETA).” World Education Laos. http://www.laos.worlded.org/seta.htm. Accessed 31 January 2012. 9. “Our Work: Microfinance is Southern Laos.” World Education Laos. http://www.laos.worlded.org/microfinance.htm. Accessed 31 January 2012. 10. Connie Woodberry, email correspondence with author. 24 February 2012. 11. “Our Work: UXO Education and Awareness in Primary Schools.” World Education Laos. http://www.laos.worlded.org/uxo_education.htm. Accessed 31 January 2012. 12. “World Education Annual Report 2010.” World Education. http://www.worlded.org/docs/ar-2010.pdf. Accessed 31 January 2012.

The Journal of ERW & Mine Action is sponsored by:

© 2012 All rights reserved. The Journal of ERW and Mine Action, Center for International Stabilization and Recovery at James Madison University. MSC 4902 Harrisonburg, VA / USA 22807 | Email: cisr@jmu.edu If cited properly, short sections (a sentence or two) can be used without permission. Written Journal of ERW and Mine Action approval is http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Focus/Wedu.shtml

Page 3 of 4

Food Security Emerges as a Complex Global Challenge (16.1)

Table of Contents

Editorial

Focus

Special Report

1/21/16, 11:21 AM

Notes

Book Reviews

Briefs

Country Profiles

Past Issues

CISR Home

Food Security Emerges as a Complex Global Challenge by Bryan McDonald, Ph.D. [ Pennsylvania State University ] open pdf of this article Measures are being taken toward land restoration and explosive remnants of war clearance to aid in worldwide food security. Global demining and ordnance removal efforts are contribiting to health improvements and land availability for sustainable crop growth. This article discusses the problem of food security in the twenty-first century and briefly reviews three sets of concerns that are converging to amplify, disrupt and transform efforts to ensure that all people have the food they need to lead active and healthy lives.1 Denial of use or access to an area is a primary use of landmines in conflicts. Far too often, landmines and explosive remnants of war prevent access to land long after conflicts end. As a result, ERW can pose significant problems for post-conflict efforts to promote stability and economic reconstruction. In addition to causing injury or death, ERW can have a number of impacts on food production. These include preventing use of land, requiring clearance of agricultural and forested lands, contributing to deforestation due to clearance of new land intended to replace agricultural areas affected by ERW, impeding access to rivers and other fishing grounds, killing livestock, and contributing to pollution of soils and waters with toxic contaminants. ERW clearance and land restoration can make considerable contributions to reconstruction efforts through activities such as the resumption of food production. For example, an examination of the effects of landmines in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cambodia and Mozambique found that agricultural and livestock production could be significantly improved through mine-clearance efforts.2 While clearance is an important part of promoting stability and post-conflict reconstruction, it is only one aspect of a larger set of food issues that impact the health, well-being and security of the global community. Food Security in the Twenty-first Century While there are many definitions of food security, the most commonly used definition states that food security â&#x20AC;&#x153;exists when all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.â&#x20AC;?3 Thus, while availability is a necessary component of food security, access is also critical to preventing food insecurity.

http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/SR/mcdonald/mcdonald.shtml

Page 1 of 5

Food Security Emerges as a Complex Global Challenge (16.1)

1/21/16, 11:21 AM

Events of the early twenty-first century demonstrate that food security remains an urgent problem. Rising food prices have contributed to unrest and violence in more than 60 countries and have increased the number of malnourished people to levels not seen in decades. Furthermore, national and international food safety incidents, such as recent E.Coli outbreaks in the United States, have raised awareness that, despite advances in food safety and public health, food systems can still transmit health threats among human populations. Whereas agricultural and food production activities have been recognized as key components of environmental and climatological changes, studies have revealed that food production worldwide could face significant challenges as a result of these changes in coming decades. Reflecting these events and trends, world food problems emerged as key economic, political and social issues during the second half of the twentieth century. Globalization and global environmental change have transformed the ways people get food and have given rise to a complex, transnational network of food systems that includes a range of activities and processes related to food. The global food network consists of a variety of activities that link farms to tables including the production, processing, transportation and preparation of food. This complex network is filled with pockets of abundance, and scarcity and its shape does not fit into traditional models of the world such as North/South or Developed/Developing. In the twentyfirst century, food insecurity is being driven by a complex mix of forces: population growth, increased purchasing power, changing dietary preferences, severe weather events and the integration of food systems into global financial systems. In addition to the pressing need to address world hunger, food security in the twenty-first century consists of complex problems that involve addressing malnutrition, optimizing food safety and managing global environmental change. The elimination of ERW and landmines from an affected area allows the land to replenish and become a viable option for farming and sustainable local food sources. Core Challenges: Nutrition, Safety and Sustainability Rising global food prices, changing diets, natural disasters, severe weather events and global economic issues have reinforced the age-old dilemma of ensuring worldwide access to food, which would allow everyone in the world to lead active and healthy lives. While improvements in food production and global health allowed human societies to flourish in the twentieth century by dramatically increasing the global population size and life expectancy and reducing infant and child mortality rates, malnutrition remains a widespread result of food insecurity that impacts billions of people on a daily basis. Malnutrition. Malnutrition is more than the challenge of chronic undernutrition. The term malnutrition collectively applies to multiple forms of poor nutrition including chronic hunger or when people do not receive sufficient energy from their diets. However, malnutrition also refers to people who do not receive an adequate supply of vitamins, minerals or nutrients from their diets and suffer from micronutrient deficiencies. In addition, malnutrition can refer to people who have excessive net energy intake and, depending on the severity of the condition, are obese or overweight. Collectively, these three problems are often referred to as the triple burden of malnutrition.4 Food Safety. Optimizing food safety introduces another set of challenges to food security. Designed to move perishable goods rapidly from producers to consumers, the global food network connects many different peoples and places. By linking local, national and global food systems together, the network provides tremendous food benefits: availability, variety and pricing. However, not all of the effects have been positive. While largely providing safe and healthy food, the global food network can also transmit health threats to humans, animals and plants. Consequently, food supply contaminations by infectious diseases or chemical hazards can have significant health impacts. Although chemical warfare is currently prohibited under Geneva Protocol, residual effects of chemicals used in past wars have polluted food supplies. Millions of people become ill or die from contaminated food or water every year. Illness and contaminated crops, livestock and food supplies can also have a significant impact on the cost and availability of food, as well as on the health of agricultural and food production systems. While food safety is a key component of food security, efforts to ensure food safety must be carefully designed to balance needs so as to avoid placing undue burdens on small farmers and producers through, for example, requiring http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/SR/mcdonald/mcdonald.shtml

Ă&#x201A; A Somali woman and a malnourished child exit the medical tent after the child receives emergency treatment from the African Union Mission in Somalia. Somalia is the country most affected by the severe drought that has ravaged large swaths of the Horn of Africa, leaving an estimated 11 million people in need of humanitarian assistance in 2010. Photo courtesy of United Nations/Stuart Price.

Page 2 of 5

Food Security Emerges as a Complex Global Challenge (16.1)

1/21/16, 11:21 AM

costly certification programs to gain access to markets.5 The Environment and Food Production. A final set of challenges lies in managing global environmental change and improving the sustainability of food production. Throughout history, people have gathered, hunted, farmed, fished and raised livestock for food, and these activities have significantly influenced how human populations impact the environment. Agricultural and food production systems are linked together through feedback cycles that drive environmental changes. These cycles affect human societies and lead to further environmental changes. Collectively, food production activities have a significant effect on environmental change, including climate change. These changes are often localized and involve cutting down or burning forests to create croplands, which can increase erosion of topsoil and loss of soil nutrients and reduce quality of water when siltation occurs and agricultural runoff enters waterways. However, local changes can aggregate to have larger impacts that contribute to problems such as toxic dead zones in rivers and oceans, desertification and global climate change. In order to manage environmental change, authorities must maintain and improve productivity gains. However, food production also needs to comply with the imperatives of sustainable development so as to nurture resilient ecosystems. Discussions of human impacts on the environment tend to focus on drivers such as agriculture, the utilization of natural resources through activities such as logging and mining, and the impacts of urbanization and the development of infrastructure such as roads and waterways. However, it is also vital to recognize that war is a significant driver of human impacts on the environment. Environmental degradation during warfare can often be rapid and widespread, and in the case of landmines and ERW, can continue long after conflicts have ended. In recent years, an increasing amount of attention has focused on the role that environmental and natural resources play in fueling, funding and prolonging conflicts, as well as considering their ability to contribute to peacebuilding.6 A girl carrying a smaller child in a sling pouch on her back drinks water during a distribution in a camp for people displaced by the drought in Mogadishu, Somalia. In 2010 the United Nations declared famine in five Somali regions. Photo courtesy of UNICEF/Kate Holt.

In addition to returning areas affected by ERW to agricultural use, clearance efforts can be part of broader programs to improve environmental quality and improve agricultural production while also contributing to post-conflict reconstruction activities. For example, Roots of Peace, a U.S. based nongovernmental organization, has planted more than two million high value fruit trees as part of efforts to transition Afghan farmers from growing poppies for drugs into growing crops that can be sold in export markets. Such efforts demonstrate positive ways to link improving access to agricultural lands through landmine and other ERW clearance efforts with programs to improve the economic and social sustainability of communities through boosting livelihoods while improving environmental quality by planting sustainable agricultural crops. Conclusion

People displaced by drought in Somalia arrive at the Dolo Ado camp in Ethiopia and queue to be registered This brief review of the challenges faced by food security emphasizes the many ways in which global food networks give rise by the aid agencies running the camp. 2010. Photo courtesy of Cate Thurton/Department of to new vulnerabilities and new threats that can negatively affect International Development. the security and wellbeing of people around the world. Authorities must constantly seek solutions to multiple goals in order to use resources effectively. Efforts to promote demining and ordnance removal are especially vital in light of converging food-security challenges. Preventing injury and death, clearance efforts also improve human health and security by leading to the development of sustainable food production systems, and contributing to climate-change mitigation and adaptation efforts through sustainable land-management practices.

http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/SR/mcdonald/mcdonald.shtml

Page 3 of 5

Food Security Emerges as a Complex Global Challenge (16.1)

1/21/16, 11:21 AM

In a time of scarce resources and multiple policy priorities, efforts to address problems from landmines and other ERW can benefit from connections to efforts that address food security challenges. For example, the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Commercial Horticulture and Agricultural Marketing Program has funded efforts to support farmers in Afghanistan by improving agricultural production and shifting toward crops, such as grapes, pomegranates and almonds, that can be sold in export markets. Projects like these, address multiple goals, such as improving stability and allowing sustainable economic growth that can support food security. As this example demonstrates, effective partnerships between governments and nongovernmental and international organizations will be necessary to navigate a challenging food security landscape and improve food security in the twenty-first century. TOP OF PAGE

Biography Bryan McDonald teaches environmental history and politics at Pennsylvania State University. He is the author of Food Security and co-editor of Global Environmental Change and Human Security (MIT Press, 2009) and Landmines and Human Security: International Politics and War’s Hidden Legacy (SUNY Press, 2004).

Contact Information Bryan McDonald, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Science, Technology and Society Program Pennsylvania State University 122A Willard Building University Park, PA 16802 / USA Tel: +1 814 867 4174 Fax: +1 814 863 3578 Email: blm26@psu.edu Website: http://www.sts.psu.edu/faculty/blm26

TOP OF PAGE

Endnotes 1. McDonald, Bryan. Food Security. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2010. 2. Anderson, N., C. P., da Sousa, and S. Paredes. “Social cost of land mines in four countries: Afghanistan, Bosnia, Cambodia, and Mozambique.” BMJ 311 (16 September 1995): 718–721. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2550718/. Accessed 14 October 2011. 3. The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2010: Addressing Food Insecurity in Protracted Crises. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United States. Rome: FAO. 4. Pinstrup-Andersen, Per. “Agricultural Research and Policy for Better Health and Nutrition in Developing Countries: A Food Systems Approach.” Paper presented at the 26th Conference of the International Association of Agricultural Economists, Queensland, Australia. 12â€“18 August 2006. http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/bitstream/25414/1/ip06an02.pdf. Accessed 14 October 2011. 5. De Schutter, Olivier. The Right to Food. Interim report of the Special Rapporteur on the right to food submitted to the United Nations General Assembly August 4, 2011. http://www.ohchr.org/ Documents/Issues/Food/A.66.262_en.pdf. Accessed 5 March 2012.

http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/SR/mcdonald/mcdonald.shtml

Page 4 of 5

Food Security Emerges as a Complex Global Challenge (16.1)

1/21/16, 11:21 AM

6. Matthew, Richard A., Brown, Oli, and Jensen, David (2009). From Conflict to Peacebuilding: The Role of Natural Resources and the Environment. Nairobi: United Nations Environment Programme. http://postconflict.unep.ch/publications/pcdmb_policy_01.pdf. Accessed 12 January 2011.

The Journal of ERW & Mine Action is sponsored by:

http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/SR/mcdonald/mcdonald.shtml

Page 5 of 5

Of Water and War: The Delicate Relationship Between Water Scarcity and Conflict (16.1)

Table of Contents

Editorial

Focus

Special Report

Notes

Book Reviews

1/21/16, 11:23 AM

Briefs

Country Profiles

Past Issues

CISR Home

Of Water and War: The Delicate Relationship Between Water Scarcity and Conflict open pdf of this article Is it possible that the wars of the future could be fought over water, the most abundant natural resource on the planet? The following article explores the relationship between water, conflict and landmine-clearance efforts around the globe. The 2008 documentary Blue Gold: World Water Wars drew attention to the blossoming issue of global water scarcity, asserting that the “wars of the future will be fought over water as they are over oil today.”1 Though a big claim, water scarcity requires world attention because, in addition to creating conflicts itself, conflicts also increase water scarcity. Landmines and other explosive weaponry not only accelerate soil erosion “leading to the depletion of soil fertility,” they also increase water pollution and make access to clean drinking water more difficult and, at times, dangerous.2 Water scarcity is not a new issue. Target 7.C of the United Nations Millennium Development Declaration, established in 2000, is to “halve, by 2015, the proportion of the [world] population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation.”3 According to Landmines Blow!, “between 1990 and 2004, more than 1.2 billion people gained access to an improved source of drinking water,” which means the world is on track to meet this goal. The knowledge of challenges to come, however, tempers this recognition. In order for Target 7.C to be met, “a further 1.1 billion people will need to gain access by 2015.”4 Though water scarcity is the result of varied factors, at the forefront is climate change leading to desertification. Climate change is a hotly-debated issue, but arguments usually center around the degree to which human industries influence climate, not whether the change is actually occurring. (If you’re still not convinced, read The Guardian article in which leading scientists from all over the world confirm global warming through “temperature measurements… [and] observations such as rising sea levels, retreating snow cover and glaciers, longer growing seasons and shifting wildlife.”5) Desertification, or the transformation of fertile, agricultural land into desert, is amplified by human practices such as deforestation, overgrazing and improper irrigation. In addition to hampering agricultural yield, desertification leads to dramatic reductions in clean water. In the past year, as climate change caused erratic rainfall patterns, Sudan

http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/SR/baker/baker.shtml

Page 1 of 3

Of Water and War: The Delicate Relationship Between Water Scarcity and Conflict (16.1)

1/21/16, 11:23 AM

struggled with desertification. Floods and droughts led to the need for repeated plantings, creating a scarcity of food and water resources that cause even “more tension between traditionally hostile groups” in the country.6 However, conflicts arising from water scarcity are not unique to Sudan: “Africa is the continent most vulnerable to climate change, because of its vastness, its poverty and its diversity,” and, because of the limited resources possessed by its population, conflict is an inevitable result.6 Sana’a, Yemen currently faces a water crisis that could eclipse all others. In as little as 20 years, the city’s water supply could be completely exhausted, and many western governments fear that the instability rising from this development might make Sana’a a terrorist recruitment site for groups like alQaida.7

Women collect water in Sudan. Photo courtesy of IFC Infrastructure.

Worst of all, conflicts that develop due to water scarcity tend to lead to more resource issues, creating a cycle of destruction. The Congo Wars (August 1998–April 2004) displaced millions of refugees from Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda, and only 45 percent of them had access to clean drinking water. During the Eritrean-Ethiopian War (May 1998–June 2000), severe drought brought on a famine that the respective governments could not confront due to the economic demands of war.8 In wars like these, water

Women collect water from a tank installed by the African Union-United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur, Sudan, near their team site in Khor Abeche, South Darfur. The women are part of a community of displaced Sudanese who settled in the area after fleeing violence in their native Darfur villages. Photo courtesy of U.N./Albert Gonzalez Farran.

infrastructure often is destroyed, and chemicals and debris left by explosives frequently pollute the rivers. As a result, civilians seek new water sources, and many are maimed or killed when they venture into areas contaminated by landmines.

In the shadow of a looming world water crisis, the work of mineaction organizations around the world is more crucial than ever. In addition to ensuring safe passage to travelers seeking clean water, landmine clearance leads to increased agricultural production and stronger, water-retaining soils that combat runoff, erosion and desertification. Furthermore, by providing access to crops and clean water, landmine clearance decreases conflict, beginning a new cycle—a cycle of creation—that could help bring even the most affected communities out of poverty and conflict. Water scarcity is not a new issue, but if future wars really will be fought over water, it is an issue that should be at the forefront as mine action moves forward. ~ Dan Baker, CISR staff TOP OF PAGE

Contact Information Center for International Stabilization and Recovery James Madison University MSC4902 Harrisonburg, VA 22807 / USA Email: cisr@jmu.edu http://cisr.jmu.edu

http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/SR/baker/baker.shtml

Page 2 of 3

Of Water and War: The Delicate Relationship Between Water Scarcity and Conflict (16.1)

1/21/16, 11:23 AM

TOP OF PAGE

Endnotes 1. Sam Bozzo. “Blue Gold: World Water Wars.” IMDB. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1137439/plotsummary. Accessed 27 January 2012. 2. Misak, Rifaat and S. Omar. “Environmental Damages from Minefields.” The Journal of ERW & Mine Action, 11.2 (2008). http://maic.jmu.edu/journal/11.2/feature/misak/misak.htm. Accessed 27 January 2012. 3. United Nations. “Goal 7: Ensure Environmental Sustainability.” United Nations Millennium Development Goals. http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/environ.shtml. Accessed 27 January 2012. 4. “Global Water Crisis - Millenium Development Goals (MDGs).” Landmines Blow!. http://www.landminesblow.com/Water_Facts.html. Accessed 27 January 2012. 5. “Is the world really getting warmer?” The Guardian. 27 December 2010. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/dec/27/world-warming. Accessed 27 January 2012. 6. Vidal, John. “Sudan – battling the twin forces of civil war and climate change.” The Guardian. 21 November 2011. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/nov/21/sudan-civil-war-climate-change. Accessed 27 January 2012. 7. Merchant, Brian. “Sanaa, Yemen to Become World's First Capital City to Run Out of Water.” Treehugger. 17 February 2010. http://www.treehugger.com/corporate-responsibility/sanaa-yemen-to-become-worlds-first-capitalcity-to-run-out-of-water.html. Accessed 27 January 2012. 8. Enzler, S.M. “Environmental effects of warfare.” Lenntech. September 2006. http://www.lenntech.com/environmental-effects-war.htm. Accessed 27 January 2012.

The Journal of ERW & Mine Action is sponsored by:

http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/SR/baker/baker.shtml

Page 3 of 3

Somalia Famine: Terrorism and Landmines Hinder Aid (16.1)

Table of Contents

Editorial

Focus

Special Report

1/21/16, 11:23 AM

Notes

Book Reviews

Briefs

Country Profiles

Past Issues

CISR Home

Somalia Famine: Terrorism and Landmines Hinder Aid open pdf of this article

Drought, rising food prices, famine and conflict have forced thousands of Somalis to flee to neighboring countries or become internally displaced. Aid agencies continue delivering food, but the ongoing conflict between al-Shabab and Somali government forces makes additional help difficult. The landmine threat further exacerbates the crisis, contributing to food insecurity, endangering refugees and threatening aid agencies trying to reach those in need. Throughout the Horn of Africa, hundreds of thousands of Somalis live in massive refugee camps after fleeing what the U.N. refugee chief, António Guterres, called Earth’s “worst humanitarian disaster.”1 Seeking food and shelter, approximately 750,000 Somalis traveled to neighboring Djibouti, Ethiopia and Kenya, while another 1.5 million people became internally displaced.2 Fueled by the region’s worst drought in 60 years, soaring food prices and armed conflict between Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government and the insurgent group al-Shabab, the ongoing crisis has led several Somali regions to be declared famine zones.3 According to The Christian Post, “Nearly half a million children in Somalia are acutely malnourished and tens of thousands of Somalis have already died in southern Somalia.”4 Regional insecurity and attacks from insurgents hindered efforts by aid agencies to stave off the famine. In addition, food meant for starving civilians was stolen by “corrupt government officials and businessmen,” according to The Christian Post, as recently as November 2011.4 The presence of landmines throughout Somalia further worsens the crisis by endangering the lives of refugees leaving Somalia and aid workers operating in the region. According to the Landmine & Cluster Munitions Monitor, landmine casualties in Somalia in 2010 increased from 126 to 159 (an increase of 26 percent) compared to the 2009 figure.5 Drought and Famine The East African drought has its origins in a drier-than-expected rainy season in 2010, which led to a reduction in crop outputs and the desiccation of pastoral lands in early 2011. A simultaneous increase in global food prices only worsened the situation. The price of sorghum, a staple food for many Somalis, rose by nearly 240 percent, while the

http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/SR/murguia/murguia.shtml

Page 1 of 6

Somalia Famine: Terrorism and Landmines Hinder Aid (16.1)

1/21/16, 11:23 AM

price of maize in neighboring Kenya increased threefold since the beginning of the drought.6 Increases in food prices placed considerable strain on the ability of Somalis, 43 percent of whom live on less than a dollar a day, to afford enough food to eat.7 The famine has left more than 12 million people in need of immediate assistance in the Horn of Africa.8 Besides destroying crops, the drought decimated a large portion of Somalia’s livestock by depleting grazing land and water supplies.9 For many Somalis, livestock is a primary asset that can ensure a family’s survival. For instance, a Somali family would be able to consume or sell their livestock, or its byproducts (such as milk), in order to buy food. With 60 percent of the country’s livestock dead, many poor families lost their most valuable asset and with it, any hope of a sustainable food supply.6 As a result of the famine, thousands of Somalis fled to refugee camps in Kenya and Ethiopia. The Dadaab camp in Kenya, the largest refugee camp in the world, is home to about 400,000 refugees.2 In order to reach this camp and others like it, Somalis must travel for days in arid heat while suffering from dehydration and malnutrition. Traveling with sick and/or dying children can put the entire family at risk. Consequently, to save the rest of the family some mothers had to abandon their dying children along the roads when these children were too weak to continue the journey.10 Upon arriving at the camps, many refugees face the brink of death and desperately need food, water and medical attention. The extreme conditions of the famine have resulted in a mortality rate of seven deaths per 10,000 people per day, whereas the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification defines famine as having a lack-of-food death rate of two per 10,000 per day.11,12 The famine’s effects in Somalia were compounded by the presence of al-Shabab, an armed militia that has waged an insurgency against the Transitional Federal Government since 2006 and controls a large portion of southern Somalia.13 The militants blocked the delivery of food aid, discouraged Somalis from leaving the country and accused the United Nations of exaggerating its declarations of famine. In 2009, al-Shabab banned foreign aid agencies from operating in Somalia, claiming that the agencies were motivated by political agendas and comprised spies.14 Piracy and Insecurity Hampers Aid Flow As humanitarian agencies struggle to deliver aid to Somalia’s famine-stricken areas, they must face the security threat posed by al-Shabab. This is not the first time, however, that insurgent groups have affected the work of aid agencies. Between 1997 and 2005, Somalia surpassed Afghanistan, Iraq and Sudan in reports of attacks against aid workers.15 The World Food Programme halted its Somali operations after militants killed 14 of its employees between 2008 and 2010 in what the WFP called “unprecedented and inhumane attacks.”16 Despite al-Shabab’s ban on its organization, the WFP resumed operations in northern and central Somalia and airlifted aid into Mogadishu.17

Somalia, July 2011. Photo courtesy of IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation/Turkey.

The WFP is not the only organization al-Shabab targeted; Médecins Sans Frontières was also attacked. In March 2011, MSF’s compound in Medina, Mogadishu was hit with grenades in two separate incidents prompting the organization to withdraw from the area. MSF says it cannot continue efforts in Medina until it can ensure that its employees can work under safe conditions.18 Insecurity and attacks on aid organizations like the WFP and MSF prevent aid from reaching the approximately 2.2 million people

living in al-Shabab-controlled territory.16 Al-Shabab’s presence has made aid-delivery efforts difficult, as the group is

http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/SR/murguia/murguia.shtml

Page 2 of 6

Somalia Famine: Terrorism and Landmines Hinder Aid (16.1)

1/21/16, 11:23 AM

known to intercept aid or prevent it from entering Somalia. In August 2011, the al-Shabab militia prevented aid from being delivered to the Dahabshil refugee camp in the town of Kismayo. An officer from the militia stated that the aid was turned away because al-Shabab did not pre-approve it.19 Another threat to the work of aid agencies is piracy in Somalia. Somali pirates have prevented and delayed food aid from reaching Somalia, exacerbating the regionâ€™s drought and famine.20 This also increases the price of food and transportation, and damages local shipping and fishing industries. Legislation to protect Somali waters is an important step in addressing the issue, but enacting this legislation will be a long and difficult process. When assistance reaches Somalia, insecurity and inadequate oversight of aid distribution can cause the aid to fall into the wrong hands. A 2010 U.N. report found that only 50 percent of food aid that reaches Somalia goes to those who need it most.21 Rebel groups usually intercept the other 50 percent; they either A U.S. Marine hands a sack of grain to a Somali woman. keep it for themselves or sell it. In August 2011, the WFP stated that thousands of stolen food-aid sacks were found for sale in Photo courtesy of www.expertinfantry.com markets throughout Mogadishu. Many of these markets were located in the same neighborhoods as refugee camps filled with people in need.22 Landmines in Somalia Landmine and unexploded-ordnance contamination is widespread in Somalia and along the Ethiopian border. Although a lack of security prevents mine-action organizations from conducting thorough surveys, south central Somalia suffers from extensive contamination.23 For instance, in Mogadishu mine/explosive-remnants-of-war casualties are reported almost daily. While always a threat, landmines are especially harmful during droughts because they contribute to food insecurity by restricting civilians from using the land to grow crops and raise livestock. Landmines also restrict aid movement and endanger refugees as they travel to and from refugee camps. However, demining organizations, such as Mines Advisory Group and the Danish Demining Group, have been active in south central Somalia.23 Food security. Access to arable land, grazing pastures and trade routes to local markets is imperative to Somalia’â €™s food security. Before a landmine impact survey has identified hazardous areas, the suspicion of landmine contamination may inhibit farmers from gaining access to valuable agricultural resources. Landmines prevent farmers from cultivating once arable land and block access to water sources. Landmines also threaten nomadic herders who travel across wide swaths of pasture with their livestock.24 In March 2011, for example, two herdsmen and their donkeys were killed when a landmine exploded in Somalia’s Gedo region.25 For farmers who sell their crops in local markets, the presence of landmines along trade routes often forces them to take a different, longer route that increases travel time and ultimately increases food prices.24 In addition, during the 2011 famine, landmines newly laid along the roads by insurgents endangered traders in Bakara, Mogadishu’s largest market.26 Landmines threat. Landmines pose a serious threat to aid agencies working in Somalia’s famine-stricken regions. Aid agencies work in landmine-contaminated Mogadishu and must cross the Somali-Ethiopian border, which contains 70 percent of Somalia’s landmines.27 In April 2011, at least one person died and seven were injured when an aid convoy hit a landmine in Somalia’s Bakool region along the Somali-Ethiopian border.28 AlShabab was subsequently blamed for laying mines in this region. On 25 October 2011, two Danish Demining Group members in a demining unit were kidnapped. They were subsequently rescued by U.S. Special Forces on 25 January 2012.29

Ambia Mohammed looks after her daughterâ€™s http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/SR/murguia/murguia.shtml

Landmines endanger refugees. Landmines threaten displaced persons traveling to refugee camps and returning to their homes Page 3 of 6

Somalia Famine: Terrorism and Landmines Hinder Aid (16.1)

children in the Dadaab camp in Somalia, the worldâ€™s largest refugee camp. In recent months the rate of new arrivals has increased dramatically due to the added factor of drought that is affecting the region. Photo courtesy of Andy Hall, Oxfam Italia.

1/21/16, 11:23 AM

after a crisis. Seeking safety, migrating refugees risk traveling into unfamiliar, landmine-contaminated territory and may have no choice but to travel along contaminated routes. In the Dollo Ado region of Ethiopia, home to several refugee camps, landmines laid along a key route to the region endanger thousands of refugees.30 In Somalia’s Gedo region, at least 10 refugees died

when their bus hit an anti-tank landmine en route to Kenya in April 2011.31 In 1991, landmine incidents significantly increased as Somali refugees returned to Somalia from Ethiopia.32 After the withdrawal of al-Shabab from Mogadishu in August 2011, many people who fled the capital were prompted to return. Somalia may experience an upsurge in landmine incidents as refugees return to certain areas of Mogadishu, because it is believed that al-Shabab mined and booby-trapped the areas during its retreat.33 Conclusion Amidst the starvation and violence, glimmers of hope have emerged. With al-Shabab’s withdrawal from Mogadishu and the creation of a special forces unit to protect aid convoys and internally displaced persons, the capital has become a safer and more secure place for aid agencies to operate and for Somalis to take refuge.34 To prevent mortality and malnutrition rates from increasing over the next several months, however, Somalia needs more funding for relief efforts. The United Nations obtained only half of the estimated US$1.4 billion needed to fight the famine, which is partly due to the fact that the number of people requiring aid continues to increase more rapidly than the contributions coming in.8 On 3 February 2012, the U.N. downgraded the situation in Somalia from a “famine” to a “humanitarian emergency,” which means the situation has improved over recent months. How the humanitarian crisis unfolds will be determined by whether the U.N. can acquire adequate funding and whether the Transitional Federal Government can protect aid workers and refugees from insurgents. ~ Chris Murguia, CISR staff Contact Information Center for International Stabilization and Recovery James Madison University Harrisonburg, Virginia / USA Email: cisr@jmu.edu TOP OF PAGE

Endnotes 1. Muhumed, Malkhadir M., and Luc Van Kemenade. “Somalia Drought is ‘Worst Humanitarian Crisis’: UN.” Huffington Post. 10 July 2011. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/10/somalia-drought-worst-humanitariancrisis-_n_894072.html. Accessed 25 August 2011. 2. “Two Dead in Kenya’s Packed Refugee Camps.” Xogta. 2 July 2011. http://www.xogta.com/2011/07/02/two-deadin-kenyas-packed-refugee-camps-2/. Accessed 25 August. 3. Tran, Mark. “Explainer: Famine in Somalia.” The Guardian. 20 July 2011. http://www.guardian.co.uk/globaldevelopment/2011/jul/20/famine-in-somalia. Accessed 25 August 2011. 4. Kvesic, Ivana. “Somali Government Ousts 2 Leaders Over Food Aid Theft.” The Christian Post. 1 November 2011. http://www.christianpost.com/news/somali-government-ousts-2-leaders-over-food-aid-theft-60124/. Accessed 31 January 2012. 5. “Somalia: Casualties and Victim Assistance.” Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor. 18 October 2011. http://www.the-monitor.org/index.php/cp/display/region_profiles/theme/1343. Accessed 10 January 2012. 6. “Once More Unto the Abyss.” The Economist. 7 July 2011. http://www.economist.com/node/18929467. Accessed 25 August 2011. 7. “Somalia’s Al-Shabab Ban UN Food Aid.” Geopolitical Monitor. 1 March 2010. http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/SR/murguia/murguia.shtml

Page 4 of 6

Somalia Famine: Terrorism and Landmines Hinder Aid (16.1)

1/21/16, 11:23 AM

http://www.geopoliticalmonitor.com/somalias-al-shabab-ban-un-food-aid-3499. Accessed 25 August 2011. 8. “UN Declares Mogadishu Part of Famine Zone.” Somalia Report. 3 August 2011. http://www.somaliareport.com/index.php/post/1284/UN_Declares_Mogadishu_Part_of_Famine_Zone? PHPSESSID=c529ad4e4335b99f279f32cd93c8cb3e. Accessed 25 August 2011. 9. “Kenya-Somalia: Drought Decimates Livestock, Hits Incomes.” IRIN. 4 July 2011. http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=93142 . August 2011. 10. “Somali Children Abandoned To Die Of Starvation.” African Spotlight. 26 July 2011. http://africanspotlight.com/2011/07/somili-children-abandoned-to-die-of-starvation/. Accessed 10 January 2012. 11. “Famine in Southern Somalia: Questions & Answers.” Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit- Somalia. July 2011. http://www.fsnau.org/downloads/Famine-in-Southern-Somalia-Q&A-July-2011.pdf. Accessed 10 January 2012. 12. “First UN Aid Drops Reach Rebel-held Somalia.” Al Jazeera. 17 July 2011. http://www.allvoices.com/ contributed-news/9895763-somali-famine-first-unhcr-airlift-arrives-in-somalia Accessed 25 August 2011. 13. Hanson, Stephanie. “Al-Shabaab.” Council on Foreign Relations.” 10 August 2011. http://www.cfr.org/somalia/alshabaab/p18650. Accessed 25 August 2011. 14. Odowa, Mohamed and Mohamed Shil. “Al-Shabaab Opposes Famine Declaration.” http://www.somaliareport.com/index.php/post/1195/Al-Shabaab_Opposes_Famine_Declaration? PHPSESSID=a0ef72f7bc21d8bb22451177a424f419. Somalia Report. 21 July 2011. Accessed 25 August 2011. 15. Guha-Sapir, Debarati, and Ruwan Ratnayake. “Consequences of Ongoing Civil Conflict in Somalia: Evidence for Public Health Responses.” Public Library of Science 6 (2009): 1-5. http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1000108. 16. Rice, Xan. “Food Aid Halted in Somalia’s South Over Attacks.” Irish Times. 6 January 2010. http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2010/0106/1224261731130.html. Accessed 25 August 2011. 17. Porritt, Richard. “UN Ignores Militant Threats to Begin Somalia Aid Airlift.” Evening Standard. 26 July 2011. http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23973006-un-ignores-militant-threats-to-begin-somalia-aidairlift.do. 25 August 2011. 18. “MSF Suspends Operations in Medina Area, Mogadishu, Somalia, Following Direct Attacks on its Compound.” Médecins Sans Frontiéres. 30 March 2011. http://www.msf.org/msf/articles/2011/03/msf-suspends-operations-inmedina-area-mogadishu-somalia-following-direct-attacks-on-its-compound.cfm. Accessed 25 August 2011. 19. “Al-Shabaab Blocks Relief Food Bound to IDP Camp in Kismayo.” Bar Kulan. 3 August 2011. http://www.barkulan.com/2011/08/03/al-shabaab-blocks-relief-food-bound-to-idp-camp-in-kismayo/. Accessed 25 August 2011. 20. Curnow, Robin, and Eoghan Macguire. “Piracy delaying vital food aid from reaching Somalia.” Cable News Network. 3 November 2011. http://edition.cnn.com/2011/11/03/business/mpa-piracy/index.html. Accessed 10 January 2012. 21. Lederer, Edith. “UN Report: Up to Half of Somalia’s Food Aid Diverted from Needy to Militias or Businessmen.” The Associated Press. 10 March 2010. http://www.news919.com/news/world/article/34004--un-report-up-to-half-ofsomalia-s-food-aid-diverted-from-needy-to-militias-or-businessmen. Accessed 25 August 2011. 22. Houreld, Katharine. “AP: Somalia Famine Aid Stolen, UN Investigating.” The Miami Herald. 15 August 2011. . http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/9798947 Accessed 25 August 2011 23. “Somalia.” Landmine & Cluster Munition Monitor. 7 October 2010. http://www.themonitor.org/index.php/cp/display/region_profiles/theme/1342. Accessed 25 August 2011. 24. Oppong, Joseph R., and Ezekiel Kalipeni. “The Geography of Landmine and Implications for Health and Disease in Africa: A Political Ecology Approach.” Africa Today 52 (2005): 3-25. https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/kalipeni/www/Kalipeni_oppong%202005%20Landmines%20in%20Afr%20Today.pdf 25. Ibrahim, Abdifitah. “Ten Dead as Minibus Hits Landmine.” Somalia Report. 27 April 2011. http://www.somaliareport.com/index.php/post/617/Ten_Dead_as_Minibus_Hits_Landmine. Accessed 25 August 2011. 26. Mohamed, Yahya. “Landmine Fears Slow Bakara Offensive.” Somalia Report. 23 May 2011. http://www.somaliareport.com/index.php/post/822/Fighting_Breaks_out_in_Garbaharey?PHPSESSID= f2744e2fd70ae9ac2011ddc380ab2489. Accessed 25 August 2011. 27. “Hidden Killers 1998: The Global Landmine Crisis.” U.S. Department of State. September 1998 . http://www.state.gov/www/global/arms/rpt_9809_demine_toc.html. Accessed 25 August 2011. http://www.virtualref.com/govdocs/278.htm 28. Ahmed, Mohamed. “Landmine Hits Aid Convoy in Bakol.” Somalia Report. 11 April 2011. http://www.somaliareport.com/index.php/post/495/Landmine_Hits_Aid_Convoy_in_Bak. Accessed 25 August 2011. 29. Associated Press. “Somalia: foreign aid workers held hostage freed in US helicopter raid.” The Guardian, 25 January 23012. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/25/foreign-aid-workers-somalia-freed-helicopter? INTCMP=SRCH. Accessed 7 February 2012. http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/SR/murguia/murguia.shtml

Page 5 of 6

Somalia Famine: Terrorism and Landmines Hinder Aid (16.1)

1/21/16, 11:23 AM

30. Straziuso, Jason. “UN Food Program Avoiding Landmines, Militants to Get Aid to Southern Somalia Famine Zone.” The Record. 25 July 2011. http://www.therecord.com/news/world/article/568925--un-food-program-avoidingland-mines-militants-to-get-aid-to-southern-somali-famine-zone. Accessed 25 August 2011. 31. “Ten Die in Landmine Blast in Gedo Region.” Bar Kulan. 27 April 2011. http://www.barkulan.com/2011/04/27/ten-die-in-landmine-blast-in-gedo-region/. Accessed 25 August 2011. 32. “The Landmine Crisis: Designed to Kill and Injure, to Impede.” Council of Canadians with Disabilities. 2010. http://www.ccdonline.ca/en/international/landmines/crisismlpd. Accessed 25 August 2011. 33. “Somali Army Warns about al-Shabab Mines in Mogadishu.” BBC. 12 August 2011. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-14509214. Accessed 25 August 2011. 34. Harper, Mary. “Somalia Famine: PM Ali Sets Up Aid Protection Force.” BBC. 13 August 2011. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-14517866. Accessed 25 August 2011.

The Journal of ERW & Mine Action is sponsored by:

http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/SR/murguia/murguia.shtml

Page 6 of 6

Peer-support Training for Nonliterate and Semiliterate Female Ex…ndi by Cameron Macauley, Monica Onyango and Eric Niragira (16.1)

Table of Contents

Editorial

Focus

Special Report

Notes

Book Reviews

Briefs

Country Profiles

Past Issues

1/21/16, 11:23 AM

CISR Home

Peer-support Training for Nonliterate and Semiliterate Female Ex-combatants: Experience in Burundi by Cameron Macauley [ CISR ], Monica Onyango [ Boston University School of Public Health ] and Eric Niragira [ CEDAC ] open pdf of this article In September 2011, 25 female veterans of Burundi’s civil war were trained to become peer-support workers. The fiveday training, funded under a grant from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation and conducted by James Madison University’s Center for International Stabilization and Recovery, was the first of its kind to offer peer-counseling skills to nonliterate1 and semiliterate women. Between 1961—when Burundi declared its independence from Belgium—and early 2005, violence in Burundi killed an estimated 500,000 people and left the country in a chronic state of political instability. Following the assassination of President Melchior Ndadaye in 1993, ethnic conflict between Hutus and Tutsis and attempts to overthrow the government resulted in brutal military reprisals that forced many Burundians to take up arms in self-defense. Paramilitary organizations conscripted men, women and children at gunpoint to provide slave labor and fight on the front lines.2 By 2005, war had left Burundi without infrastructure or industry and had reduced already low indices of health and education. At the height of Burundi’s civil conflict, literacy among women ages 15 and above fell from 52.2 percent in 2000 to 44 percent in 2002. Although literacy among women had increased to 60.9 percent by 2009 (with an encouraging leap to 76 percent among girls ages 15 to 24), the United Nations Development Programme’s 2009 Human Development Report ranked Burundi 174 out of 177 nations.3 As in much of traditional Africa, Burundian women are already on an unequal footing with men, enrolling less frequently in school and receiving fewer years of education. Although French is an official language in Burundi, few Burundians are proficient in French, and the literacy statistics above refer mainly to literacy in Kirundi, a language in which few publications are available. In addition, literacy among women is significantly higher in urban communities, whereas the percentage of literate women is close to zero in some rural communities. Furthermore, opportunities for adult women in Burundi to learn how to read and write are sparse, and motivation to seek educational opportunities is low for women who devote long days to farming, working and raising children. Alternatively, male literacy in Burundi is typically about 10 to 15 percent higher than that of http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Notes/Macauley/macauley.shtml

Page 1 of 8

Peer-support Training for Nonliterate and Semiliterate Female Ex…ndi by Cameron Macauley, Monica Onyango and Eric Niragira (16.1)

1/21/16, 11:23 AM

women.10 Female Veterans in Burundi For 13 years, during the darkest period of the war, unscrupulous warlords on both sides forced adolescents and children into military service in order to swell their fighting forces with obedient and resilient youths.11 In addition, many thousands of teens (Click image to enlarge) Table 1. Female literacy4 rate in Burundi. All graphics courtesy of Cameron Macauley.

willingly joined paramilitary units devoted to defending Tutsi communities from wholesale genocidal slaughter.12 Many teachers fled, and 29 percent of Burundi’s schools were destroyed, leaving education in Burundi severely affected for nearly a decade.13

Burundian women involved in military service were often little 14 more than slaves. Conditions were abysmal for those assigned to cook, wash clothes and act as “bush wives” for male soldiers. Life was only marginally better for women who received combat training and went into battle. Women suffered from hunger and sexual abuse at the whim of their male comrades, and even those who had distinguished themselves in battle garnered little respect and few privileges.15 Demobilization created a dilemma for the Burundian Government, as the status of female veterans remained doubtful.16 Many observers questioned whether women were ever combatants, and female claims for the same rights as male ex-combatants were routinely denied by the Programme National de Démobilisation, Réinsertion et Réintégration (National Demobilization, Reinsertion and Reintegration Program).17 Initially, women were only eligible for assistance if they were married to male soldiers, and only then if their husbands had fought on the government’s side.18 Opportunities for land, housing, vocational training and health care slowly opened up to women when the numbers of female excombatants became apparent. Regardless, assistance was difficult to obtain for these female veterans’ children.19 Consequently, as many as 85 percent of women “self-demobilized,”15 meaning they did not bother trying to register as ex-combatants. Of the estimated 55,000 ex-combatants believed to live in Burundi, 30,916 were officially demobilized as of April 2010, and of these only 795 were female.20 Many female ex-combatants tried to return to their communities after demobilization, only to confront a variety of obstacles. Whereas male counterparts received praise and respect, female veterans were frequently stigmatized as “killers,” and single mothers with children were accused of promiscuity.17 When A participant gives a presentation on what it means to be a veteran and a mother.

wanting to remarry, these women found that men believed they would be difficult to control.21

In some cases, there was a grain of truth to this: As a result of years of abuse, Burundian women in military service had acquired survival skills to avoid exploitation. Some had advanced in rank by challenging stereotypes and excelling in traditionally male-oriented activities, such as handling weapons, leading troops into battle, nighttime reconnaissance and interrogating prisoners.22 These women were outspoken, fearless and protective of their more vulnerable colleagues.22 However, they contradicted traditional norms of the subservient and docile wife that Burundian men find attractive. War-related Trauma

http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Notes/Macauley/macauley.shtml

Page 2 of 8

Peer-support Training for Nonliterate and Semiliterate Female Ex…ndi by Cameron Macauley, Monica Onyango and Eric Niragira (16.1)

1/21/16, 11:23 AM

Research suggests that women exposed to combat are more likely to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder than men.23, 24 For women, the social transformation into soldiers is more profound and potentially more disturbing. Men feel more comfortable in the role of warrior and defender in which they are required to kill or maim an enemy. For women, the traditional role of protector and caregiver is brutally violated during military service.25 For female excombatants who were raped, the trust and self-confidence necessary to interact normally with men in their community is particularly difficult to regain. Because of their similar experience, female ex-combatants wanted to stay together after demobilization. Having spent years surviving in the bush and witnessing the same violent atrocities, these women found that their military friends were often closer to them than family. No one can understand the anguish and hardship of such a life better than those who have also experienced it.26 Rejected by their parents, husbands and communities, many of these women established communal families in order to survive. The Center for the Training and Development of Former Combatants

Participants learn about trust in an exercise in which blindfolded participants are guided by partners.

Eric Niragira, an ex-combatant forced into combat at the age of 15, founded CEDAC (Le Centre d’Encadrement et de Développement des Anciens Combattants, or The Center for Management and Development of Veterans) in 2005 as an organization dedicated to helping demobilized veterans reintegrate into Burundian society.27 Following CEDAC’s establishment, many

female ex-combatants banded together to form similar groups for advocacy and income generation, and now some 60 such associations exist in Burundi with more than 1,200 members.28,29 Niragira realized that reintegration was especially difficult for women, and he obtained funding to establish a commune in which female ex-combatants could live, raise their children together and participate as a group in income-generating activities. However, many of the women continued to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, for which Burundi has limited treatment. CEDAC’s work attracted the attention of Survivor Corps, which offered training on how to provide peer support.27 In rural areas where counseling and psychotherapy are virtually nonexistent, the training proved to be highly successful, since it encouraged the women to help each other rather than rely on outsiders. Symptoms of PTSD diminished quickly among the commune population, and some of the recovered women chose to return to their home communities. One difficulty Survivor Corps encountered was the very low literacy level among women living in the communes; this was a problem since all of Survivor Corps’ training materials were developed for literate peer-support workers. In 2011, CISR proposed another training event for CEDAC, specifically designed for nonliterate or semiliterate women. The 2011 Peer-support Training Workshop CEDAC selected 25 female participants from eight CEDAC communes in Burundi to take part in the workshop. The women, ranging in age from 28 to 54, served in the military or paramilitary forces during the Burundian civil conflict and showed interest and skill in counseling other women. Most of the participants were abducted into service, and approximately half of the participants experienced combat for the first time during the war. The majority of the women suffered gunshot wounds or had been injured by landmines. Most were sexual-abuse victims. Fifteen of the participants were semiliterate, in that they could read and write some Kirundi. The remaining women were functionally illiterate,1 although most could write their own names. None of the participants could speak French or English. (Click image to enlarge) Workshop curriculum.

Workshop Content and Methodology The workshop focused on the human response to traumatic

http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Notes/Macauley/macauley.shtml

Page 3 of 8

Peer-support Training for Nonliterate and Semiliterate Female Ex…ndi by Cameron Macauley, Monica Onyango and Eric Niragira (16.1)

1/21/16, 11:23 AM

experiences, and how active listening, empathy and understanding can facilitate the natural recovery processes resulting from traumatic events. Teaching methodology was based on a series of interactive exercises, some of which were developed by Dr. Lennis Echterling and Dr. Anne Stewart of James Madison University. Question-and-answer exchanges with the facilitator elicited responses indicating that most participants had a clear understanding of traumaâ€™s effects on survivors of war-related violence. The participants were willing—in some cases even eager—to tell personal stories of violence they had suffered, witnessed and participated in, describing how they overcame fear, depression and anger and went on to help others do the same. Participants practiced a series of exercises designed to localize the strong emotions (both positive and negative) associated with traumatic events. This allowed survivors to isolate feelings of anger and grief, and instead summon strength and calmness. This mastery of internal forces is essential to the next step in the recovery process—the “Survivor Story,” which is the survivor’s contemplation and analysis of his or her traumatic memories.30 Recalled with horror, sorrow and bitterness, the “Survival Story” represents how survivors understand the events and actions forming their traumatic experience. Decades of research support the theory that survivors who tell their story to a sympathetic listener or audience can better comprehend what happened.31 Not

Participants learn how to help others relinquish painful memories by exhaling them into balloons.

only is this process therapeutic, but survivors’ understanding can increase with each retelling of their story.32 Within the workshop,

exercises focused on teaching participants to ask questions designed to promote analysis of the survivor’s own role in the survival story in order to emphasize self-efficacy and promote selfidentification in a positive light. This was crucial for those recovering from feelings of humiliation and guilt, which can plague survivors for years. Questions included, “How did you find the strength to go on?” and “What have you learned about yourself from this experience?” Finally, participants were instructed to encourage the survivor to look toward the future: “What will you need to do to rebuild your life?”33 Storytelling is an important part of Burundian oral tradition and proved a valuable part of the training. A major component of the workshop was role-play exercises in which a “peer-support worker” conversed with a “survivor,” giving participants an opportunity to practice peer-support skills and analyze each other’s performances. Role-plays gave participants an opportunity to present stories about not only trauma and recovery but some of the fundamental injustices of Burundian society toward female ex-combatants. The participants were skilled actors, depicting distrust, hatred, fear, grief and rage with great feeling, yet they also convincingly portrayed empathy, concern and understanding. Conclusions: The Future of Peer Support in Burundi This workshop was unique: It was designed to teach counseling skills to participants who have had little or no formal education. Traditionally, counseling is considered an activity only literate individuals may engage in; however, peer support takes place naturally in post-conflict communities, especially where professional psychotherapy is inaccessible. Support for nonliterate groups does not negate the importance of literacy; instead, it acknowledges that an individual need not be literate to learn new skills and contribute to the rebuilding of a war-affected community. Providing these women with counseling skills is particularly important because of the high prevalence of psychological trauma among female ex-combatants and the importance of their continued recovery as part of reintegration and reconciliation. CEDAC is interested in establishing a nationwide peer-support program for trauma survivors of all types in Burundi; however, the organization currently lacks the funding and personnel to do this. The current project relies heavily on the volunteer efforts of CEDAC’s staff and the workshop participants. Under the current Niarchos grant, CISR plans to return to Burundi in 2012 to offer peer-support training for other groups, including women with disabilities. CEDAC views this workshop as a step toward gender equality in Burundi. CEDAC’s communes gave female excombatants a safe environment to recover, but these women will need to return to society soon. Hopefully, building their capacity through workshops of this kind will help them become leaders, caregivers and advocates for women’s rights in Burundi and throughout Africa.

http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Notes/Macauley/macauley.shtml

Page 4 of 8

Peer-support Training for Nonliterate and Semiliterate Female Exâ&#x20AC;Śndi by Cameron Macauley, Monica Onyango and Eric Niragira (16.1)

1/21/16, 11:23 AM

TOP OF PAGE

Biographies

Cameron Macauley, MPH, joined CISR in August 2010 as Peer Support and Trauma Rehabilitation Specialist. He holds degrees in anthropology and psychology, and became a Physician Assistant in 1983. He has worked in a refugee camp on the Thai-Cambodian border, at a district hospital in Sumatra, as a Peace Corps volunteer in Guinea-Bissau, in Mozambique where he taught trauma surgery for landmine injuries, in an immunization program in Angola and in a malariacontrol program in Brazil. Between 2005 and 2010, he taught mental-health courses for Survivor Corps in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Colombia, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Jordan and Vietnam.

Monica Onyango, Ph.D., MS, MPH, RN, is a Clinical Assistant Professor of International Health at Boston University School of Public Health, where she teaches courses in Participants play the roles of a peer-support worker managing disasters and complex humanitarian counseling a female veteran in order to practice emergencies, and sexual and reproductive counseling skills. health in disaster settings. Onyango served in the Kenya Ministry of Health for 10 years as a Nursing Officer, worked as a Health Team Leader with international NGOs in relief and development in Angola, South Sudan and in a refugee camp in Kenya. She also participated in training South Sudanese health workers on emergency obstetrics and neonatal care. Onyangoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s research interests focus on reproductive health, maternal and child health, HIV/AIDS, health care among populations affected by war and natural disasters, and the role of nurses and midwives in improving maternal and child health. She holds a doctorate in nursing, a Master of Science (nursing), a Master in Public Health, a diploma in advanced nursing, and a diploma in general nursing and midwifery.

Eric Niragira, a former combatant in Burundi, founded CEDAC in 2005 to fight armed violence and assist ex-combatants. CEDAC has received support from CISR, UNDP and the United Nations Development Fund for Women to undertake its peace-building and development initiatives, such as campaigns for the voluntary handover of firearms and training in peer-to peer-support. Winner of the Niarchos Prize 2010, which honors individuals who promote resilience in conflict-affected areas, Niragira is involved in several projects to promote the rights of women, veterans and people with disabilities in Burundi.

Contact Information Cameron Macauley, MPH Peer Support and Trauma Rehabilitation Specialist Center for International Stabilization and Recovery http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Notes/Macauley/macauley.shtml

Page 5 of 8

Peer-support Training for Nonliterate and Semiliterate Female Ex…ndi by Cameron Macauley, Monica Onyango and Eric Niragira (16.1)

1/21/16, 11:23 AM

James Madison University MSC 4902 Harrisonburg, VA 22807 / USA Email: macaulcx@jmu.edu website: http://cisr.jmu.edu Monica Onyango, Ph.D. Clinical Assistant Professor Boston University School of Public Health Email: monyango@bu.edu Eric Niragira Executive Director CEDAC Tel: +257 7991 2027

TOP OF PAGE

Endnotes 1.

“Nonliterate” is used here to signify individuals who have not been educated to read or write, and feel no need to do so, because literacy is not required for survival and social productivity. “Nonliterate” is used in place of the term “illiterate” which has pejorative connotations of ignorance and lack of intelligence. “Functionally illiterate,” on the other hand, means someone who can read letters and some words but is unable to derive the meaning of a sentence.

“Burundi: Forced recruitment of females of Hutu origin by Hutu militia groups (September 2002).” Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, 25 September 2002. Refworld. http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/ category,COI,,,BDI,3f7d4d581f,0.html. Accessed 10 November 2011.

Human Development Report 2009: Overcoming Barriers: Human Mobility and Development. UNDP, New York, 2009. http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/HDR_2009_EN_Complete.pdf. Accessed 10 November 2011.

Adult literacy rate is defined as “the percentage of people ages 15 and above who can, with understanding, read and write a short, simple statement on their everyday life.”

Africa: Burundi. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/by.html. . Accessed 10 November 2011.

“Population, Health, and Human Well-Beingâ€”Burundi. EarthTrends.” http://earthtrends.wri.org/pdf_library/ country_profiles/ pop_cou_108.pdf. Accessed 10 November 2011.

Burundi. UNICEF. World Bank. http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/burundi_statistics.html. Accessed 31 October 2011.

Social Indicators. United Nations Statistics Division. http://unstats.un.org/unsd/demographic/ products/socind/literacy.htm. Accessed 10 November 2011.

Literacy rate, youth female (% of females ages 15-24). The World Bank. http://data.worldbank.org/ indicator/SE.ADT.1524.LT.FE.ZS. Accessed 10 November 2011.

10.

National Adult Literacy Rates (15+) 1975-2000. UNESCO Institute for Statistics, 2001. United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. http://stats.uis.unesco.org/unesco/TableViewer/ tableView.aspx?ReportId=210. Accessed 10 November 2011.

http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Notes/Macauley/macauley.shtml

Page 6 of 8

Peer-support Training for Nonliterate and Semiliterate Female Ex…ndi by Cameron Macauley, Monica Onyango and Eric Niragira (16.1)

1/21/16, 11:23 AM

11.

Burundi: Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2003. Country Reports on Human Rights Practices. Washington: Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, 2004. http://www.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2003/27715.htm. Accessed 10 November 2011.

12.

“Burundi: To Protect the People: The Government-sponsored “self-defense” program in Burundi.” 13 (December 2001), No. 7(A). Human Rights Watch. http://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/burundi/burundi1201.pdf. Accessed 10 November 2011.

13.

Obura, Anna. Staying power: struggling to reconstruct education in Burundi since 1993. International Institute for Educational Planning, 2008. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0015/001579/157928e.pdf. Accessed 10 November 2011.

14.

“Burundi: Human Rights Developments.” Human Rights Watch, 2002. http://www.hrw.org/ legacy/wr2k2/africa2.html. Accessed 10 November 2011.

15.

Uvin, Peter. “Ex-combatants in Burundi: Why they joined, why they left, how they fared.” Working Paper No.3, October 2007. Multi-Country Demobilization and Reintegration Program. http://www.mdrp.org/ PDFs/MDRP_Working_Paper3.pdf. Accessed 10 November 2011.

16.

De Tessières, S. Femmes Invisibles: Les Burundaises et le Processus de Desarmement, Demobilisation et Reintegration. Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, 2007; p. 88.

17.

“Workshop Report: Taking a Gender Perspective to Strengthen the Multi-Country Demobilization and Reintegration Program (MDRP) in the greater Great Lakes Region.” UNIFEM. Kigali, Rwanda, 31 October – 2 November 2005. http://www.mdrp.org/PDFs/MDRP_UNIFEM_Gender_DDR_010207_en.pdf. Accessed 10 November 2011.

18.

Anderlini Sanam N., Conaway CP. “Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration.” International Alert and Women Waging Peace, Inclusive Security, Sustainable Peace: A Toolkit for Advocacy and Action. Hunt Alternatives Fund and International Alert, November 2004. http://www.huntalternatives.org/ download/31_disarmament.pdf. Accessed 10 November 2011.

19.

Sow, Ndeye. “Gender and Conflict Transformation in the Great Lakes Region of Africa.” International Alert Report,2006. http://www.glow-boell.de/media/de/txt_rubrik_2/Ndeye_Sow_FGmai06.pdf. Accessed 10 November 2011.

20.

“Implementation Completion and Results Report on an Emergency Demobilization, Reinsertion and Reintegration Project.” The World Bank, June 23, 2009. Data from Directorate of ex-combatants, Burundi Ministry of Defense, 5-21-2010. The official World Bank report states that 26,283 adults, including 516 women were demobilized. The World Bank. http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/ default/WDSContentServer/ WDSP/IB/2009/08/13/000333037_20090813233100/ Rendered/PDF/ICR11520P081961IC0disclosed08112191.pdf. Accessed 10 November 2011.

21.

Coulter, Chris, Persson M., Utas M. Young Female Fighters in African Wars: Conflicts and its Consequences. The Nordic Africa Institute, 2008. http://www.childtrafficking.com/Docs/ young_female_fighters_wars_0309.pdf. Accessed 10 November 2011.

22.

Mazurana, Dyan. “Women in Armed Opposition Groups in Africa and the Promotion of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights.” PSIO. Geneva Call, 2005. http://www.icrc.org/eng/assets/files/ other/women_armed_groups_2005.pdf. Accessed 10 November 2011.

23.

Stein, M.B., Walker J.R. and Forde D.R. “Gender differences in susceptibility to posttraumatic stress disorder.” Behaviour research and therapy, (June 2000) 38:619-628.

24.

Breslau, N. “Gender differences in trauma and posttraumatic stress disorder.” The Journal of Gender-specific Medicine, (2002) 5(1):34.

25.

Paulson, D.S., Krippner S. Haunted by Combat: Understanding PTSD in War Veterans Including Women, Reservists, and Those Coming Back from Iraq. Praeger Security International Series, Greenwood Publishing Group 2007, p. 50.

26.

Macauley, Cameron. “Peer Support and Trauma Recovery.” The Journal of ERW and Mine Action, 15.1 (Spring

http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Notes/Macauley/macauley.shtml

Page 7 of 8

Peer-support Training for Nonliterate and Semiliterate Female Ex…ndi by Cameron Macauley, Monica Onyango and Eric Niragira (16.1)

1/21/16, 11:23 AM

2011):14-17. http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/15.1/feature/macauley/macauley.shtml. Accessed 10 November 2011. 27.

Biography of Eric Niragira. CEDAC. http://www.freewebs.com/cedac/biographyoftheauthor.htm. Accessed 10 November 2011.

28.

Inamahoro, Agnès.Â “Association of Demobilized Women Ex-combatants Improves Community Reintegration.” News & Noteworthy, January 28, 2008. http://www.mdrp.org/PDFs/N&N_02_08.pdf. Accessed 10 November 2011.

29.

“Burundi: Returning to a normal life after war.” UNDP. http://www.beta.undp.org/content/ undp/en/home/ourwork/womenempowerment/successstories/burundi-female-combatants-regain-peacenormalcy.html. Accessed 10 November 2011.

30.

Santiagrel, Alaric F. and Joseph Rickman. “Women of War, Women of Peace.” 2010 Annual Report of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI). http://irri.org/irri/annual-reports/annual-report-2010/women-ofwar-women-of-peace?print=1&tmpl=component. Accessed 10 November 2011.

31.

Echterling, L.G., Presbury JH, McKee JE. Crisis intervention: Promoting resilience and resolution in troubled times. Prentice Hall, 2005, pp. 94-118.

32.

Mollica, R.F. Healing invisible wounds: Paths to hope and recovery in a violent world. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2006.

33.

Rosenthal, G. “The healing effects of storytelling: On the conditions of curative storytelling in the context of research and counseling.” Qualitative Inquiry 2003; 9(6):915.

The Journal of ERW & Mine Action is sponsored by:

http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Notes/Macauley/macauley.shtml

Page 8 of 8

Second Conference on Psychosocial Rehabilitation for Landmine Survivors and Persons with Disabilities by Reykhan Muminova (16.1)

Table of Contents

Editorial

Focus

Special Report

Notes

Book Reviews

Briefs

Country Profiles

Past Issues

1/21/16, 11:24 AM

CISR Home

Second Conference on Psychosocial Rehabilitation for Landmine Survivors and Persons with Disabilities by Reykhan Muminova, M.D., Ph.D. [ Tajikistan Mine Action Centre ] open pdf of this article The Ministry of Labour and Social Protection of the Population of the Republic of Tajikistan, the Tajikistan Mine Action Centre and the Afghanistan Disability Support Programme hosted the second Regional Psychosocial Rehabilitation Conference in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, 19–20 October 2011. This conference attracted high-level officials from key Afghan, Iranian and Tajik ministries and departments, as well as organizations working with landmine survivors, persons with disabilities and in psychosocial rehabilitation programs. Sponsored by the Ministry of Public Health and the Mine Action Coordination Center of Afghanistan, the first Regional Psychosocial Rehabilitation Conference was held 14–15 December 2010 in Kabul, Afghanistan. Since Tajikistan and Afghanistan share a common culture, religion and language, and both countries have a growing need to develop psychosocial rehabilitation services, a basis for beneficial regional cooperation exists. The conference, which was designed to serve both Afghanistan and Tajikistan, identified the following necessary tasks: Research issues related to psychosocial rehabilitation and mental health of persons with disabilities. Create a standard program on psychosocial rehabilitation with involvement of all players. Increase the public and health staff’s awareness of mental-health issues. Conduct monitoring and evaluation of current and future mental-health training. Exchange psychosocial rehabilitation training materials and experiences between Afghanistan and Tajikistan. Conduct research in Tajikistan and Afghanistan on the use of psychotherapy and other psychosocial-related activities. Attract donors’ support to mental health in general and to psychosocial rehabilitation in particular. Following on the success of the first conference, the Tajikistan Mine Action Centre, in cooperation with the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection of the Population of the Republic of Tajikistan and the United Nations Development Programme, organized the second Regional Psychosocial Rehabilitation Conference, which was held in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, 19–20 October 2011. Second Regional Conference

http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Notes/Muminova/muminova.shtml

Page 1 of 5

Second Conference on Psychosocial Rehabilitation for Landmine Survivors and Persons with Disabilities by Reykhan Muminova (16.1)

1/21/16, 11:24 AM

More than 60 participants from various Afghan, Iranian and Tajik organizations and other nongovernmental and disability organizations, including TMAC, UNICEF and the International Committee of the Red Cross, as well as landmine survivors and persons with disabilities convened for the second conference. The participants discussed progress made in psychosocialrehabilitation services in Afghanistan, Iran and Tajikistan, and studied more specific and long-term interventions for helping landmine survivors and persons with disabilities. Mrs. Latofat Sharipova, Deputy of the Minister of Labour and Social Protection of the Population of the Republic of Tajikistan and Mrs. Suraya Paikan Deputy Minister of Labor, Social Affairs, Martyrs and Disabled of Afghanistan opened the program with Conference participants visited different departments of overviews of their respective national situations. Sharipova the National Rehabilitation Center for Children and emphasized that improving social services is a priority of the Adolescents with Disabilities, Chorbogh. 20 October Ministry of Labour and Social Protection of the Population of the 2011. Republic of Tajikistan. A law on the social protection of PWDs was Photo courtesy of Rasulov Zaniddin, Assistant of VA adopted in December 2010 that included provisions guaranteeing Programme, TMAC. the rights and privileges of PWDs and addressing the physical accessibility of social infrastructure and public transportation. Unfortunately, lack of funding may prevent the effective realization of these goals. Though existing organizations provide some social services, such as orthopedic workshops, they require capacity-building to use new technologies. The quality of this work needs assessment, because mine survivors have special psychological, social and economic rehabilitation requirements. Paikan noted that 2.7 percent of Afghanistan’s population is disabled. A new law enables PWDs to take advantage of many services, including primary and higher education, medical care, employment, transportation, shelter and pilgrimage assistance for those who go to the Hajj. Recently, the Ministry of Labor, Social Affairs, Martyrs and Disabled of Afghanistan established the National Institute for the Disabled in Kabul City in order to provide better services. Sharipova ended her introduction, stating: “I believe that our regional cooperation in the field of psychosocial support to landmine survivors and PWDs will bring positive results.” Paikan suggested the establishment of an intergovernmental coordination committee so that both neighboring countries—Afghanistan and Tajikistan—could benefit from each others’ experience. As Afghanistan recently joined the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the Convention on Cluster Munitions, it has specific responsibilities to PWDs and could further benefit from regional cooperation. The Conference On the first day, participants exchanged experiences about the realities of mental health in their countries and reviewed new developments, including psychosocial problems, rehabilitation services and opportunities available for PWDs and landmine and explosive remnants of war survivors in Afghanistan, Iran and Tajikistan.

Group photo of conference participants taken in the National Rehabilitation Center for Children and Adolescents with Disabilities, Chorbogh, after the conference concluded. 20 October 2011. Photo courtesy of Rasulov Zaniddin, Assistant of VA Programme, TMAC.

Presentations devoted to mental health in Tajikistan and Afghanistan revealed the reasons and causes of mental illnesses. Dr. Nematullah Ahmaddulah, a trainer from the International Psychosocial Organization, presented on the organization’s rehabilitation activities in Afghanistan, including the development of a psychosocial training program and the establishment of 15 clinics in Kabul. With funding from the German Government, the International Psychosocial Organization works closely with the Ministry of Public Health and the respective provincial health directorates on current rehabilitation programs in hospitals in Northern Afghanistan. Davron Valiev, head of the Social Protection Department of the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection of the Population of the Republic of Tajikistan, presented on social protection in Tajikistan. Various organizations provide a

http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Notes/Muminova/muminova.shtml

Page 2 of 5

Second Conference on Psychosocial Rehabilitation for Landmine Survivors and Persons with Disabilities by Reykhan Muminova (16.1)

1/21/16, 11:24 AM

variety of social services to the Tajik population including housing, social-rehabilitation centers, part-time and full-time centers for the elderly and social-assistance departments. At present, more than 15 organizations provide social services run by the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection of the Population. In 2011, the first international rehabilitation center with the capacity to serve 150 people opened in the Baljuvan district. In his presentation, Mohammad Ali Mohabati of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission explained that “issues of PWDs are not only social issues, but also human rights issues.” The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission has a department for the social inclusion and improvement of living conditions for PWDs. Mohabati emphasized the importance of making all facilities accessible for PWDs, including health, education, social and economic services. He stressed the need to raise awareness and overcome the prevalent negative attitude toward PWDs. The empowerment and social inclusion of PWDs is essential in helping them become contributing members of society. Asadi Mohammadreza, a community-based rehabilitation expert in the State Welfare Organization in Iran, presented a project to Discussion between Director of Chorbogh Mavluda prevent injuries caused by landmines and to provide rehabilitation Shamsullayeva and Afghan participants Sulaiman Safdar, to survivors. Another presenter, Davlatov Mahmadullo, a Mohammad Ali Mohabati and others, 20 October 2011. psychologist from the Tajik National University who has authored Photo courtesy of Reykhan Muminova. more than 70 articles for Tajik journals, has worked with the Tajikistan Mine Action Centre on summer rehabilitation camps since 2006. He shared his work providing psychological support and consultation to mine survivors during the camps. Ms. Nafisa Murodovna Yunusova, the head of the department of psychology at Tajik National University, presented on psychological assistance in emergency situations, using her work with residents after an earthquake in the Vanj district and after floods in Kulyab as examples. She shared role-play, drawing and art-therapy techniques used for psychosocial rehabilitation of traumatized children. Dr. Fareshta Quedees from the International Psychosocial Organization and Dr. M. Ihsan Gulban, general manager of Disability Research and Capacity Development of the Ministry of Public Health of Afghanistan, also gave presentations. The second day was organized at the National Rehabilitation Center for Children with Physical Disabilities in Chorbogh, Varzob district. A national rehabilitation center for children and adolescents with disabilities, the Center can house up to 240 patients. Since 2009, it has also provided rehabilitation and daycare for 40–60 children and training for their parents to care for them at home. With support from the European Commission, which has already started developing curriculum and trainings, a training center for social workers and mental health care professionals will soon also be established at the National Rehabilitation Center. The director of the center, Mavluda Shamsullayeva, led participants on a tour and explained the center’s contemporary rehabilitation methods. After this trip, landmine survivor Shukhrat Kholmadov, a conference participant, shared his personal experiences, discussing his life before and after his accident. Sulaiman Safdar, the executive director of Afghanistan Landmine Survivors’ Organization, was among the Afghan participants in the conference. In late 2007, Safdar and others established the Afghanistan Landmine Survivors’ Organization to provide psychosocial support to PWDs. In between the two conferences, in the framework of regional cooperation, six Tajik participants attended an Afghanistan Landmine Survivors’ Organization training on peer-to-peer support in Kabul, Afghanistan in September 2011. As a result, a peer-to-peer support program is included in the 2012 TMAC Annual Work Plan. TMAC also plans to organize a joint summer rehabilitation camp for Tajik and Afghan landmine survivors in 2012. Group Analysis In four groups, participants discussed the practical objectives of regional cooperation. The outcomes of these groups laid the foundation for the conference’s concluding recommendations. As a result of one of these discussions, available resources (human, technical and information) in Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Iran were identified, and mechanisms of support and sharing were agreed upon. Another discussion group created the following list of important activities to help PWDs:

http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Notes/Muminova/muminova.shtml

Page 3 of 5

Second Conference on Psychosocial Rehabilitation for Landmine Survivors and Persons with Disabilities by Reykhan Muminova (16.1)

1/21/16, 11:24 AM

1. Conduct joint technical research on psychosocial rehabilitation, as existing research is very limited. 2. Establish standards of psychosocial rehabilitation services. 3. Increase attention to psychosocial rehabilitation from governmental organizations, and ensure the proper implementation of government policy and strategy. 4. Increase state and donor monetary support for psychosocial rehabilitation. 5. Establish a system to coordinate organizations working in the mental-health field. 6. Increase primary healthcare workersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; knowledge of mental health and disabilities at the early stages of psychological rehabilitation. 7. Increase the number of technical staff trained in psychosocial rehabilitation, especially hospital-based medical psychologists. 8. Organize psychological consultation centers in rural districts. 9. Organize vocational rehabilitation centers to educate PWDs. 10. Organize recreation, sport, leisure and cultural activities, which contribute to psychosocial rehabilitation. 11. Establish monitoring and evaluation of past trainings. 12. Increase societyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s awareness of psychosocial rehabilitation through mass-media and community mobilization. 13. Include psychosocial rehabilitation in the university curriculum and prepare educational materials (packages). 14. Organize advocacy for national and international laws and policies (U.N. Convention of Rights for PWDs, national disability laws, laws on social protection). 15. Increase the role of civil-society organizations in developing policies and plans of action. Conclusion The conference activities led to the identification of joint resolutions for further action. Recognizing the great need for services in Afghanistan, Iran and Tajikistan, participants accepted the following recommendations aimed at the development of regional cooperation in the field of psychosocial rehabilitation: More attention should focus on victim assistance and assistance to PWDs to cope and adjust to life challenges through psychological and social support. Accessible services and living conditions for landmine/ERW survivors in Afghanistan, Iran and Tajikistan should be provided. Exchanges of experience, knowledge and materials between specialists of psychosocial rehabilitation in the three countries should be organized. Deputy Minister Latofat Sharipova summarizes the conference results on the second day. In the framework of joint activities, scientific conferences, Photo courtesy of Reykhan Muminova. round tables, summer camps, and cultural and sporting events should be included in planning. A transparency mechanism for continuous collaboration between relevant ministries and organizations in the field of disabilities and mental health must be developed. A regional working committee of seven experts from each of the three countriesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; line ministries and organizations was formed to work on the implementation of the conference recommendations and to report to the next conference (date to be determined). The committee will be responsible for developing a joint action plan in the field of psychosocial rehabilitation of landmine survivors/PWDs and for further implementation. This conference facilitated the closer coordination between the line ministries of disability and mental health in Afghanistan, Iran and Tajikistan, and the improvement of psychosocial rehabilitation services for PWDs and landmine survivors. Deputy Minister Latofat Sharipova from Tajikistan and Mohammedreza Asadi from Iran closed the conference. The Ministry of Labour and Social Protection of the Population of Tajikistan agreed to write an official letter to the Government of Iran with a proposal to fully join in regional initiatives (only one representative from Iran attended the conference) and to examine the possibility of organizing the next regional conference on psychosocial rehabilitation in Iran. Biography

http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Notes/Muminova/muminova.shtml

Page 4 of 5

Second Conference on Psychosocial Rehabilitation for Landmine Survivors and Persons with Disabilities by Reykhan Muminova (16.1)

1/21/16, 11:24 AM

Reykhan Muminova, M.D., Ph.D., joined the Tajikistan Mine Action Centre in 2006 as the Victim Assistance Officer to coordinate the VA Program and ensure that VA initiatives were well integrated into national disability planning and frameworks. She has worked on projects related to victim and survivor assistance and has significantly contributed to TMAC’s surveys and VA activities. Muminova graduated from Tajik State Medical University and holds a doctorate in psychiatry and has expertise with the medical-social rehabilitation of persons with disabilities. She served at Tajikistan’s National Research Institute for Rehabilitation of Persons with Disabilities, where she started her research devoted to landmine survivors and their quality of life. Muminova has authored more than 30 scientific articles in different medical journals and research papers published in Tajikistan and abroad. She is a 2010 graduate of the Senior Managers’ Course in ERW and Mine Action organized by James Madison University’s Center for International Stabilization and Recovery. Contact Information Dr. Reykhan Muminova Victim Assistance Officer Tajikistan Mine Action Centre 15 M. Kurbonov Street Dushanbe 734025 / Tajikistan Tel: +992 37 227 09 47 Fax: +992 37 221 66 87 Email: reykhan.muminova@undp.org SKYPE: reykhan_ti Website: http://mineaction.tj TOP OF PAGE

TOP OF PAGE

The Journal of ERW & Mine Action is sponsored by:

http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Notes/Muminova/muminova.shtml

Page 5 of 5

A Holistic Approach: VVAF’s Work to Improve Lives in Vietnam by Joseph House (16.1)

Table of Contents

Editorial

Focus

Special Report

Notes

1/21/16, 11:25 AM

Book Reviews

Briefs

Country Profiles

Past Issues

CISR Home

A Holistic Approach: VVAF’s Work to Improve Lives in Vietnam by Joseph House [ The International Center ] open pdf of this article

Transferred to the International Center in 2008, the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation conducts a multitude of projects aiming to protect the health and welfare of the Vietnamese people. VVAF approaches the security and wellbeing of Vietnamese citizens with a holistic mindset. Projects include demining, rehabilitation, vocational training, Agent Orange and dioxin mitigation, community-based mental health training and school construction projects. VBMAC and BOMICEN One of VVAF’s projects focuses on demining capacity-building in Vietnam. Funded by the Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement in the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs (PM/WRA), this program helps coordinate mine-clearance activities for the Vietnam Bomb and Mine Action Center and the Technology Centre for Bomb and Mine Disposal (BOMICEN). In April 2010, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung approved the first Vietnam National Mine Action Plan for the period of 2010–2025. This plan put mine-action removal coordination under the control of VBMAC and BOMICEN.1 This VVAF project builds capacity for landmine-clearance activities and helps VBMAC coordinate and manage mine action in Vietnam. To do this, VVAF works with relevant organizations to plan and conduct workshops, as well as send representatives from these organizations to other events in both Vietnam and

“VVAF approaches the security and well-being of Vietnamese citizens with a holistic mindset.”

internationally. Recently, VVAF helped plan a workshop for senior mine-action managers,2 sent a group from BOMICEN and VBMAC to a land-release workshop in Cambodia3 and coordinated a Vietnamese delegation visit to the Convention on Cluster Munitions in Beirut, Lebanon.4 In addition to these activities, VVAF used information from the previously completed unexploded-ordnance/landmine impact survey to implement a pilot clearance initiative using international protocols and technical standards to clear a UXO-contaminated commune in Ha Tinh province on Vietnam’s northcentral coast. The project, completed in February 2011, cleared 20 hectares (49 acres) of land in the Duc Lam commune of the Duc Tho district in Ha Tinh province.1 http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Notes/House/house.shtml

Page 1 of 6

A Holistic Approach: VVAF’s Work to Improve Lives in Vietnam by Joseph House (16.1)

1/21/16, 11:25 AM

Landmine Impact Survey Prior to the capacity-building program, VVAF focused on demining efforts and conducted a survey on the impact of landmines and UXO in Vietnam. VVAF worked with teams from the Ministry of Defense to survey and clear landmines and UXO from the Hai Le Commune in Quang Tri province. Conducted in two phases, the UXO/Landmine Impact Assessment and Rapid Technical Response project helped clear 22 hectares (54 acres) of land in the commune. In Phase I, VVAF and Ministry of Defense personnel interviewed more than 10,000 villagers, mapped more than 1,400 bomb and mine areas, conducted rapid technical response to the depth of one meter (detecting to the depth of five meters) on 400 hectares (988 acres) of land and returned the land to the community for productive use.1 After the successful implementation of Phase I, the Vietnamese Ministry of Defense approved Phase II. With experience gained and lessons learned from Phase I, Phase II surveyed the remaining 214 communes in Ha Tinh, Quang Binh and Quang Tri provinces, and expanded to 803 more communes in Nghe An, Quang Ngai and Thua Thien Hue provinces. Following nine months of field implementation and the completion of Phase II, 837 communes were surveyed, bringing the total to 1,361 communes surveyed during the project’s two phases. By the end of the Phase II field period, more than 33,000 people were interviewed, more than 3,200 bomb and mine areas were mapped and in excess of 1,200 hectares (2,965 acres) of land were cleared from bombs and mines.1 DRIVE Program In addition to demining, VVAF also works to address the problem of toxic remnants of war in Vietnam. Through the Dioxin Resolution Initiatives in Vietnam, also known as the DRIVE program, VVAF mitigates the impact of dioxin and Agent Orange specifically. From 1962 to 1971, an estimated 72 million liters of herbicide containing dioxin, commonly called Agent Orange, were sprayed in areas south of the former demilitarized zone, along the 17th parallel. Exposure to dioxin can result in serious health effects, such as blindness, poliomyelitis, deafness, brain diseases, mental disorders, blood diseases and congenital birth defects. The General Statistic Office of Vietnam conducted a survey in 2006 showing that around 13.5 percent of Vietnam’s population—about 11 million people—have disabilities.5 In August 2011, several Vietnamese-American fellows traveled to Vietnam—at the expense of VVAF—to work with Vietnamese organizations and help people with disabilities, many of whom were exposed to dioxins, including Agent Orange, or other remnants of war in Vietnam.6, 7 VVAF Country Representative Thao Griffiths attended the Second International Conference of Victims of Agent Orange/Dioxin on 8–9 August 2011, 50 years after Agent Orange was first used in Vietnam.6 The history of VVAF’s DRIVE program can be broken into two phases. When Phase I began in 2006, the project worked in 11 provinces. These provinces were selected for their large numbers of resident legacy war veterans, former soldiers exposed to dioxin during military service who returned home after the war,1 and significant residual concentrations of chemical contaminants that the Hatfield studies8 identified. At the end of this first phase, VVAF selected six provinces in which dioxin had heavily affected the citizens. The six provinces were selected for their strong commitment, continued support and leadership shown by the provincial authorities during Phase I implementation. These provinces were categorized into two priority tiers: Tier 1 and Tier 2.1 Tier 1 areas, in Central Vietnam, were chosen because of their proximity to the on-going contaminated hotspots. This group of provinces received higher priority, among which Da Nang was listed No. 1 priority because it had the highest levels of contamination. Tier 2 areas, located in northern Vietnam, included Nam Dinh, Ninh Binh and Thai Binh. These provinces were chosen for their large number of people with disabilities. These areas have high concentrations of legacy veterans. Phase II was designed to increase living standards and promote the inclusion of people with disabilities, residents of dioxin-hotspot areas and legacy war victims, and contribute to Vietnam’s development through a cross-sectoral approach involving health care, vocational training and social inclusion. This phase works extensively in rehabilitation and rehabilitative training to better serve persons with disabilities in Vietnam.5 Mental Health Assistance VVAF continues to improve health and well-being in Vietnam with funding from Atlantic Philanthropies. This allows VVAF to operate a community-based, mental health project and collaborate with the Da Nang and Khanh Hoa Departments of Health and Psychiatric Hospitals. The project receives technical assistance from the U.S. National Institutes of Health (Fogarty International Center), Vanderbilt University and the Rand Corporation. VVAF aims to http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Notes/House/house.shtml

Page 2 of 6

A Holistic Approach: VVAF’s Work to Improve Lives in Vietnam by Joseph House (16.1)

1/21/16, 11:25 AM

provide treatment for depression in primary-care practices at the commune level. No mental health specialists or psychiatrists work at the commune level, and patients receive medication and psychotherapy treatment in a collaborative manner from the community health station’s general practitioner, nurses and village health workers under supervision of mobile psychiatrists. By providing these services, VVAF helps to build capacity.9 The mental health program provides the following: A mobile team of psychiatrists to improve community health stations The training of the community health stations’ general practitioners and nurses to provide guideline treatment, screening and basic psychological education, and follow-ups provided by village health workers VVAF staff engage in rehabilitation activities in Dien Social support from local authorities, mass organizations and Tho, Quang Nam province, Vietnam. families All photos courtesy of VVAF. The use of culturally appropriate models of healing that incorporate family orientation, spiritual beliefs and practices and community connectedness VVAF follows the collaborative stepped care model, which stresses the integration of mental health care into general health services. This integration allows paraprofessionals at the grassroots level to manage common mental health problems. This program increases mental health resources and improves community mental health care services for management of common mental health disorders. Currently in its third phase, the project successfully mapped the inadequacies of these regions in the Formative Phase, which ended at the beginning of 2010. The project also conducted a successful Pilot Phase in these two provinces from January 2010 to December 2010.9 Designed to improve the mental health infrastructure in the “VVAF follows the collaborative stepped care model, two provinces, the Pilot Phase included construction projects which stresses the integration of mental health care in Da Nang and Khanh Hoa. These projects research and test into general health services.” program methods on a smaller scale before implementing the project further and training staff in various commune health systems. The Pilot Phase finalized all research measures for this project, and in 2011, VVAF entered the intervention phase and presented the collaborative stepped care model to eight commune health stations as follows: Three communes in Khanh Hoa: Phuoc Tan/Nha Trang City, Dien Son/Dien Khanh district and Vinh Ngoc/Nha Trang City Five communes in Da Nang: Hoa Cuong Nam/Hai Chau district, Hoa Phong/Hoa Vang district, Man Thai/Son Tra district, Tam Thuan/Thanh Khe district and Hoa Minh/Lien Chieu district Integral to the intervention phase, the research program operates in four of the eight communes. In September 2011, VVAF completed its midterm review of the project and found that by the end of the hospital-based implementation phase, mental health specialists from the provincial psychiatric hospital were implementing the program effectively.10 Furthermore, the midterm review showed that implementation in the four original commune health systems was more difficultÂ due to low detection rates and limited opportunities for commune health system providers to practice program methods.10 However, after the implementation phase began, treatment numbers improved in Dien Son, Hoa Cuong Nam, Hoa Phong and Phuoc Tan.10 During the project, VVAF actively engaged officials from the Ministry of Health and the National Mental Health Hospital No. “VVAFâ€™s programs show great success, yet need 1, who are responsible for implementing the National Mental to improve the understanding and treatment of Health Program. Regularly conducted training workshops shared mental health issues in Vietnam.” VVAF’s community-based, mental health program with government officials at central and provincial levels. As a result, the central government shows a substantial level of interest in following up on the research study of VVAF’s program in order to evaluate its effectiveness and sustainability.

http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Notes/House/house.shtml

Page 3 of 6

A Holistic Approach: VVAF’s Work to Improve Lives in Vietnam by Joseph House (16.1)

1/21/16, 11:25 AM

Through its mental health program, VVAF developed a feasible model for implementation and a practical psychoeducation training program, which VVAF has begun to provide to health collaborators, commune health systems and nurse trainees at the hospital. VVAF also gained experience doing systematic screening, identification and treatment of depression at hospitals. Moreover, the organization inspired high levels of interest in this program, as reported by service providers. However, VVAF also faces significant challenges, including: The continued social stigma surrounding mental health issues in Vietnam The need to improve patient engagement in therapy Low mental health service utilization Lack of trust in community providers and commune health systems Continued burden on staff due to lack ofÂ mental health infrastructure in rural Vietnam Lack of comfort with the therapeutic process by service providers who lack experience treating mental health patients An over-reliance on medication The continued need for regular supervision and ongoing consultation VVAFâ€™s programs show great success, yet need to improve the understanding and treatment of mental health issues in Vietnam. Educational Assistance VVAF also focuses on issues outside of health to improve the wellbeing of the Vietnamese populace. The VVAF School Redevelopment program aids in the construction and improvement of schools and their facilities, and provides schoolbags and supplies to students and teachers to improve the learning environment. VVAF sponsors scholarships, supports English clubs and provides tuition and health-insurance assistance for the children of veterans attending the Hanoi College of Technology and Business Administration.11 On 13 May 2010, VVAF completed

A VVAF-sponsored vocational training meeting in Duy Xuyen, Quang Nam province, Vietnam.

construction of 10 new classrooms for the Hai Hung School in the Hai Hung Commune of the Nam Dinh province, dedicated a new building for the No. 3 Primary School, Muong Phang Commune in the Dien Bien district and upgraded the current building’s infrastructure.11 Conclusion

Demining and capacity-building are but one cornerstone of VVAF’s work to improve the safety and security of the Vietnamese population. VVAF has worked tirelessly to combat the effects of Agent Orange and dioxin through mitigation and rehabilitation, and it has improved health care services in Vietnam. The organization works to create an effective, holistic approach to improving Vietnamese society.

Biography

Joseph House is the Program Coordinator for The International Center. The International Center maintains five programs worldwide, including Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation. House holds a master’s degree in international politics from American University (U.S.) and a bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Missouri State University (U.S.). Prior to working at The International Center, House worked as a Communications and Development Associate at The Justice Project.

Contact Information http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Notes/House/house.shtml

Page 4 of 6

A Holistic Approach: VVAF’s Work to Improve Lives in Vietnam by Joseph House (16.1)

1/21/16, 11:25 AM

Joseph House Program Coordinator The International Center 737 8th Street SE, Suite 202, Washington, DC 20003 / USA Tel: +1 202 464 9379 Email: jhouse@theintlcenter.org Website: http://www.theintlcenter.org and http://www.ic-vvaf.org

TOP OF PAGE

Endnotes 1. “Mine Action Projects.” Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation. http://www.ic-vvaf.org/Mine_Action.html. Accessed 15 November 2011. 2. “Report on Senior Mine Action Managers Training Course.” Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation. http://www.ic-vvaf.org/Senior%20Managers%20Report%20September%202011.pdf. Accessed 15 November 2011 3. “Report on Workshop on Enhanced Operational Approaches through the Application of Land Release Methodology.” Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation. http://www.ic-vvaf.org/Cambodia% 20Land%20Release%20Workshop%20Report%20September%202011.pdf. Accessed 15 November 2011. 4. “Second Meeting of States Parties to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.” Cluster Munition Coalition. http://www.stopclustermunitions.org/2msp/. Accessed 15 November 2011. 5. “Rehabilitation Projects.” Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation. http://www.ic-vvaf.org/Rehabilitation.html. Accessed 15 November 2011. 6. “Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation.” Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation. http://www.icvvaf.org/index.html. Accessed 15 November 2011. 7. This is a program that brought Vietnamese Americans to Vietnam to work on rehabilitation issues. The use of the term fellows means that they applied for the program and were placed by VVAF. 8. “Contaminant Monitoring/Agent Orange.” Hatfield Consultants. http://www.hatfieldgroup.com/services/contaminantagentorange.aspx. Accessed 23 February 2012. 9. “Mental Health Support Programs.” Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation. http://www.ic-vvaf.org/ Mental_Health_Support.html. Accessed 15 November 2011. 10. Ngo, Dr. Victoria Khanh, Dr. Nguyen Dinh Cuong, Dr. Dao Huy Dap, Dr. Nguyen Huu Chien, Dr. Truong Le Van Ngoc and Nguyen Thanh Tam. “Mid Term Review: Promoting Community-Based Mental Health Care.” Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation (September 2011): 18, 19. 11. “VVAF School Redevelopment Program,” Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation. http://www.icvvaf.org/education.html. Accessed 12 March 2012.

The Journal of ERW & Mine Action is sponsored by:

Page 5 of 6

Spirit of Soccer by Mike Geddes (16.1)

Table of Contents

Editorial

Focus

1/21/16, 11:26 AM

Special Report

Notes

Book Reviews

Briefs

Country Profiles

Past Issues

CISR Home

Spirit of Soccer by Mike Geddes [ Spirit of Soccer ] open pdf of this article As the world’s most popular sport, soccer emerges as a powerful tool to address social issues, such as poverty, disease and lack of education. This article explores how one organization, Spirit of Soccer, is working with mine-action organizations to help young people living in conflict areas avoid the dangers of landmines and explosive remnants of war. In the early- to mid-1990s, British soccer coach Scott Lee drove convoys of relief aid to villages in Bosnia and Herzegovina affected by the Yugoslav Wars (1991–1995). While there, he was informed that a child set off a landmine while playing soccer (football) near Sarajevo International Airport. The resulting explosion killed three children and maimed four more, all of whom were under 10 years old. This tragic incident made Lee certain of two things: Firstly, no matter the location or risk, children will always want to play soccer, and secondly, love for a game could be harnessed to teach safety messages and prevent future tragedies. In 1996, Lee used this experience to found Spirit of Soccer, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing mine-risk education to children through the combination of soccer games and drills with safety lessons about landmines and explosive remnants of war. With the help of the Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement in the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of PoliticalMilitary Affairs (PM/WRA), Spirit of Soccer’s main funder since 2003, the organization has reached more than 100,000 boys and girls through programs in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cambodia, Iraq, Jordan, Kosovo, Laos and Moldova. On the ground, Spirit of Soccer forms close partnerships with local mine-action organizations. Spirit of Soccer shares information on areas that need to be targeted for mine-clearance, and mine-action partners share information on which areas could benefit from MRE. “When we first started, mine-risk education was in its infancy. There was nothing that was really targeted at young kids,” recalls Lee. “We took lessons from the Bosnia-Herzegovia Mine Action Center, the International Committee of the Red Cross, MAG (Mines Advisory Group), Norwegian People’s Aid and other experts, tested those messages on kids in our soccer programs, and gauged the reactions.” “We keep our messages simple and very interactive” he says. “We teach kids how to recognize different kinds of ERW http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Notes/Geddes/geddes.shtml

Page 1 of 5

Spirit of Soccer by Mike Geddes (16.1)

1/21/16, 11:26 AM

that are present in their community and what to do if they come across them. They learn to understand the basics: to recognize what can harm you and whether it’s an ERW, mortar round, cluster bomb, fragmentation grenade or whatever it may be. We teach them how to look for natural signs that might mean an area is mined. And finally we teach them responsible behavior, to respect the weapons and the dangers they pose.”1 A typical Spirit-of-Soccer exercise involves a young boy or girl who races against a soccer ball that a coach has kicked. No matter how fast the children run, they can never beat the ball. The coaches use this as a metaphor to explain how the children cannot outrun a mine’s blast. Another exercise involves asking the participants what qualities it takes to become a professional soccer player. The coaches then elaborate by saying that aside from needing talent and dedication, they also need their legs. Coaches use exercises to describe a landmine’s impact. They kick a soccer ball typically 50â€“70 meters away and ask the participants to imagine that the ball is a mine or a bomb, illustrating that even at a distance it can still kill or maim. A Universal Appeal “Our program works because of the universal appeal of soccer,” says Lee. “It’s the Number 1 sport in the world and is played by everybody—all cultures, all religions, all sexes, all ages. This makes it a great partner for mine-risk education, because while there may be slight differences in the types of weapons and the environment in which they occur, the rules and regulations of mine action are the same everywhere, and it’s the same for soccer.” “Our whole idea is to train local people as soccer coaches to become positive role models within the community who can deliver these important messages. Through soccer you gain the Spirit of Soccer coaches deliver MRE in Xieng Khouang province, Lao PDR, in March 2011. All photos courtesy of Spirit of Soccer.

trust of young people, because they all want to learn new skills,”1 Lee continues.

Spirit of Soccer often works closely with the local football/soccer federation. Within conflict and post-conflict zones, the local soccer federation usually recovers as a national institution quickly and can provide a unifying point for the country (as Iraq proved when its national soccer team won the Asian Cup in 2007). The program also uses educational materials, like exercise books and posters, that feature top soccer stars, such as Wayne Rooney of Manchester United and Cristiano Ronaldo of Real Madrid, to encourage children to pay attention to the messages. Spirit of Soccer primarily uses stars from the English Premier League on their material because of their worldwide popularity. This is effective for the participants because the children value the stars’ images. However, local soccer coaches often deliver the MRE curriculum. Spirit of Soccer’s Progress

Girls take part in a Spirit of Soccer mine-risk education festival in Battambang province, Cambodia.

Spirit of Soccer began working in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo. In 2005, there were 875 mine/ERW casualties in Bosnia and Herzegovina reported by the Bosnia-Herzegovina Mine Action Center and 267 of those deaths were children. In 2006, there were no child deaths from mines/ERW, so it was decided the funding would be better spent in Cambodia. In 2005, Spirit of Soccer began operating in Battambang province, Cambodia, where it delivered coaching clinics in provinces along the Thai border, including the K5 mine belt, where forced laborers laid three million mines during the Khmer Rouge regime.2

“The children here react more enthusiastically to the messages than if we just delivered them in the classroom,” says Stephen Sonderman, Spirit of Soccer’s Country Director for Cambodia. “They get a chance to run around and burn off some energy before they sit down for an MRE session. They look up to the coaches who are delivering the messages because those same coaches just helped them learn about soccer, which is what they all love.”3 Partnering with local organizations is crucial, as illustrated in early 2011 when a Spirit of Soccer team delivered MRE at a school in Pailin province, Cambodia. http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Notes/Geddes/geddes.shtml

Page 2 of 5

Spirit of Soccer by Mike Geddes (16.1)

1/21/16, 11:26 AM

Sonderman explains: “As normal, at the end of the session our coaches asked the children if they had [previously] seen any of the weapons they had learned about in the MRE training session. Two children raised their hands and pointed to the schoolhouse, and said they had ERW in there. We talked to the teachers and discovered they were using some old ordnance as doorstops. Our coaches immediately called in the local demining team from MAG, and it turned out the school ‘doorstops’ were live unexploded ordnance containing several pounds of TNT, which MAG quickly disposed of.” Spirit of Soccer has continued working in Pailin province, hosting an MRE tournament there in January 2012. “We measure our success through decreases in the child casualty rates, by the number of children reached each year and through anecdotal evidence from children, teachers, parents and community leaders regarding the effectiveness of our messages,â€ says Sonderman. “Our monitoring and evaluation shows that children remember the MRE delivered by Spirit of Soccer many months after the program, and that they share these messages with their family and friends.”3 Expansion to Lao PDR According to the Cambodia Mine Victim Information Service, since Spirit of Soccer operations began in 2006 child casualty rates decreased 50 percent in provinces where the organization has worked.4 In neighboring Lao PDR, the most heavily-bombed country in the world, the majority of the population makes a living by subsistence farming. In order to survive, families take huge risks by farming polluted land. In 1995, Bounmy Vichack was planting rice near his village in Xiengkhouang province when he triggered an unexploded bomb that blew off his left arm. In March of 2011, Vichack was among 29 other candidates applying to be the first Spirit of Soccer coaches in Lao as part of a program—Spirit of Soccer Laos—supported by PM/WRA. “This is so special for our team, for our community and for our country,” Vichack said during the coaching session in Phonsavan, the capital of Xiengkhouang. “It’s a wonderful idea to use soccer to teach Lao children about unexploded bombs. I never thought there could be such a link.”5 The candidates came from all walks of life and included former soldiers, teachers and young soccer players. They took part in a five-day course run by Spirit of Soccer and the Lao PDR Football Federation, graduating with a professional qualification from the Asian Football Confederation.

Each soccer game is designed to contain an MRE message and the soccer balls are printed with mine signs to aid recognition.

“The biggest challenge is getting access to remote villages, which often have the highest concentration of ERW,” says Rachel Haig, Spirit of Soccer’s Country Director for Lao PDR. “Laos is a very mountainous country with poor infrastructure, and it can be difficult to get to many of the villages, especially during the rainy season. Our programs have been received very well by the Government of Laos and by the individual communities where we work. Currently, we are only operating in Xiengkhouang province, but we would like to expand our programs to other provinces,” she says.6 Iraq and the Middle East

In 2008, Spirit of Soccer began work in Iraq and delivered programs in Baghdad, Basra and Kirkuk. In 2010, Spirit of Soccer, in partnership with the international football association (Federation Internationale de Football Association) the Jordanian Football Association, Generations for Peace and Jordan’s National Committee for Demining and Rehabilitation, implemented a regional Soccer/MRE course targeting coaches and children from mine/ERW-affected communities in Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and the West Bank. This course trained 30 coaches and 64 children from the four mine-affected countries and at the end of the course, a tournament was held on National Mine Awareness Day. Challenges and Future Plans Local tribal and religious conflicts create a big challenge for the organization’s programs, but Lee says soccer provides a “common language” that can help the process. “In Iraq the ongoing ethnic and sectarian violence presents a http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Notes/Geddes/geddes.shtml

Page 3 of 5

Spirit of Soccer by Mike Geddes (16.1)

1/21/16, 11:26 AM

challenge for program delivery because of the danger posed to participants when we deliver programs in areas such as Baghdad and the restrictions on movement that frequently accompany violent incidents which makes it hard for us to get large groups of kids together to deliver training.” “ERW and soccer are two great unifying forces,” says Lee. “These weapons don’t care who you are or what religion you are, and neither does the sport. Based on these simple principles, we have been able to navigate the very difficult political and cultural environments, so we can operate and deliver [MRE] messages. Soccer is the common language, and in Iraq we’ve organized programs that bring together Sunni, Shia and Christian coaches and kids.”1 A female Spirit of Soccer coach sits with participants holding up MRE posters at a soccer training session in Kurdistan.

According to Lee, a simple, transferable model that combines years of experience and the unique, universal appeal of soccer gives the Spirit of Soccer program potential for replication anywhere in the world.

“The greatest challenges we face come from trying to create and operate a new nongovernmental organization in difficult environments,” he says. “Iraq is the first country where Spirit of Soccer hasn’t established itself as an independent organization because the process is so laborious. Instead, we’ve partnered with a local Iraqi NGO to fund, design and implement our program, and this is the model we want to build for the future.” “Instead of trying to create a new organization from scratch, we want to come in and partner with local NGOs to adopt our program and assist them with immediate funding until the threat is reduced, and this is something we are currently looking at in Libya and elsewhere.” 1 At this time, Spirit of Soccer has also received requests to expand their program in Palestine. Although they find benefit in expanding the program to additional countries, they do not see a need to branch out into other sports. Soccer is the most popular sport for children in the locations the program works, and it is the simplest to implement; it needs little equipment and can be easily adapted to small and large groups of children. Lee says, “We believe in supporting local expertise, and because soccer is popular worldwide, we think we have a very powerful tool to stop children from being killed and maimed all over the world.”1

Biography Mike Geddes spent six years as a BBC reporter during which he made documentaries about sport as a tool for social change in disadvantaged communities around the world. Since 2008 he has worked for streetfootballworld, an international NGO connecting a worldwide network of more than 80 organizations that use soccer to address social issues, such as poverty, disease and lack of education, spending three years working in disadvantaged communities in South Africa.

Contact Information Mike Geddes 41 Kosciusko St., Apt 309 Brooklyn 11205 New York, NY Sprit of Soccer PO Box 1454 Johnstown, PA 15905

TOP OF PAGE

http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Notes/Geddes/geddes.shtml

Page 4 of 5

Spirit of Soccer by Mike Geddes (16.1)

1/21/16, 11:26 AM

Endnotes 1. Scott Lee, interview with author, 7 October 2011. 2. “Cambodia.” Landmine & Cluster Munition Monitor. http://www.the-monitor.org/index.php/publications/display? url=lm/2004/cambodia.html. Accessed 7 February 2012. 3. Stephen Sonderman, email correspondence with author, 5 October 2011. 4. “From killing fields to playing fields.” FIFA.com. http://www.fifa.com/aboutfifa/socialresponsibility/news/newsid=1055563/index.html. Accessed 7 February 2012. 5. Bounmy Vichack, interview conducted by Stephen Sonderman, 1 March 2011. 6. Rachel Haig, email correspondence, 5 October 2011.

The Journal of ERW & Mine Action is sponsored by:

http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Notes/Geddes/geddes.shtml

Page 5 of 5

Replicating the Cambodia Trust Model (16.1)

Table of Contents

Editorial

Focus

1/21/16, 11:26 AM

Special Report

Notes

Book Reviews

Briefs

Country Profiles

Past Issues

CISR Home

Replicating the Cambodia Trust Model by Carson Harte [ Cambodia Trust ] open pdf of this article Cambodia Trust was established in 1989 to assist those affected by disaster, conflict and poverty. It provides prosthetic-orthotic training, physical rehabilitation for persons with disabilities, assistance programs that enable children and adults with disabilities to secure general or higher education, vocational training and employment. Cambodia Trust originally focused on aiding amputees affected by war-related trauma, but management quickly shifted focus after recognizing the need for more trained prosthetists, orthotists and prosthetic technicians in conflictaffected countries. History Initially, Cambodia Trust concentrated on amputee rehabilitation and established a physical-rehabilitation center in 1991 at Calmette Hospital in Phenom Penh, Cambodia, a second clinic in the port of Kompong Som, a province in southern Cambodia, and a third in the Kompong Channang province in central Cambodia. These rehabilitation centers became part of a 16-center network of service providers spread across Cambodia.

Cambodian School of Prosthetics and Orthotics includes a rehabilitation center where students gain practical experience working with patients. The patient shown here is a landmine survivor. Photo courtesy of Cambodia Trust.

In addition, Cambodia Trust has worked closely with other key players in the prosthetic field, including the International Committee for the Red Cross, Handicap International, Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation, the American Red Cross and the American Friends Service Committee. The Trustâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s partnership with the Royal Government of Cambodia also contributed to its success. At its inception in the early 1990s, Cambodia Trust imported second-hand prosthetics which were salvaged from abandoned and donated prostheses in the United Kingdom. Simultaneously, the ICRC invested in a sustainable prosthetic technology, which used thermoplastic polypropylene that developing countries could locally manufacture. http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Notes/Harte/harte.shtml

Page 1 of 5

Replicating the Cambodia Trust Model (16.1)

1/21/16, 11:26 AM

This material was a more practical option than the second-hand wood or metal that was used for prostheses at the time. In 1993, Cambodia Trust was working closely with the Cambodian Ministry of Social Affairs, Veterans and Youth Rehabilitation (MOSVY) when it reached a consensus that all Cambodian clinics would adopt the more sustainable polypropylene technology. Employing foreign prosthetists was too expensive and impractical for Cambodia Trust. In 1990, the World Health Organization and the International Society for Prosthetics and Orthotics established guidelines for the training of prosthetists and orthotists in developing countries. This document and its later revision in 2004 are the bedrock of prosthetic and orthotic training and victim assistance, not only in Cambodia, but also throughout the world. At first, these goals seemed unachievable in Cambodia; however, in 1994, Cambodia Trust established the Cambodian School of Prosthetics and Orthotics with support from its donors, it implemented the guidelines of WHO and ISPO. Located in Phnom Penh, the school trains students who take over national rehabilitation services. Development of CSPO WHO/ISPO guidelines list three categories of professionals and outlines training requirements. The Cambodian School of Prosthetics and Orthotics originally aimed to provide training for Category II clinicians, as listed in the WHO/ISPO document. Category II clinicians do not necessarily graduate with a university degree like Category I clinicians but receive up to three years in training, prosthetic and orthotic fitting, and clinical care.1 The CSPO successfully met this goal and received Category II accreditation from ISPO in 1997. By 2000, CSPO was well on track to delivering sustainable national professionals to the centers run by nongovernmental organizations and the Cambodian Government, now numbering 14 centers. With 10 to 12 Cambodian students graduating each year, the CSPO had nearly reached its original target of training 60–80 practitioners. From 2004 to 2008, the CSPO closely worked with Latrobe University in Melbourne, Australia to develop a Category I program. This allowed the best Category II graduates with three years of clinical experience to receive Category I certification in a challenging, distance-learning program. In 1998, the first international student attended the CSPO. In recent years, the majority of its students have been international. Students from 18 countries, including mine-affected countries such as Afghanistan, Myanmar (Burma), Iraq, Laos, North Korea and Sri Lanka have been trained. The CSPO accepts 12–15 students per year and of these only three or four are Cambodians. However, fees from foreign students provide additional help in sustaining the school. As the CSPO graduates participate in train-the-trainer programs, many are helping to develop rehabilitation programs in their own countries. Since 1994, the CSPO has trained 143 students. In 2011, the first Latrobe graduates became teachers and trainers in the school’s program. In fact, the school and related programs are now managed by a Category I graduate, Sisary Kheng, who also received a masterâ€™s degree at the University Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland. Because of these developments, the CSPO now has a sustainable program managed by Cambodians, and it was recently integrated into the National Institute of Social Affairs. The school is the central hub of all physical rehabilitation centers across the country and is in the center of an effort to create education opportunities across the region. Today, all of Cambodia Trust's operations in Cambodia are ISO 9000-2008 accredited. This management standard reflects an international quality imported from the business sector. Through the International Organization for Standardization and ISPO/WHO accreditation, the Cambodian School of Prosthetics and Orthotics has a framework that documents all processes, including management and service delivery. As a part of the accreditation process, external audits and peer review help to insure that all programs run as planned and allow for effective improvement and evaluation. This oversight provides quality-assurance and helps replicate the programs in Cambodia and abroad. International Training In 1999, the Nippon Foundation, a Japanese nonprofit philanthropic organization, suggested that Cambodia Trust could replicate its CSPO program in other countries in the region. With the Nippon Foundation’s support, Cambodia Trust carried out an 18-month feasibility study, identifying nearby countries most in need of rehabilitation services. Following this study, a variety of programs were initiated to meet needs in the region that utilized the support of the Nippon Foundation and the experience of CSPO. These programs included:

http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Notes/Harte/harte.shtml

Page 2 of 5

Replicating the Cambodia Trust Model (16.1)

1/21/16, 11:26 AM

Sri Lanka. Cambodia Trust established the Sri Lanka School of Prosthetics and Orthotics in 2004 to provide rehabilitation services for the disabled, which includes those affected by recent conflicts and the 2004 tsunami. Students at the Sri Lanka School of Prosthetics and Orthotics learn how to make and fit prostheses and braces, and the course involves two years of academic and practical training followed by a one-year clinical placement. The school is located in the Ragama Rehabilitation Hospital, just north of Colombo. With the Ministry of Health and the Nippon Foundation, Cambodia Trust is re-establishing two centers in North and East Sri Lanka where conflict recently ended. Timor Leste. In partnership with local NGOs, Cambodia Trust established ASSERT (Asosiasaun Hi’it Ema Ra’es Timor), an NGO that created the Timor Loro Sa’e Centre for Physical Rehabilitation in 2005. The Centre is based on the CSPO model, in which persons with disabilities receive prosthetic limbs, braces, mobility aids and physical therapy. In addition to training local staff in prosthetics, orthotics and physical therapy, ASSERT established a local organization to coordinate services for persons with disabilities, which includes training and education. Indonesia. According to WHO guidelines, Indonesia needs approximately seven prosthetic and orthotic schools to accommodate its population of about 249 million (which would indicate a physical disability workload of 1.5–2 million clients). The first of these schools was established three years ago in Jakarta as a department of one of the Health Service Poltekkes colleges. The school uses a regionally modified version of the CSPO curriculum, and its first class will soon graduate. In order to shorten the supply chain of Indonesian teachers, five Indonesians were sent to Tanzania for prosthetic and orthotic training. Accreditation takes place next summer, and work is also underway to support an existingÂ school in the city of Solo in central Java.

Chen Vandet, who was born with one leg, practices walking at Cambodia Trust's Kompong Chhnang rehabilitation center. Vandet attends the clinic approximately every six months to replace his prostheic limb. Photo courtesy of Martin Flitman

Thailand. In Thailand, Nippon Foundation working with Mahidol University established a new school—Sirindorn School of Prosthetics and Orthotics to train Category I prosthetists and orthotists. This school is intended to serve as a regional hub and will enable students to upgrade from Category II to Category I certification. Philippines. The Cambodia Trust’s most recent venture is the establishment of the Philippine School of Prosthetics and Orthotics at the University of the East Ramon Magsaysay Memorial Medical College, one of the country’s most prestigious universities. The university built a new building to meet the program’s needs. In addition to the Bachelor of Science degree program available through the Philippine School of Prosthetics and Orthotics, the school will offer a general education (high-school equivalent), pre-training course for students before they enter clinical courses. These international programs were designed to train local prosthetists and orthotists in the rehabilitation of persons affected by landmines and explosive remnants of war, conflict and disasters, and those suffering from polio, cerebral palsy and leprosy. Cambodia Trust also trains physiotherapists, administrators, managers and technicians so that local staff can maintain the rehabilitation services.2 The curriculum, timetables and teaching materials developed by Cambodia Trust for the CSPO are adaptable tools for these international programs. Cambodia Trust also played an important role in facilitating the programs of the Alliance of Prosthetic and Orthotic Schools, a collaboration between the newer and more established prosthetic and orthotic schools in the region. With support from the International Society for Prosthetics and Orthotics and the Nippon Foundation, Cambodia Trust continues developing capacity in this important area of Asia. Current Realities Since 1993, the rehabilitation centers in Cambodia have treated more people with cerebral palsy, congenital disorders

http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Notes/Harte/harte.shtml

Page 3 of 5

Replicating the Cambodia Trust Model (16.1)

1/21/16, 11:26 AM

and polio than landmine victims. As a result, Cambodian Trust began providing more orthotic care, as future services would integrate general assistance to people with mobility impairment. As diabetes-linked impairments increase, a demand also grows for services involving general population assistance. A qualified prosthetist or orthotist can fit between 250 and 270 braces and limbs each year. Cambodia Trust calculates that its CSPO graduates now fit between 27,000 and 30,000 devices a year2â&#x20AC;&#x201D;a great improvement over Cambodia and the regionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s original situation in the early 1990s. While the International Campaign to Ban Landmines recognizes that victim assistance is complex and needs integration into broader disability services, Cambodia Trust is also inspired by the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which demands that persons with disabilities have the right to appropriate and affordable rehabilitation and should be treated by qualified personnel. The challenge of treating and providing rehabilitation to PWDs and ERW and landmine victims specifically remains largely unanswered. Many throughout the world still wait for prosthetic, orthotic and other assistive devices. To help address these issues, Cambodia Trust and the CSPO have a workable and proven model of training, service delivery, and restoration of mobility and dignity. However, Cambodia Trust, the CSPOs and related organizations face challenges of under-funding, under-utilization and misunderstanding. Prostheses do not last for life; they wear out, break or no longer fit clients who change in height or weight as they age. As a result, services providing assistive devices must be self-sustainable in order to meet clientsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; changing prostheses needs. Cambodia Trust, through strong partnerships and careful planning, has successfully defined and applied sustainable practices regarding prosthetic and orthotic services within the victim-assistance field. As proven by its international work, the Cambodia Trust model is replicable. ~ Rachael Weber, CISR staff, assisted with this article.

Biography Carson Harte is a prosthetist, orthotist and Chief Executive Officer of the Cambodia Trust with 36 years of experience in the field and almost 20 of those in International Development. He graduated from the National Centre for Education and Training in Prosthetics and Orthotics, University Strathclyde, Scotland in 1980. He also established prostheses and orthotics training in Cambodia, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and the Philippines. Additionally, he is a member of the ISPO Education Committee, working specifically on guidelines and protocols. Harte works closely with the disability and rehabilitation section of WHO Geneva, where he is a Task Officer for ISPO. TOP OF PAGE

Contact Information Carson Harte Chief Executive Officer The Cambodia Trust The Saunderton Estate Wycombe Road Saunderton Buckinghamshire HP14 4BF / UK Tel: +44 (0)1494 568930 Email: carson@cambodiatrust.org.uk Website: http://cambodiatrust.org.uk Skype: carsonharte Facebook: http://on.fb.me/CambodiaTrust Center for International Stabilization and Recovery James Madison University MSC4902 Harrisonburg, VA 22807 / USA Email: cisr@jmu.edu http://cisr.jmu.edu http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Notes/Harte/harte.shtml

Page 4 of 5

Replicating the Cambodia Trust Model (16.1)

1/21/16, 11:26 AM

TOP OF PAGE

Endnotes 1. “Guidelines for training personnel in developing countries for prosthetics and orthotics services.” WHO/IPSO. http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2005/9241592672.pdf. Accessed 19 January 2012. 2. “Impact.” The Cambodia Trust. http://www.cambodiatrust.org.uk/CT/en/what-we-%E2%80%9Cdo/training/. Accessed 19 January 2012.

The Journal of ERW & Mine Action is sponsored by:

http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Notes/Harte/harte.shtml

Page 5 of 5

At Issue: Weapons of War, edited by Diane Andrews Henningfeld (16.1)

Table of Contents

Editorial

Focus

Special Report

Notes

1/21/16, 11:26 AM

Book Reviews

Briefs

Country Profiles

Past Issues

CISR Home

At Issue: Weapons of War Edited by Diane Andrews Henningfeld Gale and Greenhaven Press, 2012 ISBN: 978073775604 http://amzn.to/wzVElw US$22.50 open pdf of this article The methodology of war has changed throughout history, from the trench warfare of World War I and the use of nuclear weapons in World War II to the drone technology of today. The new At Issue anthology, Weapons of War, is a collection of opinion essays from world leaders, scholars and journalists. It examines the uses, challenges and ethics of modern war technology, ranging from discussion of advanced conventional weapons to cyber warfare. Malcolm Fraser, a former Prime Minister of Australia, has expressed the urgent need for a binding global treaty to abolish nuclear weapons. He supports the MillionPleas campaign, a campaign started by schoolchildren in Hiroshima to encourage the nine countries in possession of nuclear weapons to free the world from such weapons, and he urges citizens to pressure political leaders to support disarmament. In contrast, John Hutten, a former British Secretary of Defense, argues that Britain must maintain its nuclear capabilities as an ultimate deterrent, believing that the â€œfirst business of Government is national security.â€ The anthology also sheds light on the controversies surrounding the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-personnel Mines and their Destruction (also known as the Anti-personnel Mine Ban Convention or APMBC). Essays further examine the challenges of defending against improvised explosive devices and potential biological weapons of mass destruction. The use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle technology around the world evokes discussion on the ethics involved in the development and use of precision, unmanned weapons. New technologies are introduced, including the Active Denial Weapon, an electromagnetic beam that simulates the feeling of burning; the Long Range Acoustic Device, a concentrated high-decibel sound wave; and a naval laser defensive system. The final essay addresses the complexity of potential cyber warfare, its implications on international treaties, and the difficulties in identifying anonymous perpetrators. Many ambiguities about the long-term implications of new methods of warfare persist. Weapons of War introduces these issues and occasionally raises questions with incendiary opinions, encouraging further study rather than

http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Book/weber.shtml

Page 1 of 2

At Issue: Weapons of War, edited by Diane Andrews Henningfeld (16.1)

1/21/16, 11:26 AM

providing definitive answers. ~ Reviewed by Rachael Weber, CISR staff TOP OF PAGE

Contact Information Center for International Stabilization and Recovery James Madison University MSC4902 Harrisonburg, VA 22807 / USA Email: cisr@jmu.edu http://cisr.jmu.edu

TOP OF PAGE

Endnotes 1. Millionpleas: to free the world from nuclear weapons. http://millionpleas.com./. Accessed 13 February 2012.

The Journal of ERW & Mine Action is sponsored by:

http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Book/weber.shtml

Page 2 of 2

New Online Tool Links Landmine, Cluster-Bomb and Disability Treaties by Erin Hunt (16.1)

Table of Contents

Editorial

Focus

Special Report

Notes

Book Reviews

1/21/16, 11:27 AM

Briefs

Country Profiles

Past Issues

CISR Home

New Online Tool Links Landmine, Cluster-Bomb and Disability Treaties by Erin Hunt [ Mines Action Canada ] open pdf of this article Mines Action Canada has launched a new interactive online tool to explain and make connections among three groundbreaking international humanitarian treaties: the 1997 Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-personnel Mines and Their Destruction (also known at the Anti-personnel Mine Ban Convention or APMBC), the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions and the 2006 Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities. Building on work conducted by the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, the Cluster Munition Coalition and other civil-society organizations, The-Treaties.org is an interactive website showcasing a series of videos, slide-show presentations, quizzes and illustrated guides, all developed by Mines Action Canada. Launched 9 January 2012, the website is available in Arabic, English, French and Spanish, and aims to provide information about the three conventions and what they have in common. For example, the Know Your Rights infographic shows that the right to rehabilitation is outlined in the CCM and the CRPWD, and the Cartagena Action Plan of the APMBC.

(Click image to enlarge) A screenshot of The-Treaties.org

These three conventions have created an important legal framework to protect civilians, strengthen victim assistance, and defend the rights of landmine and cluster-munition survivors, along with other persons with disabilities. This website is a unique resource to provide information on the rights of persons with disabilities and how that is connected to survivor assistance.Ă&#x201A;

For more information, please visit: http://the-treaties.org and http://minesactioncanada.org. Biography

http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Notes/Hunt/hunt.shtml

Page 1 of 2

New Online Tool Links Landmine, Cluster-Bomb and Disability Treaties by Erin Hunt (16.1)

1/21/16, 11:27 AM

Erin Hunt is the International Youth Programme Officer at Mines Action Canada. She started her career under MACâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Young Professional Internship Program with a placement at Canadian Physicians for Aid and Relief in Uganda. Subsequently she worked on international youth peacebuilding projects and for a provincial government in Canada before returning to MAC in 2011.

Contact Information Erin Hunt Programme Officer Mines Action Canada PO Box 4668 Postal Stn E Ottawa, ON K1S 5H8 / Canada Tel: +1 613 241 3777 Skype: hunt.erinlynn Email: erin@minesactioncanada.org Website: http://minesactioncanada.org

TOP OF PAGE

The Journal of ERW & Mine Action is sponsored by:

http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Notes/Hunt/hunt.shtml

Page 2 of 2

Anne Stewart Receives Outstanding Faculty Award (16.1)

Table of Contents

Editorial

Focus

Special Report

1/21/16, 11:27 AM

Notes

Book Reviews

Briefs

Country Profiles

Past Issues

CISR Home

Anne Stewart Receives Outstanding Faculty Award open pdf of this article Anne Stewart, Ph.D., a psychology professor at James Madison University and a partner with the Center for International Stabilization and Recovery in its Pathways to Resilience project, received the prestigious Outstanding Faculty Award by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia. Her exceptional work not only forges a new path for the JMU Department of Graduate Psychology but also extends outside the perimeters of the college. On 16 February 2012, the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia awarded Anne Stewart, Ph.D., the Outstanding Faculty Award for her work in the James Madison University psychology program. She is one of only 12 professors chosen to receive the award in 2012.1 Stewart is not only recognized for her achievements in the classroom but also for her continued commitment to helping those in need.2 Stewart’s commitment to humanitarian assistance took shape early in her career, as she became one of the first special-education teachers in her home state of Indiana. In Indiana, she cultivated her desire to oppose injustice and fight for the rights of the underrepresented. In 1979, she came to JMU as a special-education instructor, teaching and supervising student teachers throughout the Shenandoah Valley. During this time, she developed her interest in psychology.3 After taking psychology classes at JMU, Stewart attended the University of Virginia doctoral program, earning a dual degree in school and clinical psychology. She completed her doctorate after a clinical fellowship at Harvard Medical School and returned to JMU as a faculty member in 1991.3 Stewart has honed her skills as a professor, basing her classroom approach on interaction, interprofessional practice and an international perspective.3 With this approach, Stewart seeks to nurture her students’ intellectual development, promote globally oriented dialogue and introduce students to the professional environment. Of her teaching methodology, Stewart says: “I strive to create relationships with my students that reflect the type of bonds I hope they will form with their clients and colleagues.”3 Stewart was also instrumental in expanding the JMU psychology curriculum, helping to pioneer the university’s first interprofessional health course, “Ethical Decision-making in Health Care,” and an interdisciplinary course on early

http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Briefs/smith.shtml

Page 1 of 3

Anne Stewart Receives Outstanding Faculty Award (16.1)

1/21/16, 11:27 AM

childhood intervention.3 While teaching at JMU, Stewart is also extremely active in the Virginia community. In 2011, she helped provide emotional support to teachers in Louisa County following the earthquake, and in 2007, she teamed with JMU psychology professor Lennis Echterling, Ph.D., who won this same award in 2010, to create resilience-based workshops that helped faculty and staff in the wake of the tragic shootings on 16 April 2007 at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA.3 However, her involvement is not limited to Virginia; in fact, Stewart was instrumental in implementing many of CISR’s programs, including mine-risk education, peer-to-peer survivor assistance and psychometric material development. Her work with CISR’s Pathways to Resilience workshop was immensely helpful for landmine survivors and people with disabilities from Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Yemen, who were not only given tools for their own recovery but were also empowered to be advocates in their own communities.4

Anne Stewart with a participant of the Pathways to Resilience workshop in Lebanon, May 2011. Photo courtesy of CISR/JMU.

Ken Rutherford, Ph.D., Director of CISR and a colleague of Stewart, says, “I could go on ceaselessly about Dr. Stewart's commitment to healing trauma-affected communities as far away as Jordan or Vietnam and as close as JMU's own backyard. Suffice it to say that as a colleague, I can attest to Dr. Stewart's innovation in integrating rigorous academic thought into field practice. More importantly, as a landmine survivor myself, I know of Anne's genuine compassion for victims of trauma and her investment in their recovery.”4 Stewart’s work with JMU and CISR will continue as an inspiration to the local and international communities that she has helped. Her ability to think and act both locally and globally will remain a beacon for what can be achieved through enlightened action. CISR is proud to work with Anne Stewart and offers her its sincerest congratulations on this award. “She comes with my most enthusiastic recommendation for this honor and all others,” says Rutherford.4 ~ Jeremiah Smith, CISR staff TOP OF PAGE

Contact Information Center for International Stabilization and Recovery James Madison University MSC4902 Harrisonburg, VA 22807 / USA Email: cisr@jmu.edu http://cisr.jmu.edu

TOP OF PAGE

Endnotes 1. “Outstanding Faculty Award Recipients.” State Council of Higher Education for Virginia. http://www.schev.edu/schev/OFAwinnersList.asp?from=. Accessed 30 January 2012. 2. “Higher Education System.” Virginia Economic Development Partnership. http://www.yesvirginia.org/whyvirginia/education_system/higher_education.aspx. Accessed 30 January 2012. http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Briefs/smith.shtml

Page 2 of 3

Anne Stewart Receives Outstanding Faculty Award (16.1)

1/21/16, 11:27 AM

3. “JMU Professor Receives Outstanding Faculty Award.” JMU Office of Public Affairs. http://www.jmu.edu/jmuweb/general/news/general11878.shtml. 4. Email correspondence with Dr. Ken Rutherford. 25 January 2012.

The Journal of ERW & Mine Action is sponsored by:

http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Briefs/smith.shtml

Page 3 of 3

DDG Aid Workers Rescued (16.1)

Table of Contents

Editorial

1/21/16, 11:28 AM

Focus

Special Report

Notes

Book Reviews

Briefs

Country Profiles

Past Issues

CISR Home

DDG Aid Workers Rescued open pdf of this article Danish Demining Group aid workers Jessica Buchanan and Poul Hagen Thisted were captured by Somali pirates on 25 October 2011 while traveling through Gaalkacyo, the capital of the northcentral Mudug region in Central Somalia.1 Three months after they were taken hostage, U.S. Navy SEAL Team 6 carried out a rescue mission, leading both Buchanan and Thisted to safety.2 Buchanan and Thisted were working for DDG in northern Somalia, educating Somali children about the dangers of weapons. DDG has been working for several years in Africa and the Middle East in an effort to clear landmines and unexploded ordnance and provide explosive-remnants-of-war risk education and humanitarian relief to those in conflict zones.2 DDG, along with other mine-action organizations, also works directly with the Puntland Mine Action Centre to â&#x20AC;&#x153;prioritize EOD, MRE, and survey tasksâ&#x20AC;? in Somalia.3 While Somalia is known to be heavily contaminated with landmines, the location of those landmines remains relatively unknown. Conflict in the country has prevented any extensive surveying and removal in the area. By the end of 2010, there were at least 2,639 known casualties from mines/ERW in Somalia.4 The prevalence of landmines in the area and the lack of knowledge of their specific location makes the mine-action efforts that much more pertinent for the safety of the people of Somalia. Buchanan had worked for DDG since May 2010. Prior to joining DDG, she lived in Kenya and in 2007, began working at the Rosslyn Academy in Nairobi. She taught first, fourth and sixth

http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Briefs/lovin2.shtml

Jessica Buchanan

Page 1 of 3

DDG Aid Workers Rescued (16.1)

1/21/16, 11:28 AM

graders at the Academy before moving to Somalia with her husband, Erik Landemalm, an Association of European Parliamentarians for Africa aid worker, in 2009.5 Thisted was a passionate DDG aid worker. According to his Linkedin profile, he was stationed in Hargeisa, Somalia, since July 2009 as a manager for the Somali Religious and Traditional Leaders Peace Initiative, a program organized by the Danish Refugee Council, Finn Church Aid, and the International Horn University.6 DDG has been providing aid to Somalia for 14 years, which includes providing more than 100,000 internally displaced people in the Mogadishu area with daily meals, shelter and aid packages.1 During the rescue mission, Navy SEALs parachuted into the area after dark and traveled on foot to the captives’ location. The SEALs then reportedly killed all nine captors before taking Buchanan and Thisted in a Black Hawk helicopter to Djibouti. ~ Katy Lovin, CISR staff

Paul Hagen Thisted

TOP OF PAGE

Contact Information Center for International Stabilization and Recovery James Madison University MSC4902 Harrisonburg, VA 22807 / USA Email: cisr@jmu.edu http://cisr.jmu.edu

TOP OF PAGE

Endnotes 1. “Influential Somalis Join Forces to Resolve DDG Kidnapping.” Danish Demining Group. 11 January 2012. http://www.danishdemininggroup.dk/news/news/artikel/influential-somalis-join-forces-to-resolve-ddgkidnapping/. Accessed 25 January 2012. 2. Â “US Navy SEALs who Killed Bin Laden Rescue Two Hostages from Somalia.” The Guardians. 25 January 2012. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/25/us-navy-seals-freed-somalia-hostages. Accessed 25 January 2012. 3. “Somalia.” Electronic Mine Information Network. http://www.mineaction.org/country.asp?c=23 Accessed 13 March 2012. 4. “Somalia.” Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor. http://www.the-monitor.org/index.php/publications/display?

http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Briefs/lovin2.shtml

Page 2 of 3

DDG Aid Workers Rescued (16.1)

1/21/16, 11:28 AM

url=lm/2004/somalia.html#fn8546.Accessed 13 March 2012. 5. Newcomb, Alyssa and Hughes, Dana. “Buchanan Sold Her Belongings to Become Missionary.” ABC World News25 January 2012. http://abcnews.go.com/International/jessica-buchanan-missionary-loves-africa/story? id=15439390#.T38RVNmN6uI. Accessed 26 January 2012. 6. “Paul Hagen Thisted.” Linkedin. http://www.linkedin.com/pub/poul-hagen-thisted/6/24a/192. Accessed 3 March 2012.

The Journal of ERW & Mine Action is sponsored by:

http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Briefs/lovin2.shtml

Page 3 of 3

Anti-tank Mines Kill Eight Cambodian Farmers (16.1)

Table of Contents

Editorial

Focus

Special Report

1/21/16, 11:28 AM

Notes

Book Reviews

Briefs

Country Profiles

Past Issues

CISR Home

Anti-tank Mines Kill Eight Cambodian Farmers open pdf of this article Eight Cambodian farmers were killed and one was critically injured Friday, 3 February 2012, after their truck hit two anti-tank mines in Banteay Meanchey province in northwestern Cambodia. Due to Cambodia’s recent rainfall, the ground was soft—making landmines more susceptible to detonation when driven over by a vehicle. Seven of the farmers died instantly when their truck ran over the AT mine, and an eighth died later in the hospital from injuries. At the time of writing, the truck’s driver was in critical condition.1 Cambodia remains heavily polluted with landmines and other explosive remnants of war left behind from almost 30 years of conflict, beginning with incursions by North Vietnamese and U.S. forces in the early 1960s, followed by a brutal civil war from 1970 to 1979, the Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia from 1979 to 1989, and ending in regional conflicts from 1989 to 1998.2,3 In 2011, landmines accounted for approximately 233 injuries or deaths.4 Estimates indicate that between four million and six million mines and other ordnance remain in Cambodia, spanning more than 648 square kilometers (250 square miles).4 To date, approximately 861,000 anti-personnel mines, 20,000 AT mines and 2 million explosive remnants of war have been destroyed in Cambodia.5 ~ Katy Lovin, CISR staff TOP OF PAGE

Contact Information http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Briefs/lovin.shtml

Page 1 of 2

Anti-tank Mines Kill Eight Cambodian Farmers (16.1)

1/21/16, 11:28 AM

Center for International Stabilization and Recovery James Madison University MSC4902 Harrisonburg, VA 22807 / USA Email: cisr@jmu.edu http://cisr.jmu.edu

< TOP OF PAGE

Endnotes 1. “Eight Die in Cambodia Anti-tank Mine Blast.” APF. http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ ALeqM5iTRvuQmrL4HpL0yZkfXrKXJDvCqg?docId=CNG.80d7e08b72e081b97777932ee5026afd.2f1. Accessed 8 February 2012. 2. “Land Mine Left Over from Cambodia Conflict Kills 8 Farmers on Tractor.” Washington Post. Accessed 8 February 2012. 3. “Cambodia: Background.” U.S. Department of State. 10 August 2011. http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2732.htm. Accessed 15 February 2012. 4. “Cambodia.” Landmine & Cluster Munition Monitor. http://www.the-monitor.org/ index.php/cp/display/region_profiles/theme/863. Accessed 9 February 2012. 5. “Cambodia.” E-MINE: Electronic Mine Information Network. http://www.mineaction.org/country.asp?c=6. Accessed 15 February 2012.

The Journal of ERW & Mine Action is sponsored by:

http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Briefs/lovin.shtml

Page 2 of 2

Country Profile: Thailand (16.1)

Table of Contents

Editorial

1/21/16, 11:29 AM

Focus

Special Report

Notes

Book Reviews

Briefs

Country Profiles

Past Issues

CISR Home

Country Profile: Thailand open pdf of this article In May 1999, Thailand became a State Party to the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-personnel Mines and on Their Destruction (also known as the Anti-personnel Mine Ban Convention, or APMBC). Thailand continues to work toward passing an executive measure to incorporate its provisions into national law. Thailand states that it has never produced or exported anti-personnel mines, and that it completed the destruction of 337,725 stockpiled mines on 24 April 2003. However, a Thai civilian was convicted of laying AP mines along the border from 2008 to 2010. Though Thailand participated in the diplomatic conferences of the Oslo Process, which created the Convention on Cluster Munitions, and acted as an observer throughout the formal negotiations, it did not sign the convention when it was open for signature in Oslo in 2008.1 Contamination and Clearance Thailand is affected by landmines, explosive remnants of war, abandoned explosive ordnance and unexploded ordnance as a result of conflicts along its borders with Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia and Myanmar (Burma). Most recently, in February 2011, Thailand was the subject of international criticism when its military was accused of firing artillery cluster munitions into Cambodia during fighting connected with an ongoing border dispute. The Thai Civilian Deminers Association conducted a Technical Survey in 2010 and found that unexploded submunitions contaminate an estimated 315,000 square meters (78 acres) in the Fakta district of the northern Uttaradit province along the border with Laos. Dropped by U.S. aircraft during the Vietnam War2, these submunitions now contaminate the remote forested area. No known casualties were reported; however, the Thai Civilian Deminers Association notes that the contaminated area “limits villagers’ access to the forest, grazing for livestock, farming and recreation.”1 The Thai-Cambodian border is also known to be contaminated with other unexploded ordnance, such as mortar shells and caches of abandoned mortar and rocket-propelled grenades, left over from shelling between Vietnamese and Cambodian Government forces during the Cambodian-Vietnamese War (1975–1979).1 Although no clearance activities were reported in 2010, Thailand Mine Action Center’s Humanitarian Mine Action Unit 4 cleared 56,816 square meters (14 acres) in the Pooh Nong Sam Yai area of Uttaradit in 2011.1 http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Country/thailand.shtml

Page 1 of 3

Country Profile: Thailand (16.1)

1/21/16, 11:29 AM

Conflict With Cambodia In 2008, two Thai soldiers were injured when they stepped on landmines. Thailand claimed that Cambodian forces laid these mines, but Cambodia stated that the mines existed from previous conflicts. In 2009, another Thai solider was reported wounded when he stepped on a landmine in the same location. Then, in February 2010, a Thai civilian pled guilty to laying landmines on the Cambodian border and was sentenced to 20 years in prison by the Cambodian government.1 In early February 2011, border clashes turned violent, and after both sides had exchanged fire, Thai soldiers fired artillery cluster munitions into Cambodia.3 The root of this conflict involves disputed claims over the 10th century Preah Vihear temple, a UNESCO World Heritage Site along the Thai-Cambodian border. Following the incident, Thailand denied cluster-munition use. Cluster Munition Coalition members traveled to Cambodia in February and April 2011 to observe evidence of unexploded submunitions. Similarly, the Norwegian Peopleâ€™s Aid program office in Cambodia also observed unexploded submunitions during a trip to the area. In light of the physical evidence, the CMC issued a press statement confirming that the Thai military fired cluster munitions into Cambodian territory. The Cambodian Mine Action Center reported that at least 10 people were killed, including civilians.3 Austria, Laos, New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland and the United Kingdom publicly condemned Thailand’s actions.1 As a result of these developments, Thailand expressed the intent to join the Convention on Cluster Munitions in a statement at the intercessional meeting in Geneva in June 2011.1 Role of International Organizations Several international organizations provide clearance and humanitarian aid in Thailand. The most prominent and active humanitarian demining group is Norwegian People’s Aid, which has been in Thailand since 2000. NPA collaborates with the Thai Government, TMAC and Thailand Civilian Deminers Association to assist in clearance activities. NPA seeks to help Thailand meet the obligations of the APMBC and to improve technical survey as well as information management.5 Other humanitarian nongovernmental organizations also provide risk education and additional services in Thailand. The Catholic Office for Emergency Relief and Refugees and TMAC provide risk-education programs. The Jesuit Refugee Service assists mine and explosive remnants of war survivors as well as survivors’ families. Assistance programs include education, support for children of survivors and emergency humanitarian aid in the forms of food, clothing and basic necessities.1 Conclusion While cluster munitions are not a widespread problem in Thailand, the isolated incident along the Cambodian border shows that the Thai military still possesses the capability to use them. Conversely, the work of international organizations in Thailand along with Thailand’s expressed interest in joining the Convention on Cluster Munitions show that things may change. ~ Ivy Hensley, CISR staff TOP OF PAGE

http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Country/thailand.shtml

Page 2 of 3

Country Profile: Thailand (16.1)

1/21/16, 11:29 AM

Contact Information Center for International Stabilization and Recovery James Madison University MSC4902 Harrisonburg, VA 22807 / USA Email: cisr@jmu.edu http://cisr.jmu.edu

TOP OF PAGE

Endnotes 1. “Thailand Country Profile.” Landmine & Cluster Munition Monitor 2010. http://www.themonitor.org/custom/index.php/region_profiles/print_profile/386.Â Accessed 24 January 2012. 2. The Vietnamese call this the American War. 3. Sakada, Chun. “CMAC Investigating Cluster Munition Site.” Voice of America. 9 February 2011. http://www.voanews.com/khmer-english/news/CMAC-Investigating-Cluster-Munition-Site-115634654.html. Accessed 27 September 2011. 4. Johansen, Tine. “Norwegian People’s Aid condemns the use of cluster munitions.” Norwegian People’s Aid. 4 July 2011. http://www.npaid.org/en/News_Archive/?module=Articles;action=Article.publicShow;ID=17139. Accessed 27 September 2011. 5. NPA Thailand Newsletter: 25 May 2011. Norwegian Peopleâ€™s Aid. http://www.npaid.org/filestore/ThailandMayNewsletter.pdf. Accessed 27 September 2011.

The Journal of ERW & Mine Action is sponsored by:

http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Country/thailand.shtml

Page 3 of 3

Country Profile: Laos (16.1)

Table of Contents

Editorial

1/21/16, 11:29 AM

Focus

Special Report

Notes

Book Reviews

Briefs

Country Profiles

Past Issues

CISR Home

Country Profile: Laos open pdf of this article The landlocked country of Laos borders Burma (Myanmar), Cambodia, China, Thailand and Vietnam. Although not officially involved in the Vietnam War1, also referred to as the Second Indochina War (1954–1975), Laos was vulnerable to attacks from neighboring countries because of its location. During the Second Indochina War, northern Vietnam used the Ho Chi Minh Trail of eastern Laos to send soldiers and supplies into southern Vietnam.2 Acting in secret, the United States assisted southern Vietnam and bombed northern Vietnamese soldiers along the Ho Chi Minh Trail.3 From 1964 to 1973, roughly two million tons of ordnance were dropped on the country.4 Since this war ended, 19 different types of cluster munitions have been found in Laos.5 Landmines/UXO Overview The Second Indochina War subjected Laos to the heaviest bombing in history and is one of the main reasons the country has an extensive need for landmine and cluster-munition clearance.6 U.S. forces dropped more bombs on Laos’ Ho Chi Min Trail than on any combination of countries during World War II.7,8 The extensive cluster-munition use throughout the 1960s and 1970s left Laos littered with unexploded ordnance. After the war, the International Committee of the Red Cross estimated that Laos had between nine million and 27 million UXO items remaining in the country.9 With 37 percent of the country’s total surface area contaminated by UXO, Laos is considered to be the most UXO-affected nation in the world.10 UXO Lao, a nationally executed project of the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare and the United Nations Development Programme, reports, “More than 580,000 bombing missions were conducted over Laos. More than 270 http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Country/lao.shtml

Page 1 of 3

Country Profile: Laos (16.1)

1/21/16, 11:29 AM

million [bomblets] were dropped onto Laos, and of these [bomblets], up to 30 percent failed to detonate.”5 Casualties The total number of landmine and UXO casualties in Laos is unknown. According to a 2007 survey included in the “Circle of Impact: The Fatal Footprint of Cluster Munitions on People and Communities,” 2,531 were killed and 2,179 were injured between 1965 and 1997.14 The Landmine and Cluster Munitions Monitor stated that 312 were killed and 739 were injured between 1999 and December 2007, noting that the statistics reported by the National Regulatory Authority in Laos appear to be inaccurate.12 In 2008, at least 100 casualties were reported, including 30 deaths and 69 injuries.13 In 2009, 41 people were killed and 93 were injured.13 In 2010, 117 casualties related to mines/ERW occurred, 93 of these were injuries and 24 resulted in death.13 UXO Lao estimates more than 50,000 people were injured or killed from UXO accidents between 1964 and 2008. Of these estimated 50,000 people, more than 20,000 were killed or injured during the post-war years, 1974–2008.5 Demining Laos adopted the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 3 December 2008.4 By adopting the CCM, Laos agreed to the general obligations and scope of the CCM’s application in Article 1: “Each State Party undertakes never under any circumstances to use cluster munitions; develop, produce, otherwise acquire, stockpile, retain or transfer to anyone, directly or indirectly, cluster munitions; assist, encourage or induce anyone to engage in any activity prohibited to a State Party under this Convention.”14 Along with 65 additional States Parties, Laos agreed to the terms set forth in CCM. States Parties expect that when these terms begin to be implemented, the future use of cluster-munitions will be limited and related casualties will subside. UXO Lao is Laos’ largest clearance operator, and draws support from the United Nations Development Programme, UNICEF, the Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement in the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs (PM/WRA) and other stakeholders.5 In 2011, UXO Lao reported that over a 15-year period almost 49 percent of the UXO was cleared.4 UXO Lao employs more than 1,000 workers and needs US$6.5 million yearly for operations in the nine most heavily contaminated provinces: Attapeu, Champasak, Huaphanh, Khammouane, Luang Prabang, Savannakhet, Saravane, Sekong and Xiengkhuang.5 In addition to UXO Lao, Mines Advisory Group and Norwegian People’s Aid are also active in providing clearance services, both funded by PM/WRA. In 2010, PM/WRA contributed $1.7 million to MAG and $700,000 to NPA for Laos clearance.15 ~ Kara Sordelett, CISR staff TOP OF PAGE

Contact Information Center for International Stabilization and Recovery James Madison University MSC4902 Harrisonburg, VA 22807 / USA Email: cisr@jmu.edu http://cisr.jmu.edu

TOP OF PAGE

http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Country/lao.shtml

Page 2 of 3

Country Profile: Laos (16.1)

1/21/16, 11:29 AM

Endnotes 1. The Vietnamese call this the American War. 2. “Secret War in Laos.” Maps of the World. http://www.mapsofworld.com/laos/history/secret-war.html. Accessed 13 October 2011. 3. “Background Note: Laos.” U.S. Department of State. http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2770.htm. Accessed 13 October 2011. 4. “Lao PDR: Cluster Munition Ban Policy.” Landmine & Cluster Munition Monitor. http://www.themonitor.org/index.php/cp/display/region_profiles/theme/1113#_ftnref1. Accessed 13 October 2011. 5. “Lao National Unexploded Ordnance Programme.” UXO Lao.http://www.uxolao.org/. Accessed 13 October 2011. 6. “Cluster Munitions in Albania and Lao PDR: The Humanitarian and Socio-Economic Impact.” United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research. http://mineaction.org/downloads/1/clustermunitionswithcover.pdf. Accessed 13 October 2011. 7. “Crisis Prevention and Recovery.” UNDP Lao PDR. http://www.undplao.org/whatwedo/crisisprev.php. Accessed 13 October 2011. 8. “Laos Travel Guide. History of Laos.” Asia Discovery.http://www.asia-discovery.com/Laos/travelguide/history.htm. Accessed 13 October 2011. 9. “Cluster Munitions: Background and Issues for Congress.” Congressional Research Service. 11 January 2011. http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/weapons/RS22907.pdf. Accessed 13 October 2011. 10. “EU Committed to Supporting UXO Clearance in Affected Nations.” Vientiane Times. https://legaciesofwar.org/news/vientiane-times-eu-committed-to-supporting-uxo-clearance-in-affected-nations/. Accessed 13 October 2011. 11. Circle of Impact: The Fatal Footprint of Cluster Munitions on People and Communities.“‘Circle of Impact’ – Report on the Human Impact of Cluster Bombs.” Handicap International. http://www.handicapinternational.be/en/publications/%E2%80%9Ccircle-of-impact%E2%80%9D-report-on-thehuman-impact-of-cluster-bombs. Accessed 28 February 2012. 12. “Lao PDR. Casualties and Victim Assistance.” Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor. http://www.themonitor.org/index.php/cp/display/region_profiles/theme/1112. Accessed 13 October 2011. 13. “Lao PDR: Casualties and Victim Assistance.” Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor. http://www.themonitor.org/index.php/cp/display/region_profiles/theme/1112. Accessed 13 October 2011. 14. “Diplomatic Conference for the Adoption of a Convention on Cluster Munitions.” Cluster Munitions Convention. 30 May 2008. http://www.clusterconvention.org/files/2011/01/Convention-ENG.pdf. Accessed 13 October 2011. 15. “Humanitarian Mine Action Funding.” To Walk the Earth in Safety. Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement in the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs (PM/WRA). Accessed 18 January 2012.

The Journal of ERW & Mine Action is sponsored by:

http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/journal/16.1/Country/lao.shtml

Page 3 of 3