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.

CPI Poised For Growth With New Team

After eight years of rapid development, Clear Path International has attracted a new team of professionals to manage its growing portfolio of country programs assisting landmine accident survivors in Asia.

The new team consists of Nancy Norton, volunteer board president and legal counsel; Imbert Matthee, executive director (co-founder); Peter Albertsson, finance manager and Afghanistan co-program manager; Melody Mociulski, Southeast Asia program director; and Gail Suitor Follet, office manager. Co-founder Kristen Leadem remains special overseas programs manager/Afghanistan co-program manager. Teresa Birns, a Dorset-based accountant, has been recruited as CPI's part-time bookkeeper.

Over the years, the organization's work has expanded from a single project in central Vietnam to a far-reaching operation of landmine accident survivor programs in five countries: Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar and Afghanistan. CPI now assists thousands of survivors and their family members each year with an annual budget of more than $2 million.

"The larger management team we have in place will allow us to take advantage of new opportunities to grow our accident survivor assistance programs and help more people who need our support," volunteer president Norton says. "We have a chance to take Clear Path's work to the next level."

To keep its overhead small and retain CPI's spirit of humanitarian service, most of the positions on the team are still part-time, though the actual work load is often fulltime, says Matthee. "It's important to minimize our overhead costs so the bulk of donors' charitable contributions can help landmine accident survivors with the services they need."




Norton, who has served as the board's legal counsel for the past three years, is a veteran corporate and international attorney. Albertsson has been a corporate finance manager and entrepreneur. Mociuslki is a former government grants, program and purchasing manager for the City of Seattle. Suitor-Follet has held several administrative and clerical positions. Matthee, a former journalist and public relations specialist, co-founded CPI and has helped expand its work in Southeast Asia. Albertsson, Suitor-Follet and Birns are based at the East Coast office in Vermont, while Norton, Matthee and Mociulski work from the West Coast office on Bainbridge Island.

After the team prepared for CPI's annual benefit on Bainbridge Island in November, the group traveled to New York and Washington, DC, to meet with existing and prospective new donors. The new management team also took the opportunity to plan for 2009, when CPI hopes to further strengthen its programs in its existing project countries and expand its grassroots, private-sector institutional, corporate and government-sector support.

We're Growing Fast!

The CPI family and mission has been growing a lot over the last year. Check out our newly updated About Us page for an update at www.cpi.org/info.php

Queen Elizabeth Awards Head of Clear Path's Mine Action Partner

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II has awarded the Order of the British Empire to Lou McGrath, the executive director of Mines Advisory Group (MAG). MAG and CPI have been partners in Southeast Asia for the past four years.

McGrath, whose mine action organization is based in Manchester, has been its leader since 1997 and has been involved in landmine and unexploded ordnance clearance since 1989. He played a key role in the development of new mine clearance techniques, which MAG has implemented in more than 35 countries since its founding in 1989.

"I am really proud of this honor," McGrath said. "I want to accept this award on behalf of everyone in MAG. Our staff carry out difficult and dangerous work, and their efforts have given more opportunities for people to live without the threats and restrictions posed by landmines."

MAG and CPI have a cooperative agreement. In Vietnam, for instance, they exchange data on the occurrence of accidents and the needs of landmine accident survivors so MAG can clearance life-threatening ordnance after accidental explosions and CPI can help accident survivors who approach MAG field workers about assistance services. In Cambodia, MAG cleared the land on which CPI built a rice mill for landmine survivors and an adjacent tract where they will be taught better farming techniques.

Clear Path Featured in Journal of Mine Action

The latest edition of the academic periodical the Journal of Mine Action published by James Madison University features a cover photo and an in-depth article about the work of Clear Path International in central Vietnam.

Co-authored by Ari Perlstein, a medical student at the Oregon Health & Science University, and CPI co-founder Imbert Matthee, the article highlights the persistent problem of UXO (unexploded ordnance) accidents in a region which ranks among the most mine-affected in the world. It also outlines the work Clear Path has undertaken since 2000 to assist landmine accident survivors, their families and their communities in the provinces north and south of the former Demilitarized Zone.

With the help of its donors and supporters in the United States, Clear Path has been able to serve nearly 5,000 landmine accident survivors in 14 of Vietnam's central coast provinces -- an effort that won the organization a Certificate of Merit from the People's Committee of Quang Tri, one of the region's most heavily affected provinces.

The Vietnamese Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs reports that nearly 40,000 people were killed and more than 66,000 injured between the end of the war in Indochina in 1975 and 2006 with many of these accidents occurring along the central coast. The article analyzes accident data for the region from the year 2007 and breaks it down by type, location, age, gender, ethnicity and injury to give a cross-section of today's impact on daily life from these Explosive Remnants of War.

The Journal of Mine Action is a highly regarded publication of the university's Mine Action Information Center in Harrisonburg, Va., a leader in the academic discipline that concerns itself with the professional mitigation of landmines and unexploded ordnance in current and former war zones.

Co-author Ari Perlstein spent six months at the Da Nang Orthopedic & Rehabilitation Center, one of the Clear Path's largest medical partners treating landmine accident survivors in Vietnam.

Read the story here: http://www.maic.jmu.edu/

A Song for Cambodia: Arn Chorn-Pond's Story

I have told my long-time-friend Arn's story, at least parts of it, on this site before. Now there is a children's book about his life called "A Song for Cambodia". Below is the review from the blog "The Well-Read Child".

Every now and then, I come across a story of survival that is truly amazing and defeats all odds. Arn Chorn-Pond's story as told in A Song for Cambodia written by Michelle Lord and illustrated by Shino Arihara is one of them.


Arn had a happy childhood full of music, love, and laughter in his small Cambodian village until Khmer Rouge soldiers invaded his village in 1975 and tore his family apart. A brief history of Khmer Rouge's invasion on Cambodia in the 1970's is included in the foreward. Led by Pol Pot, the intent was to turn Cambodia into a communist country, but the Khmer Rouge used violence and terror in their attempt and ultimately killed 1.7 million men, women, and children during their 4 year reign.

Arn Chorn-Pond was one of the lucky children who survived, but it was not an easy feat. When he was separated from his family, we was sent to a children's work camp. With no shoes and little to eat, Arn was forced to work in the rice paddies. When the soldiers asked for volunteers to join a musical group, Arn volunteered and learned to play the khim, a wooden string instrument. He luckily had a talent for this instrument which ended up saving his life in the camp. Without giving too much away, Arn managed to escape the camp, and through even more adversity, ended up surviving and was adopted by a missionary who brought him to the United States.

The afterword tells how Arn used his good fortune to give back to Cambodia and help rebuild and bring music back to a war-torn country.

Without going into graphic details, Michelle Lord tells the true story of the horrors Arn and many other Cambodians faced. Ms. Lord masterfully tells the story in a way that is appropriate for and not condescending to children, yet she doesn't sugar coat the facts. We see Arn and his mother tearfully clinging to each other as the soldiers invade their village; we see children being led into a forest to be killed; we see Arn struggle with adapting to a new culture and experience nightmares and sadness for the loss of his family. The reader is left with no doubt that something terrible has happened.

Shino Arihara's gouache illustrations are mostly done in muted earth tones, depicting the dark and sad tone of the story. We see brighter colors at the beginning of the story before the invasion and again at the end when Arn plays music in his new home.

At the back of the book is a photograph of Arn Chorn-Pond, smiling and standing in front of a house he's building in Cambodia, and a comprehensive list of sources demonstrates the thorough research Michelle Lord conducted to write Arn's story.

A Song for Cambodia is a touching and inspirational story full of discussion opportunities, making it an excellent addition to a child's home library or a social studies classroom.

You can purchase the book here.

The photo at the back of the book is actually one I took while visiting Arn at his home in Cambodia.