Clear Path International Beneficiaries in Vietnam Become Deminers Thanks to Mines Advisory Group

DONG HA, Vietnam -- As part of its partnership with Clear Path International, Mines Advisory Group in Vietnam has started to recruit CPI-supported landmine accident survivors or their family members to train them as clearance technicians.

The latest person to benefit from this project is 31-year-old Mrs. Tran Thi Hanh from Hoan Cat Village, Cam Lo District, Quang Tri Province. The mother of two children, aged six and 11, has been looking after them and her husband, Nguyen Van Nam, 33, who was injured while collecting war scrap metal two years ago. Mr. Nam still has metal shrapnel embedded in his body from a mortar fuse that exploded in 2005 while he was digging it up. He also received shrapnel wounds to his hands, eyes and chest, and is no longer able to work for a living.

CPI and MAG condemn the dangerous economic pursuit of reclaiming wartime ordnance for resale as scrap metal but some financially marginal Vietnamese families cannot resist the instant cash they can earn from their freelance activities. Although survivors such as Mr. Nam aren�t considered �innocent� victims of unexploded ordnance accidents, their family members are.



�My husband was a scrap collector and can now no longer work as a normal person,� says Mrs. Hanh. �He just does the easy house work, grows sweet potatoes and takes the children to school.�

She added: �Before his accident, he used to go out with his detector at 6am and return home at 6pm after selling the scrap metal.�

From this potentially lethal occupation, Mr. Nam brought home VND30,000 (USD1.87) a day, which was added to the income Mrs. Hanh made from in farming. This supplumentaryl income dried up shortly after Mr. Nam was injured despite CPI�s coverage of his medical bills.

As the main breadwinner of the Hanh family, Mrs. Hanh was selected by CPI for the MAG�s deminer recruitment program. Where possible, MAG attempts to recruit landmine accident survivors as deminers but because of some of the survivors� injuries and the physical requirements of work in a Mine Action Team (MAT), they aren�t able to take part in the training course. Sometimes, they can be employed in administrative positions.



�After the training, I returned home and in September MAG called me and offered me a job,� she said. �I love this work and will serve MAG until the end.�

Mrs. Hanh is one of eight CPI beneficiaries recommended to MAG for possible recruitment and training as professional deminers. From the list, MAG selected two for whom it had positions on its clearance teams.

Nineteen-year-old Duong Van Duy is another MAG recruit brought forward by CPI. Duong is the brother of a landmine accident survivor from a six-member family in Quang Trung Commune, Quang Trach District in Quang Binh Province.



�When I knew that I would be recruited by MAG I was so happy,� he says. �I was no longer unemployed. I will have a job�a good job and I want to share my happiness with my brother.�

Though he was the youngest in the MAG demining class, Duong turned out to be the best student, according to his supervisor, Mr. Tran Xuan Thang, who also said the young recruit �will be a good addition to our 100-strong technical workforce.�

Duong helped make his own community safer. MAG conducted mobile responses to sightings of unexploded ordnance in 9 out of the 15 communes in Quang Trach District, removed and destroyed 5,879 items, and cleared 3,400 square meters of land thus making it possible for new medical clinics, kindergartens, schools and homes to be built on de-contaminated land.

Afghanistan: Better Access to Schools for Disabled Girls and Boys

KABUL, Afghanistan � It�s one thing to be disabled and face the kind of discrimination typical for anyone with a disability here. It�s another to be disabled girl and go to school in one of the most conservative Islamic countries in the world.

The last thing you need is to face physical barriers as well, particularly in a wheelchair.

That�s one of the reason Clear Path works closely with the Accessibility Organization for Afghan Disabled, a domestic charity that builds wheelchair ramps and provides other advocacy services for persons with disabilities in Afghanistan.

Since CPI began as a subcontractor of the U.S. State Department�s Office of Weapons Removal & Abatement through a prime contract with DynCorp International, it has funded the construction of 25 wheelchair ramps at 13 schools around Kabul, including several schools for girls.

It has also paid for the training of 40 teachers and principals in the rights of persons with disabilities and the creation of fully accessible computer train g room for the disabled.

The School Accessibility Initiative was conducted in accordance with The Government of Afghanistan�s Victim Assistance Plan of Action, known as the Kabul Report, to render at least ten percent of existing schools per year physically accessible to children with disabilities.

More than 640,000 Afghan are considered severely disabled with wheelchairs as the only means of physical mobility. To have any chance at securing meaningful employment in Afghanistan, children using wheelchairs need access to an education and means they need to be able to get into the building and the restrooms.

At Ariana, a Kabul high school for girls where CPI funded one of its first ramps for WRA, more than 80 girls with disabilities use wheelchairs and now have barrier-free access to the buildings thanks to the AOAD project.

Clear Path International's Afghanistan Partner Reaches Out And Speaks Up For Survivors

KABUL, Afghanistan � We were in the armored car again driving through the city through a never-ending maze of checkpoints and concrete barriers. But I noticed the scene began to change gradually. I saw more Afghans on the sidewalk, fewer road blocks, fewer police and a market where residents were milling around. Children were playing in the streets.

We had reached one of Kabul�s many neighborhoods. Kristen, Peter and Zabi had taken me here to see another one of Clear Path�s implementing partners in Afghanistan, the Afghan Landmine Survivors Organization. Life seemed more normal here than in the fortified and rarified sections of the downtown area with its foreign embassies, company headquarters and NGO offices.

A good sign, I thought, for an organization that works with landmine accident survivors after they recover from their medical treatment and regain physical mobility. ALSO struck me as a real grassroots organization, founded by Afghans for Afghans. Its social workers, many of them male and female survivors themselves, work directly with the survivor families where they live. They fight for the survivors� full inclusion and participation in Afghan society, which tends to discriminate against persons with disabilities, particularly women.

A recent survey shows that 2.7 percent of Afghanistan�s population is disabled. In round numbers that�s about 800,000. Of these persons with disabilities, 59 percent were men and 41 percent women. It includes a large percentage of landmine accident survivors. Many struggle with psychological challenges, low self-esteem and limited access to services.

ALSO�s social workers take inventory of the individual survivors� needs and tries to connect them to services many don�t even know exist. They organize peer-support activities such as sports through which the survivors can get to know each and rebuild their self-confidence. In addition, the group tries to create vocational skills training and employment opportunities and educates others in Afghanistan about the rights of persons with disabilities.
For example, ALSO has published a series of 10 illustrated booklets for adults and children in primary and secondary school. The books have some writing in Dari and Pashto but largely rely on cartoons to get their point across to literate and illiterate residents alike.

CPI�s support of ALSO, which comes from the U.S. State Department�s Office of Weapons Removal & Abatement through a prime contract with DynCorp International, has resulted in outreach and services to several hundred landmine accident survivors in Kabul. CPI and ALSO are now exploring the possibility of expanding the program to other large communities in Afghanistan such as Jalalabad.
We met one survivor who is employed by ALSO as a security guard. Mohammad Nassim Ismail Mohammadi was 8 years old when he lost his leg due to a landmine explosion in 1994. An above-the-knee amputee, he now lives in Kabul�s Char Qalae Wazir Abad District 10.

�After the accident I was traumatized, didn�t know what to do, and remained hidden at home,� said Mohammed. �I have been through pain, suffering and exclusion. I face all sorts of barriers, material and immaterial, that prevent my full participation in community life.�

But his sense of isolation began to change after he was visited by a social worker from ALSO and learned of educational and other opportunities. Then, the group hired him to keep the compound secure.

�I feel better about myself and my situation,� he said.

Afghanistan: Better Tools, Better Lives

KABUL, Afghanistan � A steel landmine probe. A deminer�s trowel. A flail hammer. Mine field marking tape. Newly polished safety visors. These tools may not sound familiar to you, but mine clearance professionals use them every day.

And these days, deminers in Afghanistan don�t have to look any further than the catalog of the Afghan Mine Action Technology Center to buy these tools locally thanks to Clear Path�s partner Elegant Design And Solution.

The center, which is located at the Kabul Orthopedics Organization on the grounds of Afghanistan�s main military hospital, was created to capture a portion of the market for demining equipment and make money to support survivors of landmine accidents.

AMATC employs three Afghan landmine accident survivors and produces a dozen different mine clearance tools and prostheses. It�s the brainchild of Ed Pennington-Ridge, a British inventor.

The cutting-edge program matching the needs of the demining industry (a big one in Afghanistan after three decades of war) and the survivors of landmine accidents is funded by the U.S. State Department�s Office of Weapons Removal & Abatement through a prime contract with DynCorp International. It is one of several programs Clear Path manages in Afghanistan as a subcontractor of DynCorp.

The center started almost two years ago by offering to re-polish the safety visors deminers wear to protect their faces in case of a blast. Constant use tends to scratch the visors� polycarbonate surface. Instead of buying a pricy brand-new replacement visor, demining operators could simply get a $30 makeover with extra blast protection.

The AMATC catalog has grown quickly since then. It offers hammers secured to the end of chain-link flails used on armored demining vehicles as a way to safely set off landmines. Its steel trowels and probes replace hand tools that get mangled in a blast. The red skull-and-bones marking tape warns of landmines in Dari.

At the moment, Ed and his partner Tanya Shaffenrath, are hard at work to complete the design for a large sifter that mounts to a dozer and separates ordnance from the dirt in which it�s buried.

In the area of prosthetics, AMATC offers polypropylene limbs, knee joints for above-the-knee prostheses and the cosmetic covers for hand prostheses that look real enough to belong in Madame Tussauds.

Ed is a long-time contributor to innovations in humanitarian mine action. From his base in Wales, he has worked on projects for the United Nations Association USA�s Adopt-A-Minefield and now for CPI.

�This is the most innovative project in mine action today,� says Peter Albertsson, CPI finance manager and co-program manager for Afghanistan. �Disabled survivors are making safer demining tools and the profits are used to care for other survivors.�

The proceeds from Ed�s sales to the demining sector will reach at least $50,000 this year and will end up funding survivor assistance services at the Kabul Orthopedics Organization.

The Eyes of Zab Mohammed: Fear & Hope On My First Trip to Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan � I can�t explain it. I�ve met hundreds of landmine and bomb accident survivors in the past nine years. I�ve visited them at home after years of painful recovery. I�ve seen them shortly after their accident their families in tears. I�ve seen the faces of boys scarred by shrapnel and girls who couldn�t walk because of burn injuries. I�ve seen survivors who could no longer see or touch because they lost their sight and their hands.

It moves me every single time but I usually remain composed.

That wasn�t the case with Zab Mohammed whom I met in the civilian post-op ward at the military hospital in Kabul. My encounter with the 18-year-old simply pulled out the rug.

Maybe it was the ghost I saw in his eyes, the ghost of the accident that happened just 25 days ago when a landmine in his hometown in Nangaher Porvince snuffed out his leg above the knee and took away a portion of his hand.

Maybe the statistics finally sunk in. Survivors like Zab come into hospitals around Afghanistan at the rate of hundreds per month and that their numbers won�t go down any time soon because of the renewed fighting with the Taleban.

Maybe it was his youth and the realization that he was just three years younger than my oldest son, that he could have passed for a senior at our local high school or the son of a neighbor.

Maybe it was just at that moment that Clear Path�s newest program became immediate and personal. It was, after all, my first time in Afghanistan. The program started two years ago.

My three-day visit was intense. Winter is harsh in Kabul. The city was raw from a recent bomb attack on the German embassy. Security seemed other-wordly. Downtown is a maze of road blocks, sand-bagged army posts and roads lined with huge concrete buffers. On the tour of our partners, I was given a flack jacket. Our two Nepalese guards packed pistols and machine guns. The car we drove was armored, including the tinted windows and back hatch. Getting things done here is challenging to say the least.

That gave me even more respect for what Kristen, Martha, Peter, Zabi, Arahim and Shalima have been able to accomplish.

The CPI survivor assistance program is part of a larger project funded by the U.S. State Department�s Office of Weapons Removal & Abatement through a subcontract with DynCorp Intl. Under its task order, Clear Path works with several Afghan partners to provide services to landmine accident survivors like Zab.

Once Zab�s amputation has healed and his residual limb is ready, he will be transferred to the Kabul Orthopedic Organization next door where the WRA program has funded prostheses, physical therapy and other recovery services to more than 6,000 landmine accident survivors and other Afghans with disabilities since it started in 2007.

KOO treats 500 civilian patients per month. Four out of every five are landmine accident survivors. Most of them make their way to Kabul from the provinces at great personal expense but the treatment is free and KOO hopes to bring its services closer to the survivors by setting up facilities in other parts of the country.

That would be a blessing to Fazal Mohammed. The 20-year-old was injured by a suicide bomb attack that set off a landmine while he was waiting with other young men for construction jobs in Jhore Province six months ago. His spine was fractured and he is no longer expected to walk. KOO gave him full-leg orthoses. When I met him and his brother there, he was relearning to stand using the parallel bars. It took the pair 36 hours to get from their adobe village to Kabul by car. They had to rent a special bus because Fazal had to lie flat during the trip. The cost exceeded $350, a fortune in Afghanistan. He�s going home with crutches, a wheelchair and a slew of physical therapy exercises. He hopes to become a shopkeeper at some point but it may be as a single man. His fianc�is not so sure about the wedding anymore. Yet in the midst of telling me his tragic story, he managed to grant me a smile. He hadn�t lost all hope.

In the coming days I hope to describe the work of Clear Path�s other partners.