Washington & Oregon Students Learn About Landmines

They don't let me out in public too often, but once in a while these days I get to tell the story of our work, show a DVD and answer questions. This Saturday, I was at Thomas Jefferson High School in Auburn in a speaker series with some big names in humanitarian mine action. The audience was a group of about 80 high school students from Washington and Oregon who are pursuing an International Baccalaureate, a demanding two-year curriculum that paves the way for students to study internationally.

I followed Pat Patierno, formerly with the State Department and now with the International Trust Fund for demining, and Jim Lawrence, deputy director of the State Department's Office of Weapons Abatement and Removal. Pat and Jim, whom I have known for years and who have been extraordinarily supportive of our work in Southeast Asia, outlined the general problem of landmines.

Since this year marks the 10th anniversary of the Ottawa Treaty, it doesn't hurt to recite some of the statistics. Roughly 80 countries in the world have a problem with landmines and unexploded ordnance. About every 30 minutes someone somewhere in the world gets killed or injured by a landmine or UXO. It's easy to make and place a landmine or antipersonnel device (costing as little as $3), but expensive, painstaking and dangerous to remove (costing as much as $1,000 per mine or bomb).

The IB students were intrigued by the extent of the problem and the profound impact on a developing country's prospects for economic progress. As one speaker pointed out, you may be in a country where villagers can see the mangos hanging plumb and ripe from the trees beyond a minefield but they would get killed if they tried to pick them.



My talk covered our approach to survivor assistance, one of the three pillars of what's called "humanitarian mine action.� The other two are demining (removal) and risk reduction education (awareness of the dangers among impacted communities). Our philosophy has always been holistic. We look at all the needs of the survivors and their families, plus try to help their communities however we can. This starts with emergency medical care and goes all the way to vocational skills training.
The way we help survivor communities is through capacity building projects, such as large donations of medical equipment and supplies to their local hospitals, setting up prosthetics fabrication shops and physical rehabilitation facilities, supporting training fellowships for doctors from their region, etc.
I showed a DVD about our outreach work among survivors in central Vietnam. It features our young friends Lai (injured by a cluster bomb) and Ha (burned severely by a phosphorous grenade). It moves me every time I see them tell the story of their accidents and how it changed their lives, then how our involvement changed things again. It brings back all the memories from meeting them in person. Ha, who was forced to get around on her knees until she received support for surgery from CPI, now has a baby!
The students were equally moved by their stories and by the other presentations which included a demonstration by Perry Baltimore of the Marshall Legacy Institute of a Belgian shepherd trained to help find landmines for demining projects worldwide. Several of the students came up to the speakers after the event to thank us for inspiring them to look for ways to help fundraise for humanitarian mine action.
One of the students, Elana Ilioi from Beaverton High School in Oregon, gave us each a personalized note.
To me she wrote: �It seems that most efforts are concerned with removing landmines and preventing future injuries, but your work seems unique in not abandoning the victims whose lives have already been changed. I am extremely motivated to start fundraising for this organization.�