Martha, Executive Director of CPI on Vermont Public Radio

Vermont Public Radio interviewed our executive Director, Martha Hathaway, on her upcoming trip to Afghanistan and the work of Clear Path International in Asia.

You can hear the interview here.

The text of the article is below (source VERMONT PUBLIC RADIO)

Two Vermont women headed to Kabul for State Department
by Susan Keese

(Host) Two Bennington County women are heading to Kabul this week as consultants for the U.S. State Department.

The government has hired them to assess the needs of civilians maimed by land mines and unexploded bombs.

According to one of the women, these life-shattering accidents happen in Afghanistan and elsewhere every day.

VPR's Susan Keese has more.

(Keese) In a breezy retrofitted garage next to her house in Dorset Martha Hathaway manages an international aid group.

Hathaway is a co-founder of Clear Path International. This is the group's East Coast Headquarters. The small nonprofit has another office in Bainbridge Island Washington and staff and partner agencies in several Asian countries.

Its mission is to improve the lives of victims, families and communities affected by accidents with landmines and unexploded bombs.

Hathaway says many of the injured are already poor.

(Hathaway) "People that are already living a marginal lifestyle in terms of economics - when somebody is injured or killed their whole life is turned upside down, they really go into an emotional and financial tail spin. And we feel our job is try and stop that downward spiral before they lose everything."

(Keese) Hathaway describes a woman named Ha from Vietnam. She was a teenager, out in the fields where her mother was working, when she found a white phosphorous bomb.

Hathaway says White phosphorous is often put in mortars.

(Hathaway) "When it explodes the chemical will burn and continue to burn until the source of oxygen is cut off. So it's a hideous, hideous thing and incredibly painful for survivors and was quite commonly used during the Vietnam conflict. So we have a fairly large number of people we deal with who have white phosphorous burns."

(Keese) Ha was so badly burned, and so poorly treated that her calves and thighs were fused together by the heat. Then her parents died and she was left to care for her younger siblings, hobbling on her knees.

Hathaway says Clear Path arranged for multiple operations for Ha. After years of physical therapy she's now able to walk, and earn a living.

(Hathaway) "And we have hundreds of stories like that."

(Keese) Hathaway got involved with Landmine issues in college in the early nineties. She went to Vietnam and saw first-hand the havoc left behind explosives wreak on people who weren't even born when the war was going on.

She and some co-workers, including her husband James, formed Clear Path six years ago. Through grants, donations and events the group raises about a million dollars annually to support its work.

Another co-founder is Kristen Leadem, who grew up in Manchester.

Leadem works in Nepal now. But she'll be going to Afganistan with Hathaway, to assess how to help land mine accident victims in an ongoing war.

Hathaway says decades of fighting have left Afghanistan full of unexploded bombs. Not all are from Russia and the U.S.

(Hathaway) "Landmines, specifically are extremely cheap to produce. They're very easy to come by. And then you have the small light arms/light weapons trade, which is a real significant issue globally. They're easy to transport, easy to hide. So they're becoming a significant threat globally because it's fairly easy for a group to arm themselves."

(Keese) Hathaway says the project in Afghanistan is something new for the state department. She says the U.S. has invested heavily in land mine removal.

(Hathaway) "But the reality is it's going to be many many years before the risk is reduced by removal to subsequently reduce the accidents that are happening. So until that day, state department realizes that there's a moral obligation to help people that continue to be injured."

(Keese) Hathway doesn't know exactly what she'll find in Afghanistan. But she knows that wars are never really over for the people living on the land where they've taken place.

For Vermont Public Radio, I'm Susan Keese.

� Copyright 2006, VPR

Looking for Land Mines Photo Gallery

The link below leads to photo gallery highlighting different landmine (land mine) detection methods.

http://news.com.com/2300-11395_3-6092294-1.html?tag=ne.gall.pg

Kevin Sites reports from Cambodia's S-21 Prison

The last time I posted about Kevin Sites he was on the Thai-Myanmar border at the Mae Sot clinic. True to form, he has turned in another powerful piece on the S-21 prison in Phnom Penh Cambodia. The prison (a former school) was used by the Khmer Rouge to torture those they felt were enemies of the KR's twisted agenda.

From Kevin's Article:

"Visitors walking through the hallways of this former high school turned prison must confront the pain, uncertainty and fear of thousands of victims looking back at them from the black and white photographs taken by prison guards.

It was a methodical process. The victims were positioned in a specially constructed chair with a boom arm that steadied their heads before the photograph was taken.

Detailed histories were written for each prisoner, covering their lives from childhood up until their arrest. They were stripped of all their possessions and clothes, leaving them with only their underwear.

Some were chained to the floor in tiny individual cells, forced to defecate in ammunition cans. Others were held in groups in open classrooms with one or both legs shackled to larger iron bars on the floor, similar to the method used to immobilize captives on slave ships sailing to the Americas from Africa."

Read the rest here: http://hotzone.yahoo.com/b/hotzone/blogs7459

Invasion, genocide � and now the tourist hordes

Cambodia is one of my favorite countries (so are you Vietnam!)... the people are beautiful and kind... their music art and dance are breathtaking.... I love it there.

As Cambodia recovers from the madness of the Khmer Rouge and a legacy of atrocity that rattles the mind and sickens the heart, her troubles now come in the form of the very thing that could save her...tourists. The article below articulates my concerns about this "oasis" being swallowed up....

Please save Cambodia! But where to start??

Invasion, genocide � and now the tourist hordes
From the Sunday Herald of Scotland
by Nick Meo in Angkor Wat

THE enigmatic carved faces that have stared out from the temples of Angkor Wat for the past 1000 years have seen much: the rise and fall of Cambodia�s god-kings, invasions by armies from Vietnam and Thailand, and vandalism by Khmer Rouge guerrillas who used the faces for target practice .
Now these images of old rulers gaze out at a new destructive threat: hordes of invading tourists. More than one million people visited the temple complex at Angkor Wat last year, turning neighbouring Siem Reap from a sleepy provincial backwater into a boomtown bursting with hotel construction sites, trendy restaurants, art galleries and travel agencies.

Luxury spas and resorts are sprouting up all over the country and eco-tourism is taking off in a wilderness in which exotic hill tribes haven�t seen a foreigner since the French colonialists departed. The millions of dollars the visitors spend are badly needed in one of Asia�s poorest nations, now relatively safe for tourists but still scarred by years of war and the communist reign of terror in which a third of the population were killed.

The new invaders may be well-heeled and are usually well-intentioned, but with their arrival come problems. Their presence puts more pressure on ancient sites and creates a market for looted antiquities. Some tourists are themselves a menace, out to exploit one of Asia�s nastiest under-age sex scenes.

Read the rest here.

Love Story of a Blind Couple_The Last Chapters

HOW DID WE KNOW ABOUT THEM

Things started back in April 2006, when we deployed one of the first procedures of a project circle: Home assessments. These, generally speaking, are visits to each and every Landmine/UXO affected households to obtain information about the accidents, assess their current living conditions and so on, and if the family's circumstance met our criteria, an appropriate assistance would be negotiated.

In an earlier meeting with our local partner, the Cam Lo Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs (SoLISA) we agreed that for 2006�s implementation, we would shoot for the first 4 out of a total 9 communes in the district. These are all heavily impacted communes for their geographic locations. If Quang Tri province was known as the fiercest battle field in Vietnam then Cam Lo was just the hottest place: Charlie 3, Leather neck square, Camp Carol, Mai Loc� The communes we started for 2006 implementation have all those names.


Clear Path's Executive Director, Martha Hathaway Granted the assistance

It was four of us splitted into three teams; each team has a local commune official as a guide. The mean of transportation were motor bikes (the only thing that could get us through narrow village paths and save us a lot of time from walking). Each team was assigned a list of more than one hundred names; meaning that each team had to visit more than 100 homes and brought back sufficient information about those families�

Anyway, it was an extremely hot day and I carried a commune official on the back of my dirt bike. We were both so tired and thus, very few words were exchanged between us as we were riding. He just spoke to my ear "left" or "right" whenever we came to a cross road and I just follow those direction guidance to get us to a potential beneficiary's home.

I didn�t meet Huyen at her parents�. It was Huyen�s father who slowly told me the happenings of the accident. At first I took it for granted that Huyen was somewhere around the house, may be didn�t want to speak to stranger. Thus, I asked the father whether I could take a photo of the survivor. Then it was revealed that Huyen was living at the district�s association. The commune guide then joined our conversation: �What is the plan for her wedding?� He turned to me explaining that the girl was going to marry a blind man who is also a UXO accident survivor... We ended up spending more time than usual at this house.

A week after the home assessments were accomplished, we drove up to the Cam Lo Blind Association for a surprise visit. There were 14 members at the association and half of them became blind because of UXO related accidents. This information was provided by Mr. Thuoc, the association�s president. We had a chance to talk to them all, included the couple: Huyen and Thien.

THE COUPLE�S FUTURE PLANS:
* Live together with Thien�s parents: share the tiny living space with the parents and two younger brothers.
* Continue making brooms, and incense sticks for a living: the job is seasonal, thus, provide unstable income.

CLEAR PATH�S ASSISTANCE:
A grant of VND 10,000,000 (approx. $ 620.00) for the construction of a compassion home: First half of the amount was directly granted to the couple on their wedding day to initiate the work. The family�s contribution is the land and other costs. This is the most appropriate assistance among many other needs for the couple that CPI can provide. A follow up assistance that we would love to do is a cow for the couple to raise to help generate and stabilize their incomes.


Clear Path Staff Attended the Wedding Party

Love Story of a Blind Couple_Chapter 4

HOW THEY MET
Again, this chapter is written by Nhi. Thanks for a beautiful piece of work, Nhi.

It was one August morning 5 years ago, Thien kept twiddling the broom that he�d just finished since that was the first product of his. He felt it through his hands and he cried. He wished he could see his product that it was difficult for him to learn and to make. However, he became fresh a moment later. He comforted himself that �I can �see� everything with my hands�. He was proud of that. That morning was longer than other mornings, he felt. While he was concentrating on his broom making work; he felt a gentle hit against his hand and the word �sorry� was said out. He recognized the girl�s voice but he did not know about her. Neither did she and the girl Huyen was in active to make friend with Thien.

Huyen was the member of Provincial Blind Association. She was invited to the district Blind Association to help members here learning Braille and Thien was one out of 14 members. Day by day, they had more chance to talk and work together and they gradually recognized each other by their voice. Thien became quieter than before when Huyen completed her task and Huyen was a little bit different. They both felt vaguely sad.


Thien & Huyen at Cam Lo's Blind Association

Huyen came back the Provincial Blind Association where she was living and working. Some months later, she was transferred down the district Blind Association of Cam Lo district for long-term working since her homeland was there.

Since then Thien and Huyen became the same Association members. They helped daily works and practiced Braille together and they fall in love. Everybody at the association supported their love, so did their friends but Huyen�s mother. She could not believe that one blind couple could have a family life for what she�d experienced in life and she knew clearly how difficult the family life was: working for money, having children and taking care children or even simple things such as organizing things in house, preparing meals�. All general worries about her daughter�s future living.

It took the couple almost three years to prove their love and gradually persuade Huyen�s mother.

There will be one last chapter to come. We'll tell you briefly how we knew about them and what they are planning for the future. See you.

Love Story of a Blind Couple_Chapter 3

THE GROOM�S STORY

This chapter is written by Le Thi Yen Nhi, CPI project officer. Thank you Nhi for sharing the chapters with me.


Thien at the broom workshop

Pham Van Thien was born in 1972 in a big and poor family of eight members. He is the second eldest out of six siblings. Although his parents were hard-working farmers, they still could not overcome their living condition. Food and schooling for the children has been a burden on their shoulders for long.

It was noontime of a day in 1977; Thien and a friend of his named Thu were playing together out side his home when he happened to see something shiny semi-buried on the ground. With the child�s curiosity, Thien picked it up and decided to find out what was inside. Just as he was in the middle of the process, the blasting cap exploded right on his hand.

The loud explosion terrified Thien's father, who was taking a nap inside the house. He rushed out automatically then saw his son, Thien, was writhing in pains. Thien's father and his neighbors ran out to look for a mean of transportation in deep panic. It took 8 hours before Thien got to an appropriate hospital.

It's difficult to describe the family's circumstance at that time since Thien's father was the only breadwinner and he had to cease all his daily work to look after his small son at the hospital. At home, Thien�s mother was so busy taking care of the other three siblings and the youngest was just nearly one year old. All the borrowed money and their savings ran out after the first ten days treatment. Thus, the father went back to the field to work. Thien�s mother took turn to look after him at the hospital. She took along the one-year-old daughter to the hospital because the child was just too small to be looked after by the older siblings. At home the two other siblings aged 8 and 3 were completely on their own� After 20 days, the family ran out of all sellable things and the father had to take down the metal roof as well as their last bucket of cassavas, which was their final portion of food for money.

One month passed, Thien came back home with 50% of eyesight and an amputated hand. Everyone in the family was very happy though they had nothing in their house even food. The parents didn�t have time to break, they worked intensively to feed their children and to pay back the debts.

Two months later, Thien�s eyes started getting painful. His parents took him to a higher-level hospital in Hue city, which was about 150 km from their home. Thien stayed here 25 days for a series of tests and X-ray. Finally, the doctors here suggested transferring him to higher-level hospital, Bach Mai hospital, in Ha Noi, which is about 800 km far from their home. However, the family�s efforts ended here, they did not have energy and resources to go any further. Despair was written on the parents� faces when they quietly took their small son back home. One week later Thien became totally blind.

In 2000, Thien became a member of Cam Lo district Blind Association. He was then taught Braille, and how to make broom, toothpick and incense sticks. Thien is a handsome and intelligent man, thus he easily mastered everything. Thien now earns a living by making brooms.

Friends, thank you for your patience. The coming chapter will be: HOW THEY MET? Until then.