A glimpse of the Cambodia Campaign to Ban Landmines, featuring a testimony by Song Kosal, a visit to a MAG demining site, and clips from the Push for Progress launch event in Siem Reap.
Landmine survivor assistance is one of the five principles of mine action. All states parties to the International Mine Ban Treaty are called upon to provide support to the victims of landmines. Landmine survivors are defined not only as the individua who stepped on the landmine, but it also consists of his/her family and the wider community in which they live. All countries are called upon to provide financial support, funnelled through NGOs to help build the capacity and empower the victims of landmines. Ban Landmines Campaign Nepal and Women Development Society is a joint organzation. It advocates on behalf of the victims of landmines and for women’s rights. As such they are capable of mainstreaming both mine action and women’s rights into all of their programming. During the decade-long conflict, NCBL/WODES began providing educational scholarships to the victims of landmines, conflict-affected and marginalized girls. The Girl Child Education Scholarship Program is now sending 220 girls to school, transforming the lives of recipients and challenging the existing social norm that prioritizes boys’ education over girls. Please enjoy this look into mine action and women’s rights uniting within the Girl Child Education Program, creating a peaceful and socially just Nepal.
A quick look inside the Central Asian Regional Workshop on Victim Assistance that was held on 24th, 25th, 26th of May 2011. Participants in this workshop come from across Central Asia. Including from Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Pakistan, the Kyrgyz Republic and Tajikistan.
The following video commences and ends with a plenary debate in the Colombian Senate on the ‘Law of Victims and Land Restitution’. We interview Senator Mauricio Ospina of the ‘Democratic Pole’ party asking for his general viewpoints on victim assistance in the country. We also talk with Julian Alvarez of the CCCM who explains the work of the campaign regarding current reforms in Colombian public policy. The Senate approved the Law of Victims and Land Restitution on the 24th of May 2011, including 2 modifications suggested by the CCCM. These can be found in articles 170 and 57 of the new law.
Since the end of the Vietnam War in 1975 Explosive Remnants of War/Cluster Munitions (ERW/CM) has resulted in over 100,000 causalities nationwide. Due to its close proximity with the demilitarized zone separating North and South Vietnam, Quang Tri Province was one of the most heavily bombed areas during the war. Such intense bombing has left the province littered with ERW/CM, as approximately 80% of the land remains contaminated.
To help remove the risk of ERW/CM poses to the local population Project RENEW expanded their operations between 2007 and 2009 to include Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD). With financial and technical support from Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA) Project RENEW is now staffed with four fully trained and equipped multi-skilled teams that undertake a range of tasks in response to EOD tasks for public safety needs and site clearance for community development complimentary to provincial socio-economic development. The EOD teams, currently working in Trieu Phong and Cam Lo districts, have cleared approximately 240,000 square meters and disposed of over 7,000 items of UXO since 2007.
To meet the needs of the local population Project RENEW has set up an EOD emergency toll-free hotline number which is used by community members to report UXO sightings. On Monday May 9th I was invited to document the EOD team as they responded to a UXO sighting reported through the hotline number in Nai Cuu village, Trieu Phong disctrict. This video outlines the events that took place that morning.
Meet Brenda Nyambe. She is a Zambian woman living with a disability. Brenda is a mere 6 months older than I am and she has a husband and 3 children. (I question my ability to raise 3 kids at this time but she obviously manages.) Brenda and her family live on her mother in-law’s plot in a compound. They do not have running water or electricity. Regardless of her challenges, Brenda stays current in foreign affairs and wants to give her everything to expose injustices and fight for the rights of the disadvantaged. Her ambition is to become an influential journalist and human rights advocate. She is very religious and proper in manner. In another life, I am not sure we would be as close as we are but what I love about her is that she has BIG DREAMS, despite what her situation and what people say.
This video is an interview with Brenda Nyambe. Think of it as a screen test.
For casting calls and auditions please contact Mrs. Nyambe’s agent (myself) at +260979078842
For the time being, I am working a bumpy 30 minute drive deep into the heart of Jack Shanty Compound, Lusaka, Zambia. I am working with a passionate group of 10 staff/volunteers who make up ZAFLAS (Zambia Foundation for Landmine Survivors). ZAFLAS works from a one room office – no photocopier, ink cartridges and hardly any budget to speak of but they have identified ERW (unexploded remnants of war), landmines and landmine victims in the some of the most remote areas in the Southern Province. ZAFLAS is fighting to help survivors secure the services they need to help them reclaim their lives and fully participate in their communities.
ZAFLAS was founded during the 2008 during the Raising the Voice Cluster Munitions Treaty Training in Livingstone by Mr. Yona Phiri, a landmine survivor himself, and 28 other people with disabilities and advocates. Mr. Phiri walked the same route along the railroad tracks to attend school every day. One day he took a short cut and suddenly he was thrown into the air with a deafening explosion. He laid there unconscious and was carried out by paramilitary and school teachers. When he arrived at the University Teaching Hospital in Lusaka he was told that his right leg had been blown off and he fell into a three week coma. As a survivor of an ERW in one of the most contaminated continents in the world he wants to see the government take ownership of their survivor population because the majority of victims do not receive assistance. They are isolated and stigmatized.
Zambia has signed the treaty to ban landmine and some reports suggest that Zambia is now landmine free, which gives the perception that the work is over. However, the real work in supporting the victims of landmines/ERW is just beginning. ZAFLAS members traveled to the some of the most remote villages (of approximately fifty families in each village) in the Southern Province and have identified 57 landmine/ERW survivors and 44 people with other disabilities who require assistance to support their families and become contributing members of their communities. ZAFLAS’ goal is to first raise the funds to be able to bring the victims to Lusaka so that they can get fitted with prosthesis. ZAFLAS aims to also host an event for local disability organizations and stakeholders to be able to map the services for people with disabilities and inform decision makers of the degree of the landmine/ERW problem in Zambia.
Since the launch of Project RENEW in 2001 the MRE Program has been working to minimize the number of casualties caused by explosive remnants of war. MRE initiatives have been aimed at encouraging the local population to adopt safe behaviours in their interactions with ERW. Due to the high proportion of child casualties MRE initiatives largely focus on children and youth under the age of 16.
To help disseminate MRE messages to local youth, Project RENEW has partnered with the provincial Youth Union (YU) system. YU District Directors work closely with Project RENEW’s MRE Officer to develop dynamic ways of presenting MRE messages to the community, incorporating MRE information into local art performances, sporting events, and other community related activities .
As a recent addition to the Project RENEW team, I was invited to take part in the MRE event that took place on April 20th. This video documents an MRE talent competition organized in Cam Lo District, Quang Tri, Vietnam.
My name is Rachael Dempsey and I´m a Young Professional with Mines Action Canada. I am working with the Colombian Campaign Against Landmines (la Campaña Colombiana Contra Minas) in Medellin, Antioquia, Colombia. This video shows a Mine Risk Education activity conducted by the Colombian Campaign Against Landmines at a school in San Rafael, Antioquia, Colombia. The students are learning about different types of victim-activitated explosives and ways to minimize the risk of accidents. In Colombia an average of 15 people step on a landmine weekly. Last year it was the country with the second greatest number of new landmine victims in the world, after Afghanistan.
The following video presents a brief documentation of the ‘¡Remángate!’ April 4th events here in Bogotá. The day marks International Mine Awareness worldwide. All Colombians are asked to slide up a pant-leg on April 4th, as a mark of respect showing that they are in solidarity with landmine victims. The footage was recorded in Plaza Simon Bolivar, Bogota’s central square. This event marks an especially important day for Colombia, as last year the country was second (behind Afghanistan) in the amount of new landmine victims with 512 recorded. Each shoe seen in the footage placed in the plaza represents one of the 9133 landmine victims since the government started taking statistics in 1990. Colombia is currently working to advance public policy that will allow a full re-integration of victims, and this is largely what my work with the Campaña Colombiana Contra Minas will concern. In the video I was fortunate enough to be able to interact with a military victim, as well as some members of the ‘Archangels Foundation’. The work of Archangels deals mainly with the physical rehabilitation of landmine survivors. The event was very well received, and it is important that all sectors of Colombian society continue campaigning and continue being in solidarity with victims as they did on April 4th.
Ross: Do you believe that a day like today is important for the International Campaign Against Landmines?
Respondent: I think it’s good to have faith in something, no? The people have faith.
Ross: What can the Colombian population do in the fight against AP-Mines?
Respondent: The Colombian People? The idea is to take the heart of the enemies of Colombia. Maybe all of a sudden like we are doing, maybe all of a sudden we’ll get it….if we keep united, if we keep being what we are, that is Colombians. Rejecting the war, rejecting landmines, rejecting terrorism, rejecting all this which we have in our country.
Ross: Many thanks for your time.
Archangels Foundation
Ross: Why are you guys doing what you’re doing this morning?
Respondent: The idea is to create conscience in all the people and in all entities of society….a little bit is in planting an attitude towards the subject of AP-Mines. In Colombia there’s more than 9000 victims. The idea is to create conscience and as well to be prone to the political conscience, the social conscience, to the conscience at the government level. To all the sectors of society, we are united in sharing this, to eliminate these types of arms, they are not only conventional types of arms, as they obviously affect civil society, the military at large, all that participates within a society. This is why we basically want to plant conscience. Today is not the only day! It is out-with today as well and this mentality is what has to change!
