Five Years & 150 Students Later: Life After Our Center in Kampong Cham

STOEUNG TRUNG, Cambodia � Once upon a time, Chea Sokleng was a landmine survivor who did not know how to help feed her family or fit in with her community. Then, the older teenage girl saw people in her village walking around in T-shirts advertising a new training program not far from her home and she mustered the courage to inquire.

Now, the attractive 20-year-old is a specialist at making wedding dresses in her village where no sewing services even existed before she started her own business with support from Clear Path International and its Khmer partner, Cambodia Volunteers for Community Development.

Better yet, she helps generate a healthy income alongside her father and her siblings who work in the fields. And we hope she will live happily ever after.

When you travel along the Mekong River and inland in Kampong Cham province, you can hear the same fairy tale in lots of corners. Five years after we started offering vocational skills training in sewing, mechanics and electronics, 120 landmine survivors or their family members are newly employed or self-employed.

This past year, CPI and CVCD finally completed the tail end of the program with a closeout extension providing technical, business and financial assistance to more than 90 of the training center�s graduates. This was after enrolling 150 students in four courses (30 dropped out for a variety of personal reasons) at the rented facility in Stoeung Trung.

Although we have since moved on to our rice mill project to train and employ landmine accident survivors clear across the country in Cambodia�s western Battambang province, we still keep in touch with the many graduates of the program whom we have gotten to know personally.

Eighty-seven of the 120 who graduated are now successful small-business entrepreneurs, 20 have found employment with local companies while 13 work for one of Cambodia�s many non-governmental organizations.

We have many donors to thank for this success: the McKnight Foundation, United Methodist Committee on Relief, Susila Dharma U.K., Susila Dharma U.S.A., the Johnson & Widdifield Charitable Trust, Grace Episcopal Church and many others who have contributed financially over the years.

CPI co-founder and board member Kristen Leadem helped design the program with Sothea Arun and Doeur Sarath from CVCD. We had lots of help from Handicap International, Cambodia�s Ministry of Social Affairs, Veterans & Youth, and from the provincial hospital in Kampong Cham. A special thanks goes to Kim Dovorn, a former nurse and amputee himself, who was the center�s director throughout its existence. He was a role model, guide and counselor for the students as they went through 6 � 10 months of training away from home.

We learned a lot from the five-year program � lessons we now hope to bring to bear on our ambitious rice mill project in Bavel district up against the Thai border which was a doormat for guerillas and government troops who placed landmines everywhere.

As I write the final report on the closeout extension for the McKnight Foundation and look at the faces of Chea and her fellow students, I feel we have made a lot of dreams come true.

Landmine Hopscotch in Malaysia

Our new friends at TBWA-ISC\Malaysia in Malaysia contacted us some time ago and asked to donate an ambient ad campaign in our benefit to be run in Kuala Lampur.

Pretty cool... they have laid out hopscotch grids on steps to show how simple tasks such as climbing a flight of stairs can be much more dificult to a handicapped person. Many of the landmine and bomb survivors we work with have to face life with a degree of dificulty that most of us can only imagine.... by supporting our work, you are helping making someone's life just a bit easier.

Thank you to TBWA-ISC Malaysia!

See the related post on the Frisbee Landmine Campaign in Singapore donated by Rapp Collins

This Blog Celebrates 2 Year Anniversary

Happy Birthday to the CPI Blog! On January 28, 2005 Clear Path started this blog to find a new way to connect with our supporters and to compliment our NEWS section (which is actually a blog itself with the comments disabled).

As of today, this blog has logged 359 entries and 415 comments! We have had well over 20 guest authors who have joined us in our travels and thanks to Chi, Lobke and Toan we have had posts from people actually working in the field that make Clear Path�s mission a reality.

This blog has introduced you to Ha, Nghia, Arn and Bob. We have shown videos of beneficiary visits and linked to countless stories related to our work with victims of war.

Due to this blog, our web hits have gone up considerably which has introduced our work to thousands�

Thank you for reading, we hope you will keep coming back, subscribe to our feed and share Clear Path�s mission with your friends�

From Vermont,

James Hathaway on behalf of all of us at CPI

Israel May Have Violated Arms Pact With Cluster Bomb Use, U.S. Officials Say

Source: The New York Times

WASHINGTON, Jan 27 � The Bush administration will inform Congress on Monday that Israel may have violated agreements with the United States when it fired American-supplied cluster munitions into southern Lebanon during its fight with Hezbollah last summer, the State Department said Saturday.

The finding, though preliminary, has prompted a contentious debate within the administration over whether the United States should penalize Israel for its use of cluster munitions against towns and villages where Hezbollah had placed its rocket launchers.

Cluster munitions are anti-personnel weapons that scatter tiny but deadly bomblets over a wide area. The grenadelike munitions, tens of thousands of which have been found in southern Lebanon, have caused 30 deaths and 180 injuries among civilians since the end of the war, according to the United Nations Mine Action Service.

Midlevel officials at the Pentagon and the State Department have argued that Israel violated American prohibitions on using cluster munitions against populated areas, according to officials who described the deliberations. But other officials in both departments contend that Israel�s use of the weapons was for self-defense and aimed at stopping the Hezbollah attacks that claimed the lives of 159 Israeli soldiers and civilians and at worst was only a technical violation.

Read the rest of this article here.

Contact Your Senators: CPI Supports Congressional Bill Limiting the Use and Export of Cluster Bombs

Contact your Senators and request their support for the "Cluster Munitions Civilian Protection Act of 2007"
You can find Senate contact information by clicking this link: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfmOrderBy=state&Sort=ASC

Clear Path International has announced it supports a bill to be introduced by Senators Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) and Diane Feinstein (D-California) that would restrict the use of cluster bombs by the United States and its allies.

As one of the most active U.S.-based humanitarian mine action organizations operating in central Vietnam, where millions of cluster munitions were used and where they still kill and maim, Clear Path said the bill, though not an outright ban, is a significant first step in protecting civilians.

Cluster bomb projectiles � about the size of a small baseball, flashlight battery or beer can � are packed into artillery shells or bombs dropped from aircraft to destroy airfields or tanks and soldiers. A single bomb typically scatters some 200 to 600 of the explosives over an area the size of a football field.

Usually 10 to 15 percent � but in some cases up to 80 percent � of the devices fail to explode immediately. These may detonate later at the slightest disturbance. The impact on children is especially bad because the tiny bombs are usually an eye-catching yellow with little parachutes attached.

Last year, Clear Path International responded to 88 new accidents on Vietnam�s central coast, many of them due to cluster bombs. Nearly 40 percent, or two out of five, of the victims were children. Thirty-six victims died from their wounds. It has been more than three decades since the end of the Vietnam War.

�The injuries we have seen from cluster bombs are just horrifying,� said Martha Hathaway, Clear Path�s executive director. �This bill is an important step regulating the use of a weapon that claims too many unintended victims.�

The legislation introduced by Leahy and Feinstein, called the �Cluster Munitions Civilian Protection Act of 2007,� proposes that no funds be appropriated to any federal department or agency for the use, sale or transfer of cluster munitions unless the munitions have a proven wartime detonation rate of 99 percent; their use is on clearly defined military targets not inhabited by civilians; and there exist plans to clean up those that fail to explode within 30 days of their use.

Two dozen countries have joined in a move to negotiate an international treaty to curb the use of cluster bombs. Austria has taken the lead in formally asking the international conference on controlling conventional weapons, under way in Geneva, to start negotiations on an accord to legally regulate the weapons, which were widely used by the United States or other forces in recent conflicts in the Balkans, Afghanistan, Iraq and Lebanon.

So far 24 countries, including Germany, Mexico, Argentina and New Zealand, have joined in the request for the negotiations. The other countries supporting the call for a new treaty are Bosnia-Herzegovina, Chile, Costa Rica, Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Ireland, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Peru, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland and the Vatican.

Based in the Unites States, Clear Path International assists landmine accident survivors in Vietnam, Cambodia and along the Thai-Burma border. It also sends shipments of medical equipment, orthopedic devices and surgical supplies to hospitals in mine-affected countries around the world. Learn more about Clear Path International at www.cpi.org.
# # #

Radio Show Highlights Plight of Burmese Refugees

I was driving my 9-year-old son home from his piano lesson and switched radio stations from my usual NPR frequency to a radio station at Bellevue Community College. I heard a woman talking about taking care of landmine amputees without arms and eyesight. Naturally, it caught my attention right away. She was talking about the Mae La refugee camp, where Clear Path International provides round-the-clock care for 16 resident mine victims who suffered similar losses at the "Care Villa" run by the Karen Handicap Welfare Association.

Then I heard the familiar sounds of traditional Karen folks songs and instruments. I was back with our men at the Care Villa who perform songs about their ethnic homeland across the border in Burma every time we come to visit. I heard interviews with the Karen Women's Organization. I heard the reporter go on a rickety wooden bridge across the river into Burma to territory held by the Karen Union. And finally we were back at Dr. Cynthia's Mae Tao clinic, whose prosthetics department Clear path has supported for nearly five years. There and at three other places on the border, CPI has assisted more than 500 landmine accident survivors.

The show is called "Kawthoolei," an audio odyssey into the troubled border region between Thailand and Burma. It's part of the "Outer Voices" project documenting the critical work of women in six places around the world: www.outervoices.org. It tells the story of the 500,000 villagers displaced by Burmese troops; about the 140,000 refugees in the nine camps on the Thai side of the border; about the 70 backpacking teams dispensing medical treatment to these homeless wanderers who are trying to avoid being raped, tortured or shot by government troops, used as human shields or mine clearers or weapons carriers and often succumb to diseases, starvation or injuries from landmine accidents.

Listening to the folk music, sounds from the camps and interviews with some of the people we work with brought me right back to the border. It was a powerful reminder why we are active there as an organization with a mission to help those suffering from the results of accidental mine and bomb explosions. I recommend going the site and listening to the show or ordering the CD. It's the next best thing to flying to Bangkok and taking the bus to the Thai-Burma border in person

War Torn El Salvador On the Mend

Although I had never been to El Salvador before, there was a familiarity to being in this Central American country. Some of that came from having been to other parts of Latin America: Colombia, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Peru, Mexico. But the stronger sense of deja-vu came from having been in other war-torn countries like Vietnam and Cambodia, where Clear Path has its programs and where I visit regularly.

Just when I arrived in El Salvador last week, the newspapers were full of commemorative articles marking 15 years since the end of the civil war that deeply scarred this small nation from 1980 to 1992. The area around San Miguel, the country�s third-largest city where I attended a project conference for Rotary, was a leftist rebel stronghold. It hasn�t been a generation yet since both sides laid down their weapons.

There are reminders of El Salvador�s recent instability. Every office, store, hotel, restaurant and bank in San Miguel has armed guards with pump-action shotguns, revolvers or Uzis. But this country of 6 million people between Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua is further along in its recovery then, say, Cambodia.

The infrastructure looks fairly �together� with a lot of decent roads, plenty of newer vehicles and buses. Chain restaurants are beginning to pop up. There is even an American-style shopping mall in San Miguel. A lot of money comes into the economy from Salvadoran family members who work in the United States, from drug trafficking, coffee trade, sugar cane processing, cattle and dairy farms and a modestly growing tourism industry.

A big new seaport on the Pacific coast will form part of a new land bridge moving cargo containers to Honduras on the Atlantic because the Panama Canal has become too small for the newest generation of containerships that can carry as many as 64,000 containers.

Despite a brightening future, however, many segments of the population haven�t shared in much of the newfound prosperity.



In many ways, it�s hard to tell there was a war here now. I saw no bullet-pocked walls, no wrecked military vehicles or bomb craters like you still do in Vietnam. Neither did I see many landmine accident survivors so visible in Southeast Asia. According to the Landmine Monitor, El Salvador has been 97 percent mine-free since the mid 1990s despite a legacy of 20,000 in 425 minefields at the end of he war.
In 2005, the Landmine Monitor recorded four mine/bomb casualties, including two killed and two injured in one landmine and two incidents involving explosive remnants of war (ERW). All of the casualties were children. In 2006, no new accidents were reported. El Salvador has an existing population of nearly 3,000 landmine accident survivors. They are treated within the regular health care system, which is one of the reasons Clear Path decided to tap into its medical donations program to help some of the local hospitals.
But there are other health problems that require attention. The country has high rates of dysentery, typhoid, malaria, dengue and malnutrition. Three to four people are newly infected with the AIDS virus every day. Teenage pregnancy is endemic, despite a growing acceptance of birth control in this overwhelmingly and traditionally Catholic nation.
Our mission during the Rotary project fair I attended was to check in on San Miguel�s health care facilities. We found they need a lot of help, lacking a lot of the equipment and basic supplies to meet a growing patient demand. We visited two hospitals. In an earlier blog, I described the hospital in Ciudad Pacifica, a low-income barrio of more than 60,000 residents with little access to decent and affordable medical care.
On Saturday, we visited the �federal� Hospital Nacional San Juan de Dios. The place was crowded. As many as 700 people a day come into the emergency room, though the official bed count for the facility is only 180. The hospital handles about 6,000 deliveries per year. Often, young mothers have to double up on a bed in the maternity ward.
Here and at Ciudad Pacifica, I was lucky to be accompanied by Mike Keckler, a Rotarian who runs a medical equipment business in Modesto and makes large used medical donations on the side. The two of us and his wife Suzy identified a long list of items they need: wheelchairs, IV poles, respirators, patient monitors, delivery tables, ultrasound, gurneys and all sorts of surgical supplies. We noticed the hospital staff simply autoclaves surgical items over and over again, even disposables such as plastic drainage trays that were beginning to look warped and rubber gloves that should be tossed after a single use.
Between the Centro de Salud Josefina Vilaseca and the Hospital Nacional San Juan de Dios, Mike and I will try to put together several additional container shipments to provide the poorly paid doctors here (they make only $400 - $450 per month) with better tools and supplies. We�re lucky to have a local partner in the San Miguel Rotary club which helped us navigate last year�s container to the Centro de Salud through Customs.
By the time we�re done with the series of shipments this year and next, there should be about four or five containers� worth of new equipment and supplies at the two hospitals. I am planning to come back next year to check on the use of what we send and reassess the facilities needs.

ICBL: Burma / Myanmar Peace talks should include landmine issue

Source: International Campaign to Ban Landmines
The Thailand Campaign to Ban Landmines has urged negotiators in the Burmese internal conflict to include in their agreements specific actions to alleviate the suffering caused by the use of anti-personnel mines.

Between 3 and 10 January 2007, representatives of the ruling State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) and the 7th Brigade of the ethnic armed opposition group Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) met in Yangon to discuss cessation of hostilities. The scope and content of any agreement between the two parties have not been disclosed.

The Thailand CBL called on negotiators to include in the final agreement the following:

- That both parties clearly and unambiguously mark their mine fields on the date of the commencement of a ceasefire;

- That both parties commit to refrain from any use of the landmine, and that laying of landmines be considered a violation of a ceasefire or an act of aggression;

- That both parties seek the assistance of the United Nations Mine Action Service and other international agencies in developing mine action plans for implementation prior to the return of any displaced persons

"Landmines laid by these and other parties to the conflict will remain in the ground after any agreement they sign. An acknowledgment of the urgency of this issue within any cessation of hostilities would build confidence and would show a real commitment toward a lasting peace," said Yeshua Moser-Puangsuwan, Landmine Monitor researcher for Burma/Myanmar.

** Read about the situation in Burma/Myanmar in the Landmine Monitor Report, http://www.icbl.org/lm/2006/burma.html

Tampering With Live Bombs to Sell the Scrap Metal� A Deadly Job

A widow groans by her husband's coffin

January 15, 2007. Quang Binh province, Viet Nam

The bombs had been accumulated here for some time. When being sold to this scrap dealer, all of them were empty since the main charge had already been chipped off. The only thing left were explosive boosters by the size of a half liter water bottle threaded into the fuse well at the nose of the bombs. It is clearly understood in the scrap metal business that the metal must be free from explosive other wise no factory would buy it. This demand had created a number of people risking their lives to make those �1st grade steel� casing safe to sell.


This photo was taken thru our truck's window in May 2005 in front of the scrap yard

The first step was to separate the nose section (section with the fuse in it) from the rest of the bomb. Like one would cut off a tiny rotten end of a banana, but this was done with a blowtorch. They cut the conical section off the bomb so they could sell the steel casing.


Several bomb cases after the first procedure of removing the nose section. Photo taken in May 2005

When the casing was sold out, they started to take a look back at the left over piles of conical casing and an idea came across: If they take those boosters off, they�ll be able to turn the most of those conical casing into cash. However, this seems a lot trickier as explosive is still inside the fuse well. Nobody believes this but hammers and chisels were used to turn loose those rusty threaded boosters.



The work site was 30 meters from the backyard of the local scrap dealer�s, next to a dirt path. Three men started their work in the morning, and by 3 p.m. they had successfully removed several dozens of booster charge from the fuse well of bombs. The work was almost done as there were only two more rounds to go. By this time another man came home and saw three men working. He joined the group to watch his buddies work.

The work site. Photo taken on Jan 16, 2007

Pile of their succeeded work

Many booster charges seen next to empty bomb noses
The loud and powerful explosion occurred at 3:15 p.m. A piece of fragment weight 3 lbs penetrated the brick wall nearby and landed about 1.5 kilometers from the detonation point. Three men were killed instantly on the spot, including the watcher. The scrap yard owner, who stood near to supervise the work was severely injured and died two hours later on the operation table of the local general hospital.

The accident site
The accident took away the breadwinners of four families; widowed four women and orphaned ten children.

Italians teaching Lebanese kids how to avoid bombs

Beirut (AsiaNews/Agencies) � In Lebanon Italian peacekeepers are teaching the local population how to avoid unexploded or buried bombs. But Italy has also been one of the country�s major arms suppliers in the last few years.

The humanitarian services division of the Italian United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon contingent has been organising a series of awareness campaigns on the dangers of cluster bombs and land mines left over from last summer�s war with Israel.

Read the rest of the article here.

Five Children Injured in Cambodia Land Mine Blast

Source: The Hindu

PHNOM PENH, Jan. 21 (Xinhua): The explosion of two mines wounded five children on Saturday in Thmor Pouk district, Battambang province, some 250 km northwest of the capital city, police source told Xinhua by phone.

Two of them were heavily injured, while the other three slightly over the blast in Sre Laor village, said Yort Rai, Deputy Police Chief of the district.

"They found the two mines in a black plastic bag behind their village and thought that it was make-up powder boxes. They hit them with a stick in order to take off the shells and sell them to waste-pickers. They then exploded," he said.

The two injured seriously were sent to a children's hospital in Battambang provincial town, he added.

"The girl suffered from injuries on face, hands and chest. Both children may become blind and lose their hands," he said, adding that the four boys and one girl were from four to seven-years-old.

Earlier on Friday, seven mine cleaners died over the blast of three anti-tank mines in Komrieng district, Battambang province.

According to the Cambodia Mine Action Center, there were more than 400 human casualties over mine and UXO (unexploded ordnance) explosions in 2006 in Cambodia, or 50 per cent decrease over the average number of the previous six years.

Due to 30 years of armed conflicts, Cambodia has become one of the world's most heavily mined countries with an estimated four to six million of such "hidden killers" buried underground in areas as extensive as 2,900 square kilometers.

All the mines and UXO may take another 150 years for the kingdom to clear out, statistics say.

Salvadoran Sisters Ready For "The Avalanche"

SAN MIGUEL, El Salvador � When it strikes, Sister Milagro Perez says, she and her nuns from the Order of Josefina will be ready.

No, the kind and gentle �madre� is not speaking of an earthquake, a hurricane, a tidal wave, a mudslide or some other natural disaster to which her Central American country is prone. The director of the Centro de Salud Josefina Vilaseca in Ciudad Pacifica refers to the day her little hospital�s doors will open and be inundated with patients.

�It will be an avalanche,� she says. �People from all around will travel for as much as an hour to get here.�

But the small staff will be well prepared to receive them thanks to a recently sent 40-foot container of medical equipment and supplies sent by Clear Path International and the Rotary Club of Bainbridge Island.

In 2006, Clear Path gathered hospital beds, gurneys, exam tables, patient scales, crash carts, lab equipment, wheelchairs and myriad boxes of surgical supplies from Group Health and other donors in the Seattle area and sent them to San Miguel.

The Bainbridge Club paid for the shipping and provided volunteers for the loading party, while the Rotary Club of San Miguel made sure it got through Customs and made it to Sister Perez� hospital.

The immaculately tiled and tidy compound, whose construction was funded by a grant from the Spanish government, is on the outskirts of a poor barrio near San Miguel, El Salvador�s second-largest city. The barrio�s population is 64,000. The average income hovers around $150 a month.

The provincial hospital is 10 minutes away in San Miguel, but it is overflowing with patients and staff accept payments from the better-off patients, which means those who can�t afford to grease the skids wait in line all day and may still go home without receiving treatment.

Sister Perez will charge everyone the same $3 but will wave the fee for those who can�t afford it. No one will be denied treatment, the Catholic nun says. Most of the facility�s medical staff of 10 are volunteer professionals or nuns, but if the hospital opens its doors by this spring the government has committed to provide medical personnel with training and compensation.

The shipment to El Salvador is part of CPI�s medical donations program under which 64 containers of medical and other kinds of relief goods have been sent to 25 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

The organization and the Rotary Club of Bainbridge Island are already collecting items for a second container of goods possibly in collaboration with the Rotary Club of Modesto, California.

Anti-tank mine kills 7 Cambodian de-miners

Source: Reuters

PHNOM PENH, Jan 19 (Reuters) - At least one anti-tank mine in a former Khmer Rouge stronghold in northwest Cambodia blew up on Friday, killing seven de-miners, three of whom were women.

It was the worst incident to hit mine clearing agencies since they started work in the war-scarred southeast Asian nation in 1993, said Leng Sochea, a spokesman for the Cambodia Mine Action Centre (CMAC).

Initial investigations suggested a mine-clearing team near the town of Battambang came upon two anti-tank mines placed on top of each other. The mines detonated before they could be defused or blown up safely.

"It could have been because of a technical fault," Leng Sochea said.

The areas around Cambodia's border with Thailand are littered with landmines planted by Pol Pot's ultra-Maoist guerrillas and the Vietnamese army, which invaded Cambodia in 1979 to topple the Khmer Rouge.

Mine clearing teams have destroyed an estimated 1.6 million landmines in the last 10 years, but aid agencies and the government say at least 5 million more remain. They are responsible for hundreds of deaths and injuries every year.

Listening Post: How would YOU improve Clear Path?

We received a comment on our blog from our friend Peter Dawson on the blog post "Is Tom Peters Right", where Tom had told me to ask more questions on our blog to encourage communication and possible ways to improve the work of CPI.

Peter said:

James most of the entries here are almost about what has happened or happening.. the various events that CPI folks do. You must also use this blog as a listening post/ sounding board. You need to engineer an Architecture of participation. Its not easy, its hard work !!

Interesting, Peter... ok... so as a "listening post", how would readers of this blog (all three of you) improve upon how we are communicating the mission of Clear Path? Or... what do you reccomend we do to advance our work.... ?

Dr. Cynthia of Mae Tao Refugee Clinic on Myanmar Border Nominated for World's Children Prize

Clear Path International helps fund Dr. Cynthia Maung's work along the Thai -Burma (Myanmar) Border.

FOCUS ON REFUGEE CHILDREN, CHILD WORKERS AND ABUSED CHILDREN

This year's three finalists for the World's Children's Prize for the Rights of the Child (WCPRC), with prize money totalling SEK 1 million (USD 140,000) are :

� CYNTHIA MAUNG, Burma, who has fought for the health and education of hundreds of thousands of refugee children for 20 years, both under the military dictatorship in Burma and in refugee camps in Thailand.

� INDERJIT KHURANA, India, who has run over a hundred schools and two phone help lines for 21 years, helping the poorest, most vulnerable children who live and work on station platforms.

� BETTY MAKONI, Zimbabwe. After being abused as a child, Betty began to fight to give girls the courage to demand their rights. She supports those who are exposed to abuse and protects others from assault, forced marriage, trafficking and sexual abuse.

WORLD'S LARGEST EDUCATIONAL INITIATIVE ON DEMOCRACY AND CHILDREN'S RIGHTS

The WCPRC empowers children and young people all over the world so that they can make their voices heard and demand respect for their rights in accordance with the UN Child Convention. The WCPRC has quickly grown into the world's largest annual educational initiative for children on rights and democracy. As part of this process, the children award the world's most respected prizes for outstanding contributions to the rights of the child.

11 million students at 20,000 schools in 82 countries participate in the WCPRC, and that number is growing constantly. Around five million of those children will participate in a Global Vote to determine who will receive the Global Friends' Award 2007. An international child jury � consisting of children who are experts on the rights of the child through their own experiences as soldiers, refugees, street children or slaves in brothels or on farms � chooses the recipient of the other major award, the World's Children's Prize.

Over 300 organisations all over the world support the WCPRC, which also collaborates with many Departments of Education and youth media projects worldwide. The prize magazine, like the website, www.childrensworld.org , is available in nine languages and is read by over 7 million young people.



MANDELA IS A PATRON
The patrons of the WCPRC include Queen Silvia of Sweden , Nelson Mandela, President Xanana Gusm�of East Timor , former Executive Director of Unicef Carol Bellamy, former UN Under-Secretary-General Olara Otunnu, and Nobel Prize Winner in Economics Joseph Stiglitz.
The prize money, SEK 1 million (USD 140,000), is to be used in the recipients' work for the rights of the child and will help some of the world's most vulnerable children. It is supported by AstraZeneca, Banco Fonder and pi.se. The WCPRC was founded by the Swedish organisation Children's World, and is a Swedish National Millennium Project.
This year's prize ceremony will be held on 16 April at Gripsholm Castle in Mariefred, where HM Queen Silvia will help the children to give out the prizes. All three final candidates will be honoured. The recipients of the prizes will be announced at a press conference at 12 noon on 13 April, at S� Teatern, Mosebacke Torg, Stockholm , Sweden .
For more information on the WCPRC and the prize candidates see:
PRESS at www.childrensworld.org, where you can also find high-res pictures and video material.
Contact: Magnus Bergmar, +46(0)159-129 00, +46(0)70-515 58 39 magnus.bergmar@childrensworld.org

Canada to invest in Afghanistan`s minefield clearance and community-led development

Source : PakTribune

Canada`s contribution will support activities undertaken by the United Nations Mine Action Centre for Afghanistan (UNMACA) across the country, including minefield survey and clearance, stockpile destruction, mine risk education, victim assistance and capacity building and co-ordination. The objective of the UNMACA and the Government of Afghanistan is to reduce by 70 percent the land area contaminated by mines and UXOR - estimated at 720 million square metres - by the end of 2010. Over the past 17 years, more than one billion square metres of land has been cleared of mines and UXOR in Afghanistan.

A portion of Canada`s funding, $3.8 million dollars, will support Operation Hamkari ("hamkari" being the Dari word for assistance and partnership) in the Kandahar districts of Panjwai and Zherai. Over a 12-month period, approximately 2.9 million square metres of contaminated land will be cleared, and 27,000 Afghans in the districts, including children and youth, will be educated about the dangers of mines and UXOR. Awareness and advocacy activities will also be undertaken to ensure social opportunities and equal rights for landmine survivors and people with disabilities.


Read more here:
http://www.paktribune.com/news/index.shtml?165663

Cindy McCain in Cambodia and How I Accidentally met John McCain

Sometime in the first quarter of 2001, I was late for my flight out of Washington, DC to New Orleans. Being the last one to board, I was assigned the only remaining seat on the plane in the Economy Plus section. As I boarded the plane, I immediately recognized the man in the aisle seat next to my assigned middle seat was Senator John McCain.

The Senator stood to allow me to sit down and as I buckled myself in (and surrendered the arm rest!) I realized this was probably the only time in my life I would have a senator strapped to a seat next to me for three hours :)

So I said "I'm sorry Senator, but I must tell you about this program I help run in central Vietnam...." and I proceded to show him photos of Clear Path and all that... CPI was still very young, so I asked if I could get an endorsement letter for our efforts in approaching donors... and he gave me a couple of numbers to call ("if this person is busy, then call this person")... so ... anyway... he wrote this letter for us after checking us out.

I was reminded of this story after reading of Cindy McCain visiting Cambodia with our firends at the HALO trust. You can read more about her trip here.

She said of her trip:

I look forward to continuing to work with organizations that better the quality of life for children and families across the globe.

Cindy, give us a call!

Landmines and disability: a challenge faced together

UGANDA, Source: Reuters Alertnet.

Landmines are among the most dangerous weapons in armed conflict � easy and cheap to plant, but extremely difficult and costly to remove. If not cleared, mines and explosive remnants of war (ERWs) continue to kill or mutilate long after the conflict has ended. They can last for decades, maiming and killing and disrupting the social and economic life of affected communities.

Although there are fewer mines in Uganda than in other mine-affected countries, such as Afghanistan, Angola, Mozambique and Iraq, they still pose a difficult problem. There is little or no information on the location or suspected location of mines, because this ordnance has been used on an ad hoc basis; what information is available has been obtained after civilian involvement in a mine/ERW accident, or from data collected by hospitals.

Read more here.

CPI Vietnam Responds to Its First Accident of 2007

A monsoon has brought damp and chill weather to the area.

The first few days of the New Year passed by with no news (to the work of CPI this means good news). We were thinking that may be people get lazy of going out of their homes in this weather, but we were wrong.

Just as I entered the office this morning Duc, our logistic officer, announced that he received a phone call last night reporting of a new accident happened earlier in the day (January 8th). One person was killed on spot and another 12 year old boy was seriously injured.

The follow up phone call to the Quang Tri general hospital confirmed the information, and that the boy is currently at the hospital�s intensive care unit.
I met the boy�s father at the hospital gate, a medium man in his mid 30s. I didn�t know him at first, but he walked to me and asked whether I come to respond to a new UXO accident. Mr. Kiet, the boy�s father looked exhausted but calm. I asked him briefly about what happened as we walk through the corridors to the intensive care unit.


Mrs. Quyen, the boy's mother worriedly looked at the monitor

The accident happened about 4 p.m. in Huc commune, Huong Hoa district, Quang Tri province, the vicinity of famous battle of Khe Sanh in 1968. On his way home, Nguyen Viet Lam recognized Vo Hao, a 15 year old boy from his village were searching for scrap metal in exchange for some pocket money. With curiosity, Lam walked up to see what had been found. And when he was approaching, the digger dug on top of something and a loud explosion occurred. Nobody knew what type the item was but it must be a large size ordnance because everyone at the village 1 kilometer away heard the explosion.

The blast killed Hao, the digger, immediately. The short distance from the digger have saved Lam, the curious boy. However his limbs, intestine and face were all severely injured.

AFGHANISTAN: UN rejects landmines along border

KABUL, 9 Jan 2007 (IRIN) - The United Nations has rejected Pakistan�s decision to fence and mine the border with Afghanistan to prevent cross-border militancy.

The UN�s call follows a similar rejection by the Afghan government of the Pakistani plan to plant landmines and build a fence in �selected places� along its 2,400 km border with Afghanistan.

�We regret the decision of the government of Pakistan to proceed with the laying of landmines and we call upon both governments to strengthen their commitment to cooperative solutions to the security problems that this region faces,� Chris Alexander, Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General in Afghanistan, said on Monday in the capital, Kabul.

Alexander said fencing would not help security in Afghanistan.

Read the rest of thi sarticle here:http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56969&SelectRegion=Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN