"Nguyen Luong Quy was planting a tree on a coffee plantation on the outskirts of Buon Ma Thout, the largest city in Vietnam's Central Highlands in 2000, when his shovel hit a hard metal object.

"There was a big explosion and I must have been knocked unconscious," the 37-year-old farmer told IRIN. "I woke up in hospital and at first I thought I was dead because everything was white."

Although his left arm was blown off, Quy survived the blast, caused by a bomblet - one of millions of cluster bombs dropped by American forces between 1964 and 1973.

But despite his first-hand experience of the dangers of unexploded ordnance (UXO), like many poor Vietnamese, Quy continues to scavenge for the metal contained in cluster bomblets and other unexploded munitions....

...."Scrap metal provides a decent and immediate income without needing any qualifications or investment," notes Tran Hong Chi from Clear Path International (CPI), an UXO victim assistance charity in Dong Ha, the provincial capital of Quang Tri.

"It's not just farmers or the jobless who need the money. In July, a teacher was killed while digging up a bomb during his summer vacation. He had a good job and should have known about the risks."

At the same time, the global economic slowdown is straining the budgets of the NGOs involved in mine clearance."

Read the rest of this article at:
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=87822

is until he made a bad call and lost his right hand.

In January 2003, at age 23, Haroon joined the Organization for Mine Clearance and Afghan Rehabilitation (OMAR), where he quickly worked his way up to the rank of team leader.

Nearly two and a half years later, Haroon Hamdard was working in a minefield where he found a cluster bomb. He grabbed it and threw it away from his work area. It exploded in his hand.

After he received emergency medical care and, later, a prosthetic arm, Haroon remained unemployed for six difficult years. He was forced to borrow money from relatives and others to survive. But the self-motivated young man took the opportunity to finish his high school education and in early 2008 received a unique opportunity to go back to work.

With technical leadership provided by Elegant Designs and Solutions (EDaS), Clear Path had just formed the Afghan Mine Action Technology Center, designed to create employment for disabled deminers and fabricate products for the demining industry, and asked the Afghan demining organizations to suggest possible employees. Haroon became AMATC's first employee.

Today, the native of Khewa District, Nangarhar Province, in eastern Afghanistan, makes flail hammers (used on front-mounted tractor drums to set off mines) and other products the center sells to demining outfits. The proceeds are used to support rehabilitation programs for other landmine accident survivors.

Haroon's own income allows him to travel home each weekend and take care of his family, including one son. He continues to repay the loans he took during his years of unemployment.

"Now that I am earning a salary, I do not have to borrow money from others," he said. "I can support myself and my family and am not under any pressure, like I was before."

Great work, Joan! We look forward to the full movie!
If the movies is not showing up in your browser, below, you can go to http://vimeo.com/7350650 to check it out!

Hearts & Mines trailer from Hearts & Mines on Vimeo.

JALALABAD, Afghanistan - What they say about sheep in New Zealand may not quite be true for goats in Afghanistan. They don't outnumber people here.
But the importance of the animal to individual families' survival in this arid mountainous country can not be underestimated and the gift of a goat can provide for many in a village.

In Clear Path's first survivor assistance project outside Kabul, 18 beneficiaries in the eastern city of Jalalabad received goats and animal husbandry training from CPI's local Afghan partner, Afghan Disabled & Vulnerable Society (ADVS).
Thirteen of the recipients were landmine accident survivors, two were female heads of disadvantaged households and three were Afghans with other disabilities. The $6,000 project was funded by the U.S. State Department's Office of Weapons Removal & Abatement through a contract with DynCorp to whom Clear Path was a subcontractor until early August. Now, CPI receives direct funding from State for its work in Afghanistan.

The beneficiaries, which included the head of ADVS, Said Husin Sadaqat, himself disabled, all reside in villages of the Qarghaye District, Laghman Province. ADVS employed a local veterinarian to provide technical support to the group in the form of milk production methods. Every six months, a female kid will be received from the existing owners and given to new beneficiaries.
More than 60 families (at least 125 people) will benefit from access to tea, yoghurt and cheese from the animals' milk. The beneficiaries will be able to sell these products in their local markets, strengthening their income from a meaningful economic pursuit.

ADVS was established in 1994 to assist Afghans in need. The director, bound to a wheelchair, has provided vocational skills training and income-generating projects for more than a decade.

KABUL, Afghanistan - After two years as a subcontractor here, Clear Path International is now a full-fledged independent grant recipient of the U.S. Department of State with a growing vision for aid to landmine accident survivors and people with disabilities in Afghanistan.

Its newly independent status means Clear Path is also ready to begin accepting private-sector grants and contributions for its work in one of the world's most mine-contaminated countries. The program, which has already assisted more than 9,000 Afghans with disabilities, is now CPI's largest victim assistance effort, followed by Vietnam, Cambodia and the Thai-Burma border.

Clear Path's work in Afghanistan, which ranges from providing the traditional prosthetics, physical therapy and income-generating support services, is on the cutting edge of socio-economic support of landmine accident survivors.

A good example of its innovative approach is the creation of the Afghan Mine Action Technology Center, which employs disabled deminers and landmine accident survivors to fabricate tools and equipment for sale to demining professionals with revenues from the center going into medical and social services for survivors. The center was the brainchild of Elegant Design & Solutions (EDaS), a former CPI contractor.

Since it started in Afghanistan in 2007, CPI has been a subcontractor of DynCorp International., which holds a prime contract with the State Department's Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement for a range of humanitarian mine action services.

Under its subcontract with DynCorp, CPI received nearly $3 million dollars to provide assistance to landmine accident survivors. Now the door is open for CPI to receive millions more to provide victim assistance services in Kabul, Jalalabad, Mazar-E-Sharif and parts of eastern Afghanistan near the border with Pakistan.

As part of its new status, CPI set up its own office in Kabul and registered as a non-governmental organization with the government of Afghanistan. The program is managed jointly by CPI Finance Manager Peter Albertsson and CPI Co-founder Kristen Leadem. The Kabul office has a staff of three Afghan nationals and agreements with half a dozen Afghan implementing partners.

The following is from a letter to the Manchester Journal.

The moment happened less than two weeks ago. I was Skyping our webmaster, James Hathaway Jr., co-founder of Clear Path International and a very close friend now for more than a decade, when his father, Jay, walked in the room to say hello.

I could see him on the webcam as he briefly sat down in James' seat and asked me how things were going at our organization and with my family. We chatted for a while and, as usual, I didn't get much of a chance to ask about him.

That was Jay. Others always came first. And if it hadn't been for Jay's unconditional selflessness, our organization, which now helps thousands of landmine accident survivors around the world may never have fledged and soared that way it has with programs for mine victims in five countries: Afghanistan, Burma, Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam.

Jay "James" Hathaway, 61, who suddenly passed away from a massive heart attack this weekend, was an exceptional man, always supportive, always full of encouragement. After we founded Clear Path on Bainbridge Island and James, Jay's son, and his former wife Martha, moved to Dorset to set up an office for us in Vermont, Jay and, his wife Terri, were of monumental support to our two co-founders.

Things were not easy then. It was shortly after 9/11. The recession hit and philanthropic giving was down for international causes like ours. But never mind that. Jay and Terry took James and Martha under their wings and helped nurture our humanitarian dreams with sage advice, introductions, outreach and special events planning such as the two Judy Collins benefit concerts at the Dorset Playhouse that many in your community will recall. Terri even made several trips to Vietnam to help organize our office there. And on the countless trips James and Martha took overseas to help us grow, Jay and Terri were there to look after the couple's boys, Ryder and Colvin.

From Bainbridge Island, where many Clear Path colleagues and supporters live, we mourn Jay's loss with all of you near the Hathaways' home. Dorset, Manchester, Vermont and the world have lost a great living soul. We will miss him more than words can say. On Wednesday, we will be there with you in spirit, Jay's indefatigable spirit.

Imbert Matthee
Executive Director
Clear Path International

Disabled by a landmine accident when he was 23 and now going on 50, the father of three whose wife died of a sudden illness was deep in debt to loan sharks. Every year, he had to borrow to invest in his crop and, because he couldn't store his rice, he had to sell it at harvest time when prices are rock bottom.

The co-op, aimed at providing a socio-economic support structure for landmine-disabled farmers and disadvantaged members of their communities, has turned that around for the below-the-knee amputee from Paum Takeav Village not far from the Thai border.

Thanks to low-interest spring-time micro loans, agricultural training, better crop seed and a chance to store his rice at the partners' rice mill, Ream is now virtually debt-free except for what he owes the project. He and his three children are now among the 750 direct and indirect beneficiaries of the farmers' co-op, which issued $30,000 in $200 loans to the members at an interest rate of 2 percent per month and provides many other services to the households.

Many members of the farmers' cooperative have independently organized their own rice banks. The members each contribute a portion of paddy rice to the bank at the harvest time. One member is elected to chair the rice bank and is responsible for tracking contributions, withdrawals and loan repayments. As the year progresses, if a member needs rice due to an emergency or unforeseen situation, they may borrow from the bank. The loan recipient will then repay the loan in rice with interest, thereby increasing the total amount in reserve.

While CPI does not officially organize or manage these rice banking systems, this sort of community self-reliance is encouraged and discussed in community workshops. Additionally, CPI offers free storage in the warehouse for members who wish to join such a program. Currently, there are 38 members who have established a rice bank, and there is 3,050 kilograms of rice in the bank.

But the tears Tran Phuong Nhu's mother shed outside her daughter's classroom were not from a typical sense of pride and separation. As she watched the eight-year-old girl go inside wearing her best uniform, she could not help think of her husband who is still in critical condition at the Quang Tri General Hospital from a landmine accident that
happened in late July.

The third grader was among 52 children from landmine-affected families in Dong Ha town who received special scholarships from CPI at the school on Aug. 21 as the organization conducted the last round of assistance ceremonies at the start of the new school year. Sadly, Tran Phuong Nhu was a last-minute addition.

In all, 482 students in nine districts from four provinces north and south of the former Demilitarized Zone at the 17th parallel received CPI scholarships this year. The scholarship grants are for elementary to high school students who were injured by accidents with unexploded ordnance (UXO) or, as in Tran Phuong Nhu's case, whose family members sustained injuries from such accidents. UXO accidents still happen almost every week in central Vietnam.

Each scholarship grant worth about $35 covers most of the minimum tuition even the poorest families have to pay the public schools. CPI also awards special uniform and materials packages to mine-affected students with the best grades. One hundred and twenty nine, or more than a quarter, of the 482 students this year received such gifts in recognition to their tireless efforts to overcome their challenges at home and at school.

Nguyen Hong Hoa from Hiep Duc district, Quang Nam province, was one of the "honor" students. The 15-year-old boy lost two legs and an arm in 2007 when he was in 6th grade. His education was interrupted and everyone was afraid that he wouldn't recover from the psychological wound. But when Hoa went back to school a year later he did very well and gained an "excellent student" title.

CPI's educational scholarship program began in 2001 to a few newly mine-affected students in Quang Tri province. Since then, the activity has become an annual event. To date, 3,130 scholarships have helped families reduce their burden and nourish their hope of a better future thanks to their children's ability to keep returning to school.

By Melody Mociulski

Mae Sot, Thailand - Since we began supporting the Care Villa in 2002, we at Clear Path have dreamed of providing prosthetic hands for the amputees we serve there. Many of them have lost one or both arms in a landmine explosion and are wholly dependent on others for their care. Almost every time we visit our Karen friends at the giant sprawling Mae La refugee camp on the Thai-Burma border, we are asked for a device that will allow the men to use their upper limbs.

Now, two young American volunteers, Missy Malkush and Rachel Clagett, have made the dream come true. They arrived at the Care Villa this month with the gift of hands.

Care Villa, located about an hour from the Thai border town of Mae Sot, is a 24-hour residential care facility for 18 physically-handicapped, dependent Burmese landmine survivors who have lost their eyesight, hands, legs, hearing, or some combination. Most all suffer post-traumatic stress syndrome and depression. They are marginalized by their community and are considered a burden to their families who already live in impoverished conditions.

Clear Path International is the primary source of support for these 18 men, aged 15-65, providing shelter and daily caretaking. To help the men deal with the anguish of their situation, music provides an outlet for their voices to be heard. A song written by one of the men describes their spirit to heal and find fulfillment in their lives.

I lost my eyes, so I can't look at you.
I lost my arms, so I can't hold you.
I lost my legs, so I can't come with you.
My heart is broken, but I've still got my voice.
So I'll sing.

Rachel, pursuing a Doctorate in Physical Therapy, and Missy, with a Master's in Prosthetics and Orthotics, have been friends since their freshman year at Wake Forest University. They found themselves at a complacent point of their lives, and on a whim and unbeknownst to each other, each googled landmine victims and discovered Clear Path. A few months later they began their journey to Mae Sot to volunteer with Clear Path at the Care Villa and the Mae Tao Clinic to help landmine victims.

Hearing about the needs of the men at the Villa, Missy reached out to a colleague at LN-4 Hand, a non-profit in California which has designed prosthetic hands for developing countries. The hands are simple, innovative and easily fitted. With a protective sock worn underneath, the universal size prosthetic is wrapped around the limb and secured tightly over the bones of the elbow joint with a Velcro cuff. A combination of stationary and adjustable prongs provides multiple gripping patterns to fit the amputee's needs. LN-4 Hand generously donated 10 hands which Missy and Rachel personally carried with them to Mae Sot.

Training is essential for using a prosthesis. If one does not know how it can be helpful, it is just as good on the shelf. The Care Villa men have lived for more than 10 years without one or both hands. They have loving people to help them with their activities of daily living. They may not want to wear a device. However, waking up and brushing one's own teeth, or being able to bring a fork to one's own mouth provides a sense of independence. Missy and Rachel hope that "they are not only providing these men with a limb", but that they are showing the men that "they can do even more than they thought possible".

Missy and Rachel brought cucumbers and cake for the first training session. The cucumbers were fantastic because once jabbed, they did not go anywhere until they were in the mouth. Remembering that most of the men are blind, the last thing they wanted was to discourage them by continually bringing an empty spoon to their mouths. The cake was for the tongue's delight. Cucumbers and cake - a suitable midday meal for a new hand or a pair of new hands.

Tupo lost his sight in only one eye. As he could see how to use the new prosthetic, he learned quickly and easily. The first thing Tupo wanted to do was to hold a pen in his right hand and write, something he had not been able to do for far too many years. Although the Burmese script is beautiful, it is difficult to write with its many circles and curves. With his new prosthetic hand, he happily wrote all over his left hand and in a notebook - an exciting moment.

Tupo writing Burmese again

In a place where time moves slowly and dreams seem out of reach, the gift of hands from Missy and Rachel and LN-4 Hand has brought new hope and excitement to the 18 Burmese residents of the Care Villa. Missy and Rachel: a heartfelt thanks from all of us at Clear Path!

Former Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara, who has been criticized for escalating the war in Vietnam during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, died on July 6 at the age of 93.

On July 4 and 6, accidents involving ordnance from that war occurred in Quang Tri and Quang Binh provinces on both sides of the former demilitarized zone that once bore his name: the McNamara Line.

In Quang Tri province on July 4, Tran Long, age 35 was found dead by a small crater formed in the sandy land of Trieu Son commune. A short distance away, Nguyen Diem, age 39, had been also been injured in the explosion and died in transit to the hospital. These two men left behind wives and five children.

Just two days later, at 7:30 pm local time in Quang Binh Province on July 6, another war era bomb, weighing 500 pounds, was disturbed and detonated taking the lives of four men.The eldest was 30 years old, and the other three just 25. Three of the men were married with small children.

A Dangerous Job

All six men were killed while performing the same type of work - collecting scrap metal. Briefly described, scrap metal collectors use metal detectors, wandering through sandy areas once occupied by military installations or weaving through thick vegetation to reach areas which were once regular targets for massive B52 bombing raids. They look for anything made of metal - a rusty chunk of steel from a broken bomb case, a corroded brass ring from a rotating band of a projectile, or a smashed-up aluminum fin tail off a mortar round. Everything is picked up. At the end of the day, it is sorted at scrap dealer shops. Steel goes with steel, brass with brass, and cash is paid by the weight.

Scrap Metal Collected from the former Battlefields of Vietnam

Dinh Manh Hung, 26, was the only one among the six men who had a stable job as a secondary school teacher. He had been teaching chemistry for two years. However, as it was summer vacation, he wanted to earn additional income during his off time. The other five men were all farmers. They had their land to cultivate rice and other secondary crops. At home their wives raise animals. However, they still had available time after doing farm work. As the family demand for income was high, they found themselves spending more time in the woods digging up metal rather than tending their crops. In fact, their side job sometimes brought in more income than what the crops could provide.

At Tran Song Hao's home a deep search metal detector was seen. In other corners of the house there were piles of metal junk collected earlier, most of them large, thick fragments of bombs. Hao was not only a scrap metal collector; he was also a scrap metal dealer.

Time and experience taught these men skills for this job. The four men involved in the second accident knew where to search for metal junk on the Ho Chi Minh trail, the main supply line of the North Vietnamese which traversed their homeland. This network trail had been a regular target for B52 bombardments. When a heavy bomb is dropped from a high altitude, it often makes a deep penetration. When it explodes, some of the fragments make another penetration into the sides of the crater. This is especially true if the bomb uses a base fuse, causing the explosive train to travel from the tail to the nose of the bomb, pushing most of its fragments (parts of its steel case) deeper into the ground of the crater. Understanding this process, the scrap metal collectors find bomb craters, check them with deep search metal detectors, and dig up the metal fragments.

Earlier in the day, the metal detector emitted strong signals deep from the center of a crater. The men decided to wait for the sun to go down to avoid the heat. They got back to the site at 6:30 pm to start the excavation. None of them could believe that long before any of them were born, a complete bomb made its way deep inside the crater but failed to explode.
TO LIVE BY THE SWORD AND DIE BY THE SWORD

I knew Tran Long well before his fatal accident. In July 2005, CPI responded to a new accident. A young man had been injured while digging up scrap metal for his livelihood. I went to the Quang Tri general hospital to visit and interview the survivor. It was our first meeting. Long survived from that accident when the tiny piece of metal he picked up exploded. The blast took away four fingers on his left hand. We had a very open conversation, and I learned that he had just spent a fortune, several months of his savings, to purchase a deep-search metal detector.

As I said goodbye to Long after our conversation in 2005, I thought he had learned a hard lesson and that the loss of his fingers would remind him of the risks. I was positive that his wife would also persuade him to find safer work.

I was wrong. I never would have thought that four years later I would meet him again in a totally different situation. He is no longer in this world.

The fatality accident site was approximately 12 kms from their village. Both men traveled there by motorbike, taking along their work equipment. Diem took the lead with the detector, searching for signals, while Long followed him to excavate. The explosive was subsurface. When it exploded, Long received the direct hit of the blast. Duan received only one injury. A fragment entered his body in the back, exiting from his chest.

Blast area where the men lost their lives.

CONSEQUENCES
Five out of the six families have children. The oldest one is ten years old; the youngest one is still being breast-fed. All together, 8 children lost their fathers forever. I doubt if any of them are fully aware of the loss for they are all still innocent children, too small to understand.

Contrary to the innocent children are the exhausted, worried, grievous faces of the five widows and an old mother. They have all just lost a sole provider. In the long road ahead they will be struggling on their own. From now on, they must shoulder not only a mother's role but all other roles and responsibilities left by their husbands.

Since 2007 Clear Path has constructed 25 handicap access ramps at 13 different schools in Kabul, the capital city, and provided training about the rights of the disabled. It has established the Afghan Mine Action Technology Center, which employs disabled Afghans to produce equipment for de-mining efforts. The center also brings state-of-the-art prosthetic devices to those who need them

Read the rest of this article on Clear Path International in Afghanistan here.

HARDERWIJK, Netherlands - The Dutch charity "Stichting Mensenkinderen" (www.mensenkinderen.nl) has given a grant for 100,000 Euro ($140,000) to Clear Path International for its humanitarian mine action work in Vietnam and Cambodia.

About two-thirds of the grant will be used to help match $127,000 in funding for Vietnam from the U.S. Department of State's Office of Weapons Removal & Abatement, while the remainder will be used as a match for the $50,000 provided by WRA for CPI's rice mill enterprise for landmine accident survivors in Cambodia.

"Several thousand landmine victims, family members and persons with disabilities will benefit from the grants by Mensenkinderen and State," said Imbert Matthee, CPI's executive director. "It means that our much-needed work in Southeast Asia can go on in a difficult fundraising environment. We're extremely grateful for this."

Stichting Mensenkinderen (literally translated as "the Foundation for Children" or "the Foundation for Human Children") was founded in 2003 by television producer Sipke van der Land. Since it began, the organization has focused on providing food, shelter, vocational training and other services to disadvantaged, disabled and orphaned children in Albania, Moldavia and Bulgaria.

The last two years, the charity has expanded its interest to include other regions of the world. In 2007 and 2008, it gave donor-advised grants to CPI for its work along the Thai-Burma border.

In Vietnam, the Mensenkinderen funds will be used to continue Clear Path's aid to landmine accident survivors and family members in the central region (north and south of the former Demilitarized Zone) where they receive everything from emergency medical care and prostheses to home improvement and income-generating grants.

In Cambodia, the Dutch grant money will go to help expand CPI's current network of farmers' coops and to provide services to amputee farmers in the poor communities around its rice mill in Battambang province on the border with Thailand.

Like Clear Path, Stichting Mensenkinderen has a small staff and office while relying heavily on volunteers.

The largest grant of $127,000 will be used to fund efforts that assist survivors of accidents with landmines and unexploded ordnance (UXO) in central Vietnam. The second grant of $50,000 will be used for CPI's rice mill enterprise for landmine survivors in Battambang, Cambodia, where its beneficiaries receive training, microcredit and crop processing services.

The two grants are matched by financial contributions from the private sector, including the McKnight Foundation of Minneapolis, the Johnson & Widdifield Charitable Trust, the Seattle-based law firm Marler Clark and the Dutch charity Stichting Mensenkinderen.

"At a time when it's challenging to raise money from private-sector sponsors, the government's steady and ongoing support of our work helps sustain vital survivor assistance programs," says Imbert Matthee, CPI's executive director. "It also inspires private charities to keep giving despite the economic downturn."

At least 1,000 landmine accident survivors, their family members and disadvantaged members of their communities will benefit from the two grants in the remainder of 2009 and the first part of 2010, Matthee says.

In Vietnam, aid to survivors comes in the form of emergency medical care, prosthetics, physical rehabilitation, income-generating assistance, animal husbandry programs, scholarships and sports activities.

In Cambodia, CPI and its local partner, Cambodian Volunteers for Community Development, will expand the cooperative of amputee farmers, boost micro-credit lending, offer training, mill and sell their rice.

The 40-foot container shipment destined for Phnom Penh, Cambodia, included 234 items ranging from hospital beds and wheelchairs to surgical supplies and diagnostic equipment with a total value of more than $50,000.

The items were donated by Emerald Heights, a retirement community in Redmond; Group Health Cooperative in Seattle; Care Manor, a nursing facility in Gig Harbor; and Martha & Mary's, a retirement home in Poulsbo.

Clear Path has had a program to assist landmine accident survivors in Cambodia since 2002. It is currently operating a rice mill in the heavily mine province of Battambang near the border with Thailand, where it helps hundreds of landmine victims with farm training, microcredit, rice processing and sales.

The medical shipment will be received and distributed throughout Cambodia by the Volunteer Association of Medical Professional in Phnom Penh headed by Dr. Muoy Sroy. A special thanks to the staff of Emerald Heights and CPI volunteers Brent Olsen, Howard Hanners and John Anderson.

Staff from Emerald Heights help CPI load its 73rd container of medical relief goods.

CPI volunteer Brent Olsen (wearing a white T-shirt) and staff from Emerald Heights stack hospital beds into the container for Cambodia.

The images linger in your mind even hours after you've seen them. Such is the power of Alixandra Fazzina's extraordinary photography and in this case, her subjects are patients at the Kabul Orthopedic Organization. KOO gets a major portion of its funding from Clear Path International under a subcontract with DynCorp International, which in turn is supported by the U.S. State Department's Office of Weapons Removal & Abatement.

Fazzina, a noted war photographer who grew up in the United Kingdom, spent an entire day documenting the work of CPI's partner adjacent to the main military hospital in Kabul. The 33-year-old, dubbed a "hot star" by the British Independent newspaper, has spent a decade visually recording conflicts around the world. Her subjects have included the infamous Lord's Resistance Army In Uganda, the Miya-Miya rebels in the Congo, and the aftermath of wars in Sierra Leone and Bosnia.

More than 6,000 KOO patients like the ones photographed by Fazzina received care through the clinic's partnership with CPI in 2007 and 2008. Persons with disabilities, especially landmine accident survivors, come from all over Afghanistan to be treated there. Stay tuned for more of Alixandra's photos, as she recently visited Jalalabad Afghanistan where CPI sponsors Afghanistan's only cricket club, made up of persons with disabilities.

Recently married with a new born baby, twenty-six year old soldier Muhammad Naeem spends his third month as a bed-ridden quadriplegic after sustaining a head injury in a landmine blast.

After nearly four years as a volunteer Country Representative for Clear Path International on the Thai-Burma border, Dutch physical therapist Lobke Dijkstra has moved to Spain to start an organization providing recreational opportunities for persons with disabilities.

Dijkstra, who spent at least several months a year in Thailand on leave from her regular job as a PT in the Netherlands, leaves behind a legacy of services now available to landmine accident survivors up and down the long western border of Thailand.

For the 2009 - 2010 cycle, CPI is expecting to assist at least 477 survivors with everything from prosthetics care, full-time nursing care (for blind amputees) and income-generating projects for refugee amputees. The program, now under the direction of CPI's new SE Asia director, melody Mociulski, serves beneficiaries from the Karen, Karenni and Shan ethnic states in Burma in seven different locations.

In a note copied to all CPI staff and directors, Board President Nancy Norton sent a "Certificate of Appreciation" to Dijkstra and said "Our organization and the people we help have been immeasurably blessed by your extraordinary volunteer efforts during the past several years. Your compassion, dedication and perseverance have allowed us to assist hundreds of landmine accident survivors from Burma whose needs would have gone unfulfilled. By your selflessness, your devotion and your boundless energy we are all deeply humbled."

In response to the note, Dijkstra said she learned a lot from her time on the Thai-Burma border and that her work was a chance to fulfill her childhood dream of working in development overseas.

"I want to thank CPI for its trust in me and I'm grateful to all who put their energy into this much-needed work year in, year out," she said.

Read Lobke's blog posting about working on the Thai Burma Border, "My Own Two Hands", here.

Gio Linh District is among the spots in central Vietnam most heavily contaminated by unexploded ordnance (UXO). Fourteen of its 20 communes have confirmed or suspected contamination levels and it’s the site of regular accidents. In humanitarian mine action “speak,” Gio Linh is considered 98 percent contaminated.
Twenty of Gio Hai commune's 44 poorest households affected by bomb accidents were selected for the pig-breeding project by a Clear Path outreach worker through home assessment visits and interviews probing their capacity to succeed in the program. CPI works closely with the local People’s Committee.

Project beneficiaries review their commitment documents before submitting them to CPI. (Photo by Tran Hong Chi)

Last year, Gio Hai was classified by the government as a "Commune Faced with Extreme Difficulties." Fishing is the main source of income here. Only men go out in small boats to fish along its shore. In the sandy fields behind the dunes, peanuts and sweet potatoes struggle to grow against the elements: frequent floods in the monsoon season and sand moving around in the dry season. These tough conditions explain why half the people here don’t have steady jobs. According to the People's Committee, hundreds of people from Gio Hai leave every year for seasonal jobs elsewhere.
Vo Quang Kha, 42, was selected as a project participant from Gio Hai's Village 4. Kha lost his left leg almost up to his hip when he was only 9. A cluster bomb exploded when he was raking trash in his schoolyard. For long, Kha struggled with his disability and living conditions. Kha lives in a household of three generations and seven people: His parents, who are in their seventies, his wife and their three children ages 14, 13 and 10. Kha's wife is the family's sole breadwinner. For this reason and despite his old age, Kha's mute father still goes out fishing at times to share the workload with his daughter-in-law. His oldest son, who weighs just 44 pounds, looks like a primary school boy. With so many disabled, weak and dependent members, the family barely subsists. Seven people share less than US $2 for food every day, not counting rice.

Mr. Kha enjoys a ride with CPI to attend training course. (Photo by Tran Hong Chi)

Participating in this pig-raising project, beneficiary households like Mr. Kha's receive training from a district agriculture officer; a CPI grant ranging from $41 to $59 to upgrade their old pigsty or build a new one. And, each household receives $6 to vaccinate their new piglets. And the piglets? CPI gives each household a $70 loan to buy three to four piglets without interest. The households have to pay back the loan after a year. They can make two annual installments: after six months and after a year. This is called a revolving loan fund because the money paid back by the families is used for new candidates in new project areas.

Kha's family once raised a sow. When it got old they sold it, but not for enough to buy a new breeding pig. That was almost two years ago. Now with the first grant from CPI, Kha has already put a new roof on his old pigsty and plans to build a new section. He and his wife intend to buy a sow of about 20 lbs for breeding and three piglets to raise for meat in the short term.
Despite the modest size of the grant, this assistance opens new opportunities for families like Kha's. It creates work for people with disabilities and boosts their household income. Kha is a confident participant in the project, saying that his wife has experience raising pigs and CPI's support will help kick-start his household economy. For Kha, the program is also of moral support to him, as he has never received any assistance before as a bomb accident survivor.

Started as a pilot project in Vinh Linh district (Quang Tri Province) in 2004, the pig-raising model has proven to be a success. After Vinh Linh and Cam Lo, Gio Linh is the third district where CPI brings this assistance to households affected by accidents with unexploded ordnance (UXO).

The number of 2007 – 2008 beneficiaries is more than CPI served in its entire history since 2000. It stems largely from our new Afghanistan operation and from a record number of bomb survivors assisted in Vietnam during the period. CPI’s other program activities are in Cambodia, Thailand and just inside Burma.

In the period covered by the report, we have assisted 6,325 beneficiaries in Afghanistan, 1,679 in Vietnam, 929 in Cambodia and 538 on both sides of the Thai-Burma border.

The report covers the breadth of services CPI offers, ranging from prosthetic care and physical therapy to vocational skills training and support for sports activities. We've raised nearly $1.3 million in 2007 – 2008 and spent $878,950, or 87.2 percent, of its operating expenses on program services.
Download a copy of Clear Path International's 2007 – 2008 Annual Report here.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 fiancée 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.

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.

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.

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/

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.

You can read more about our program here.

Money set aside to clear landmines and remove arms from conflict zones is to be raided to pay a private defence contractor to keep Tornado jets flying in Iraq, according to a confidential memo seen by the Guardian. The Ministry of Defence plans to pay BAE Systems from the multimillion-pound Conflict Prevention Fund - which covers projects such as destroying weapons in Bosnia and landmines in Mozambique - to subsidise the £5m-£10m cost of servicing each of the six planes.

The move follows a cost-cutting plan which has backfired for the MoD because of increased military action in Iraq.

The memo acknowledges that the emergency measure is needed because the MoD has closed its own state-of-the-art facility for servicing Tornado jets as a way of saving £500m over 10 years. A scaled-back facility is still not fully equipped for the job. Memos sent to ministers reveal that the ministry has decided to make the request to BAE Systems because the alternative facility, at RAF Marham in Norfolk, has "insufficient capacity".

Read the rest of the article here.

Lobke Dijkstra, our Thailand Country representative, and I traveled to a remote refugee camp on the Thai border with the Shan state to observe New Year with many of the camp’s 2,000 residents.

The Shan lunar calendar puts the New Year in December, so we marked the occasion well before the end of our program year. But it didn’t seem too early to celebrate with some of our beneficiaries.

Last year was very successful for our Thai-Burma border initiative which has already served more than 500 landmine accident survivors since its inception in 2002. In 2007, thanks to Lobke’s tireless coordination, management and fundraising, we served 298 Karen, Karenni and Shan survivors in five different locations along the Myanmar border.

Most of our beneficiaries, 278, received new or repaired prostheses, plus we provided full-time nursing care to about 20 severely disabled survivors at a UNHCR refugee camp at Mae La. Forty-one technicians and medics received training and compensation for their aid activities from prosthetics fabrication to physical rehabilitation.

We received funding for this effort from the Dutch rehabilitation hospital Groot Klimmendaal in Arnhem, the Dutch charity Mensenkinderen, Bainbridge Community Endowment, Susila Dharma UK, Susila Dharma USA and Susila Dharma Netherlands, Grace Episcopal Church and Cedars Unitarian Church both on Bainbridge Island.

For its relatively modest budget of $53,000, the program has had great leverage in the field thanks to its volunteers, including Lobke and two prosthetics students from British Columbia, Duane Nelson and Jody Riggs, who spent their summer making 18 Monolimb prostheses for survivors at a Shan camp.

This year, we hope to expand the breadth of our services with income-generating projects, such as pig breeding, mechanics training and other skills instruction at or near two Shan border camps while we continue to support prosthetics fabrication, physical rehabilitation and full-time care for severely disabled survivors.

With our partners, the Mae Tao Clinic, the Karen Handicap Welfare Association, KNPLF (Karenni) and the Shan Health Committee, we expect to provide services to more than 400 survivors at seven locations along the border in 2008. Groot Klimmendaal, Lobke’s employer, has been encouraging its other employees to volunteer in the area. Neeltje Rosmalen, a psychologist and cognitive trainer helped train medics and counselors in psychological treatment of new and existing accident survivors.

GENEVA: The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) called on Wednesday for urgent conclusion of a global pact to ban cluster weapons even if big powers like the United States, Russia and China were not ready to join.

The Swiss-based humanitarian body's senior arms specialist, Peter Herby, told a news conference the ICRC hoped the text of a treaty would be approved at a conference in Dublin in May and be signed by many countries by the end of the year.

"We need a strong, legally-binding treaty urgently, in 2008, that would ban the use, development, stockpiling and transfer of inaccurate and unreliable cluster munitions," said Herby, who heads the ICRC's Arms Unit.

Herby discounted arguments from some producer states that the weapons -- which can spread hundreds of bomblets over a target area -- can be made to self-destruct or otherwise rendered harmless after conflicts in which they have been used.

Cluster bombs -- which campaigners say have killed or maimed thousands of civilians stumbling on them -- can never be made totally reliable, he declared.

Read more here.

On my first morning at the Mae Tao Clinic, I was greeted by what I know as the scent of northern Thailand: an odor that combines fish paste, mildew, sweat, and betel nut. Just past the clinic entrance, a crowd of people, each with a small bag of clothing, sat or stood in the courtyard hoping to receive medical attention, food, and temporary shelter. I soon learned that some of these people had traveled for days or weeks from inside Burma or from refugee camps on the border, often in danger of being caught and detained by border officials. As Lobke, the physical therapist who volunteers there, led me past the crowd and through layers of sandals scattered at the entrance of each small open-aired concrete building, she described the work in store for us in the inpatient, surgical, pediatric, outpatient, and prosthetics departments.

Over the next six weeks—from October to mid-November 2007— Lobke provided me with instruction and demonstrations on stump care and rehabilitation for patients with amputations, passive mobilization, and functional exercises. We then worked together to evaluate and treat patients. Taking into account patients’ circumstances and offering the therapy and advice that best met their needs was especially challenging because most of the patients came from precarious living situations, where they were dealing with extreme poverty; lack of food, water, and healthcare; and forced labor or relocation. Many patients also faced landmine hazards and other atrocities under the Burmese military’s ruthless control. By paying close attention to the patients’ behaviors and by being deliberate with my facial expressions and voice tones, I strived to offer patients some physical relief, encouragement, and a sense of being cared for.

What they gave back to me was immeasurable. For example, providing therapy to a woman who had fallen unconscious after a seizure and then exhibited neurological dysfunction was challenging, but also very satisfying. When we began treatment, the patient lay quite motionless, showing little awareness of her surroundings. Gradually, she improved and, after ten days of therapy and rest, she smiled, made eye contact, and walked with my support. Observing her progress and watching her confidence return reinforced my belief in physical therapy and my aspiration to join the profession.

My time volunteering at the Thai-Burma border strengthened my heart and mind, pushing me to grow and learn both as a person and as a physical therapy student. Experiencing the challenges first-hand of connecting with each patient and sorting out the most fitting treatment has deepened my understanding of what it means to be a physical therapist and has further prepared me for my future career. I hope to continue to volunteer with Clear Path, and I look forward to returning as a physical therapist to contribute to and learn from the Mae Tao Clinic.

One little-mentioned split occurred on a proposal to restrict Pentagon spending on cluster bombs, which explode and scatter thousands of tiny weapons over a vast area. Those small bombs are prone to going off years after a battle, sometimes killing and maiming Middle Eastern children who mistakenly trigger them. Israel came under fire from the UN and international human rights groups for its use of cluster bombs during its 2006 war with Hizbullah forces in Lebanon. In the autumn of that year, with memories of the conflict still fresh, several Democrats sought to limit US defence spending to cluster bombs that would not be used in civilian areas.

While they praised the moral case for shielding civilians from combat weapons, opponents argued that curbing spending on cluster bombs would tie the hands of US military leaders.

"In an extreme situation, the commander must be able to use all options to shape the battlefield to protect our forces and those allied with us," Republican senator Ted Stevens said at the time.

"Restricting the deployment of cluster munitions could severely hinder aviation and artillery capabilities and reduce the commander's capability to wage war successfully," he added.

Obama voted in favour of limiting use of the bombs, while Clinton and 69 other senators opposed the spending limits, defeating the proposal.

Read the rest of this article here.

Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said the mines were spread across about 4,000 minefields left across Iraq after the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War, the first Gulf War in 1991 and the 2003 U.S.-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein.

"We have been busy with the biggest threat against our existence, which is terrorism ... so the many mines did not get the attention they deserved," Dabbagh said at a conference with United Nations officials in Baghdad on the problem.

"For every Iraqi citizen there is a mine that could kill him at any moment," he said.

Iraqi Environment Minister Nermeen Othman said she had been appointed by the government to lead efforts to clear Iraq of land mines.

"Because of the contamination by land mines, Iraq has lost access to thousands of hectares of farm lands and been unable to invest in its oil fields," Othman said.

David Shearer, U.N. deputy special representative for humanitarian, reconstruction and development in Iraq, said the heavy contamination of land mines had many different effects.

"The importance of this explosive material is not just about the damage it can do to ordinary people, it also impacts the economic development of Iraq itself," he said.

Read the rest of this story here.

Most victims are males aged 1-26, largely from the insurgency-affected southern provinces where the worsening security situation has hampered de-mining activities.

The number of people killed by landmines and other explosive remnants of war saw a 13.2 percent increase in 2007 over 2006 but the overall casualty rate (the combined number of dead and injured) dropped by over 29 percent, UNMACA's findings indicate.

Landmines, UXOs and AXOs killed 124 and wounded 697 Afghans in 2006.

Read the rest of this article here.

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But the recent presentation to CPI of the Certificate of Merit from the Provincial People’s Committee of Quang Tri was different to me. It was a real milestone in our seven-year history as a humanitarian mine action organization.

It was a chance to stop climbing for a moment, turn around and look down to see how far we’ve come with the commitment of our donors, the dedication of our staff and the unwavering support of our local partners, in particular the Quang Tri PC.

Vietnam is where we started and it’s still by far our largest program. Quang Tri, the central province most heavily affected by the war in Vietnam, is where it all began.

The Certificate of Merit recognizes international organizations for their assistance to Vietnamese people in need. In Quang Tri, we’ve served 3,204 beneficiaries and spent nearly $860,000 on survivor assistance programs. Next year, we’ll serve 1,040 in the province.

In Vietnam as a whole, we’ve served 4,664 people impacted by ordnance accidents and their family members in 14 provinces since 2001. They are people such as Do, a log trucker from Hue who lost part of his right hand and eyesight when he tried to free his truck from a muddy road two years ago and an unseen piece of ordnance war-era ordnance exploded.

Clear Path paid for his eye operation and glasses, then gave him a $250 grant to start raising rabbits in a narrow space behind his family’s house where he built a roof and cages for the breeding project.

Do’s wife is the main breadwinner, making and selling a local noodle product. But Do’s rabbit sales, which are still modest but expected to grow quickly each year, boosts the couple monthly’s income by 20 percent and strengthens the shy survivor’s self esteem.

“I feel I am contributing to my family,” he told me. “I feel useful.”

In 2001, our first full year of survivor assistance, we served 199 people. This year, we’ve served 1,428. Our assistance to new accident survivors expanded quickly to most of central Vietnam, while our comprehensive medical and socio-economic support to existing survivors (injured since the end of the war in 1975) extends to beneficiaries in four districts north and south of the former Demilitarized Zone.

Besides the growing financial backing from many grassroots donors each year, we’ve secured steady funding from the United Nations Association’s Adopt-A-Minefield campaign, the U.S. State Department and the McKnight Foundation.

Recently, we signed an agreement with the International Trust for Demining & Victims Assistance in Europe for their support in Vietnam. ITF International Relations Director Iztok Hocevar is traveling with me to Vietnam and Cambodia to see our work first-hand. He attended yesterday’s ceremony.

In 2008, we’re planning to double the number of districts where we serve existing accident survivors and families. The new districts will be Dong Ha in Quang Tri, Quang Ninh in Quang Binh, A Luoi in Thua-Thien Hue and Dai Loc in Quang Nam – all heavily affected by accidents with wartime explosives.

Our core Vietnamese staff of five – Toan, Chi, Phuong, Nhi and Duc – have done an incredible job building our program in a country where the accident victims are as scattered throughout the countryside as the ordnance that was dropped and fired during the war and where the typhoon season can make project implementation very challenging. First they worked under the direction of Kristen Leadem, then Hugh Hosman and now on their own.

What started as a small project to help a few people has blossomed into large-scale effort to serve the innocent victims of the war’s destructive legacy. Yesterday’s ceremony was an occasion to take stock in that and realize that all of us linked to CPI – donors, staff and partners – are helping nearly 5,000 people recover and get on with their lives in this country.

And that’s the reason why I am writing about the Certificate of Merit. The recognition is for all of us.

Congratulations.

On 19 November, 13-year-old Saw K'Tray Soe detonated a landmine while gathering bamboo soot leaves to make a roof for his family's house. The mine blew up in his face, severely injuring his eyes and throat. His 8-year-old sister was nearby and was also injured by the explosion. The children are from Lay Kee village, on the border of Toungoo and Papun Districts, northern Karen State.

The mine was laid by the SPDC two months ago during their activity in the Ta Ler Ker Ko and Kaw Daw Ko areas. On 16 August, 2007, Burma Army division 88 entered Lay Kee village, burned down one house, and laid landmines, one of which eventually injured Saw K'Tray Soe and his sister.

Warning: The following link with the rest of the story contains very disturbing photos:
http://freeburmarangers.org/Reports/2007/20071205.html

Read about Clear Path International's work with Burmese landmine survivors here.

An anti-landmine activist/traceur (one who practices parkour) working with the Dangerous Ground Project tried to cross all 50,000 square metres of central London without touching the ground. The resulting video is part parkour excitement, part chilling reminder of the risks that people all over the world face from the landmines that surround their homes, schools and places of work.

Check out the video here: http://www.dangerousground.org/kbps.html

The below is a release from the International Campaign to Ban Landmines:

TOO MANY STATES NOT ON COURSE TO MEET MINE CLEARANCE DEADLINES

GENEVA, Switzerland – 12 November 2007 – Many states are not on course to meet their Mine Ban Treaty mine clearance obligations, according to Landmine Monitor Report 2007: Toward a Mine-Free World. The International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) releases the 1,124-page report at the United Nations today.

Landmine Monitor reports on the global landmine situation and scrutinizes the implementation of and compliance with the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty. Landmine Monitor Report 2007 is the ninth annual edition of the report.

Time is running short for 29 countries with treaty-mandated clearance deadlines in 2009 or 2010. Despite a treaty provision allowing 10 years to complete mine clearance, 14 states are almost certain not meet their 2009 deadlines: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cambodia, Chad, Croatia, Mozambique, Niger, Peru, Senegal, Tajikistan, Thailand, the United Kingdom (for clearance of the Falkland Islands/Malvinas), Venezuela, Yemen, and Zimbabwe.

Even more seriously, despite having almost eight years to initiate clearance, France, Niger, the United Kingdom and Venezuela have failed to even begin clearance operations.

“Some countries that should have met their clearance deadlines will probably not be able to do so,” said Mr. Stuart Casey-Maslen of Norwegian People’s Aid, Landmine Monitor’s Mine Action Editor. “Both donors and mine-affected countries must work harder to ensure that countries live up to their obligations under international law.”

Demining programs in 2006 cleared 140 km2 of mined areas and 310 km2 of battle areas. A significant increase in battle area clearance was recorded over 2005, primarily in Iraq. Afghanistan and Cambodia alone accounted for over 55% of all mined area clearance in 2006. Operations resulted in the destruction of 217,000 antipersonnel mines, 18,000 antivehicle mines and 2.15 million explosive remnants of war (ERW).

Government use of antipersonnel mines declined further, with only Myanmar/Burma and Russia continuing to lay new mines. Non-state armed groups in at least eight countries used antipersonnel mines or improvised explosive devices, which is also a decrease.

A total of 5,751 mine and ERW casualties were reported in 2006, a decrease of 16% from 2005, although Pakistan, Myanmar/Burma, and Somalia recorded increased casualty rates due to conflict. Lebanon noted an approximately tenfold casualty increase. Three-quarters of recorded casualties were civilians, and 34% of civilian casualties were children. Worldwide, 473,000 survivors were identified as of August 2007.

Only 11 of 24 states with significant numbers of survivors have made substantial progress towards their 2005-2009 objectives for improving the provision of assistance and ensuring survivors’ rights. Funding for survivor assistance comprises only 1% of total mine action funding. Progress toward meeting the needs and rights of survivors should be regarded as insufficient.

“Mine-affected countries and international donors must give greater priority to the physical and economic rehabilitation of survivors, as their needs are not being adequately addressed,” said Katleen Maes of Handicap International, Landmine Monitor’s Victim Assistance Editor. “These people must not be forgotten.”

Mine risk education reached approximately 7.3 million people in 63 countries in 2006-2007. Although this is an increase from 2005-2006, 13 countries urgently need to improve their mine risk education efforts. No mine risk education was recorded in 36 countries and one area affected by mines or ERW.

Of the 20 largest mine action donors, 15 provided more funding in 2006 than 2005. Funding for mine action was US$475 million in 2006, an increase of some $100 million from 2005, and the highest level ever recorded by Landmine Monitor. Much of the increase was due to emergency funding for the clearance of explosive remnants of war in South Lebanon.

“While donor states responded quickly to ERW contamination in Lebanon, what is needed is multi-year funding by national and international donors,” said Mr. Anthony Forrest of Mines Action Canada, Landmine Monitor’s Mine Action Funding Editor. “Funding levels in 2006 have set a new standard for the global commitment to mine action, against which future funding levels will be judged."

Antipersonnel mines face increased international rejection, as four more countries joined the treaty (Indonesia, Iraq, Kuwait and Montenegro), bringing the total to 155. “Ten years after the negotiation and signing of the Mine Ban Treaty, the stigmatization of antipersonnel mines continues to spread. Even those who have not yet joined the treaty are largely abiding by its core obligations,” said Steve Goose of Human Rights Watch, Landmine Monitor’s Ban Policy Editor. Seven more countries completed destruction of their stockpiles of antipersonnel mines; in total, 81 States Parties have destroyed nearly 42 million stockpiled mines.

“While overall compliance with the treaty has been impressive, there have been some disconcerting developments,” said Goose. These include a UN monitoring group reporting shipments of antipersonnel mines to Somali factions by two States Parties (Eritrea and Ethiopia, which strongly deny the accusations), two states missing their stockpile destruction deadlines (Afghanistan and Cape Verde, both of which have now completed the task), and Venezuela indicating that it continues to derive military benefit from mines laid around military bases—a potential treaty violation of the prohibition on use.

The treaty prohibits the use, production, and trade of antipersonnel landmines. It requires clearance of mined areas within 10 years and the destruction of stockpiled antipersonnel mines within four years. Landmine Monitor Report 2007 reports on landmine use, production, trade, stockpiling, demining, casualties, survivor assistance and mine action funding in 118 countries and areas.

Landmine Monitor is coordinated by an Editorial Board drawn from four organizations: Mines Action Canada, Handicap International, Human Rights Watch and Norwegian People’s Aid. It constitutes a sustainable and systematic way for NGOs to monitor and report on the implementation of a disarmament treaty.

Landmine Monitor Report 2007 and related documents are available at 08:00 GMT at www.icbl.org/lm/2007on 12 November.

For more information or to schedule an interview contact:

Ms. Jackie Hansen, Landmine Monitor Project Manager, Geneva (GMT+1), Mobile +41-76-222-6968 or +1-613-851-5436, email lm@icbl.org
Ms. Simona Beltrami, ICBL Advocacy Director, Geneva (GMT+1), Mobile +39-33-3714-2251, email simona@icbl.org

Our third annual Seattle fundraiser, generously underwritten by the law firm Marler Clark, brought in more than $50,000 for our direct assistance work. That amount is a 43 percent increase over last year’s $35,000.
For central Vietnam, the $50,000 will be doubled through a matching grant from the U.S. State Department and then doubled again by the International Trust Fund for Demining & Victims Assistance.

In short, the evening raised a total of $200,000!

With other fundraising efforts and grant requests made to private-sector donors, we now expect to easily raise the matching totals from State and the ITF for $400,000, allowing us to assist 1,700 landmine survivors in Vietnam by the middle of 2008.

Credit for the gala’s huge success goes to Clear Path’s new volunteer Special Projects Coordinator, Melody Mociulski, who worked tirelessly on the benefit since spring. She called around town for the best venue, procured new auction software, initiated outreach, recruited guests, procured auction items and managed the evening’s complex administration.

In preparations for the evening, she was supported by volunteers Sandy Schubach and Kathy Hashbarger. Sandy arranged the dessert auction that raised thousands of dollars and recruited volunteers, while Kathy recruited guests, procured auction items and assisted at the event.

Volunteer prosthetic technicians Duane Nelson and Jody Riggs awed the audience with their deeply moving presentation about their three months providing artificial limbs to Burmese refugees in remote camps on the Thai-Myanmar border.

The evening was attended by West Coast board members Nancy Norton, Lori Trieu, Mark Kruse and Laura Willingham, and by Burma advisor Dr. Tao Shen Kwan Gett.

John Curley, MC and auctioneer, was better than ever, teasing and good-heartedly taunting the crowd of more than 110 into a bidding frenzy over dessert and items in the live auction, including a cruise donated by Holland America Lines (with roundtrip airfare from Alaska Airlines), a week at a farm house in Provence, a week at a ski condo in Whistler, lunch with Tom Robbins, a movie night at Yonder Theater and two tickets at the 103.7 FM Mountain Music Lounge.

The staff at the College Club could not have been more accommodating and fun work with before, during and after the event.

I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone who helped make our 2007 Evening of Hope the highest netting fundraising event in our seven-year history:

Event sponsor:
Marler Clark, Llc.

Silk Circle donors:
Kom Consulting, Alan & Sarah Black and Michael Bryant Brown & Kayla Black.
Lotus Club donors: Virginia & Dusty Davison; Clyde & Lois Laughlin; Aroma Creations; Cascade DAFO; Gordon & Cathryn Sandridge, Margaret Roben, John & Veronika Geilfuss, Jane & Charles Ekberg, Mickie & Bob Stowell, Bryce & Sherry Holmes, Matt Kenney, Brent & Madeline Olson, Dan & Kathleen Huxley and David & Ann Bruce.

Table captains:
Melody & Michael Mociulski, Karen Fredrichs, Kathy & Rick Hashbarger, Keith & Lucia Ryan, Marcie Lagerloef, Margaret Connor and Laura Willingham.

Auction donors:
Holland America Lines, Alaska Airlines, Seattle Symphony, 103.7 FM The Mountain, Melody & Michael Mociulski, Geraldine Ferraro/Four Swallows/Barbara Jeantrout, Faces First, Greg Atkinson, Craig Freeman, Claire Henning, Karen & Mark Fredrichs, KUOW, Tom Robbins, Karen & Imbert Matthee, Island Fitness, Renew Day Spa, Kristen Leadem, Tom Lent, The Traveler, Lori Trieu, Bainbridge Police Department, Eagle Harbor Books, Pet Vacations, Rancho Winslow, John & Andrea Adams, Bainbridge Vineyards, Bellezza Dolce, Eleven Winery, Pam Wachtler-Fermanis, Alan Vogel Design, Woodleigh Hubbard, Cher Vrieling, Ten Mercer Dinner & Drinks, Cihan & Bonnie Anisogula, Old Mill Microcomputing, Erin Hults, Grace Harris, Blackbird Bakery, Town & Country Markets, Gene Juarez Salons & Spas, Bon Bon, Sonya Marinoni, Rick & Kathy Hashbarger, Frank Buxton, Bowie Salon & Spa, Arlene Johnson.

Volunteers: Melody Mociulski, Duane Nelson, Jody Riggs, Sandy Schubach, Kathy Hashbarger, Thuy Nguyen, Cezanne Allen, Mike Gormley, Ann Strickland, Keith & Lucia Ryan and Erin Hults.

No surprise, then, to see this recent report (link to a 2.1 meg PDF) from Human Rights Watch detailing the use of child soldiers in Burma (Myanmar).

An excerpt from a story on the report on Reuters is below.

Source: Reuters Alertnet | Human Rights Watch

NEW YORK, Oct 30 (Reuters) - Myanmar is filling the ranks of its depleted armed forces with children as young as 10 and may try to capture even more boys after the recent crackdown on pro-democracy protests, Human Rights Watch said on Tuesday.

The former Burma is so desperate to replenish its army after desertions and attrition that children are bought and sold by military recruiters. They are beaten and held as virtual prisoners while the government denies it is happening, the report said.

Myanmar's military government, under international scrutiny for its brutal suppression of the biggest pro-democracy protests in 20 years, insists that its armed forces are made up of volunteers over 18, the 132-page report said.

However, out of 20 former soldiers interviewed by Human Rights Watch, all but one estimated that at least 30 percent of their fellow trainees were under 18, the report said.

"The government's deployment of the army in September 2007 to attack Buddhist monks and other peaceful protesters may increase the vulnerability of children to recruitment even further," the report said.

"Even before the crackdown, young men were often reluctant to join the military ... The use of the army in the attacks, killings and detention of protesters may further discourage voluntary enlistment, and prompt recruiters to seek out even greater numbers of child recruits," the report said.

This video was shown on the 10th anniversary Celebration of Martha Hathaway's work with landmine and bomb survivors in Vietnam, Cambodia, Afghanistan and the Thai-Burma border.

The music is Natalie Merchant's "Kind & Generous" off of her CD OPHELIA and is used with permission.

It was shown (as a surprise to her) at on October 13th after a letter from the US Dept of State was read and before a speech by Senator Patrick Leahy and a performance by Sarah Lee Guthrie and Johnny Irion.

Before the show, CPI honored one of its own... it was CPI executive Director Martha Hathaway's 10th year in mine action. In honor of this occasion, Senator Patrick Leahy spoke before Sarah Lee and Johnny took the stage and spoke to the need for a ban on landmines and praised the work of Clear Path International. He then presented Martha and me with a framed copy of comments he made about Clear Path that are now in the Congressional Record.

This was a great honor for Martha, Clear Path and me. Please see photos below and more pictures from the event can be found at this link.

Thank you Sarah Lee, Johnny and Senator and Mrs. Leahy!! I also especiallly want to thank John Goodrow from Leahy's office... he is truly an unsung hero... he fields so many calls for the Senator's attention and has done so much for so many. Thank you, John, for your good work for us and for many, many other causes. The photo below, with the Senator, was taken by John.

A special thank you to our sponsors for the event:

A Safe Place Self-Storage, Alchemy Promotional Products, Bickford Real Estate, Chandler 4 Corners, Dorset Union Store, Engel, Powell & Spivey, P.C., Express Copy Inc., Finn & Stone, Inc., Bob Gasperetti Furniture Maker, Gunterman Tennis Schools, H.N. Williams Store, The Inn at Manchester.Inn At West View Farm, Lisa Laberge Interiors, Long Ago & Far Away,Main Street Realty McWayne Jewelers, The Mountain Goat, New Morning Natural Foods, Northshire Bookstore, The Orvis Company,Perfect Wife Restaurant, Simple Coffee, Susan Sargent Designs, The Kitchen Store At J.K. Adams

Thank you to the great people at the WRA office who have helped CPI immeasurably... we could not do the work we do without their support...

Congratulations folks!!

The below is a press release from their office:

10th Anniversary of Public-Private Partnerships to Reinforce Humanitarian Mine Action

The U.S. Department of State is pleased to mark the tenth anniversary of its Humanitarian Mine Action Public-Private Partnership Program, which enlists civil society support for clearing persistent landmines and explosive remnants of war, teaching mine risk education, and rendering assistance to survivors of landmine accidents around the world. Since its founding in October 1997, this Public-Private Partnership Program has grown to include 57 non-governmental organizations, civic associations, educational groups, and corporations. Working with the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs' Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement, these partners have contributed resources that reinforce U.S. Government efforts to combat the global landmine problem. Recognizing that donor governments alone cannot solve the problem soon enough - even with the United States Government's more than $1.1 billion in mine action assistance since 1993 - these groups are speeding the pace at which affected countries can be freed from the humanitarian impact of landmines and other explosive hazards.

The U.S. Department of State thanks the following Public-Private Partners for their valuable contributions to humanitarian mine action:

Adopt-A-Minefield | Association of Volunteers in International Service | Center for International Rehabilitation | Center for Teaching International Relations | Children of Armenia Fund | Colombian Center for Integrated Rehabilitation | Clear Path International | C King Associates | Cranfield University | DanChurchAid | Danish Demining Group | DC Comics | Demining Agency for Afghanistan | Freedom Fields USA | Global Care Unlimited | Golden West Humanitarian Foundation | Grapes for Humanity | The HALO Trust | Handicap International France | Help Handicapped International | Health Volunteers Overseas | Humpty Dumpty Institute | International Eurasia Press Fund | Iraq Mine and Unexploded Ordnance Clearance Organization | Julia Burke Foundation | Kids First Vietnam | Landmines Blow! | Landmine Survivors Network | Lipscomb University | MAG | Marshall Legacy Institute | Medical Care Development International | Messiah College | Mine Action Information Center | Mine Clearance Planning Agency | Newsweek Education Program | One Sri Lanka Foundation | PeaceTrees Vietnam | People to People International | Polus Center | Prestige Health Care Technologies | Prosthetics Outreach Foundation | Roots of Peace | Rose Charities | Dr. Ken Rutherford/Missouri State University | Save the Children | Schonstedt Instrument Company | South Florida Landmine Action Group | Spirit of Soccer | Students Partnership Worldwide | Survey Action Center | United Nations Foundation | Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation | Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund | Warner Bros. | World Education | World Rehabilitation Fund

To learn more, visit the Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement website at www.state.gov/t/pm/wra, click on "Public-Private Partnerships," and also see the Safe Passage newsletters at www.state.gov/t/pm/wra/partners/c14838.htm.

Congratulations guys!!

Villagers flee Myanmar’s deadly landmines

...In 2005, at least 231 people in Myanmar were killed or maimed by landmines planted by both the government and insurgent groups including the Karen National Liberation Army, the armed wing of the KNU, the report said.

People treating the victims in Thailand fear that the figure is rising.

Cynthia Maung, the founder of the Mae Tao Clinic, said the number of landmine victims has been growing since 1997 and thinks that it may double this year as the junta’s troops advance through Karen State.

“Every year we receive about 30 to 40 landmine victims,” she told AFP, adding that she’s seen nearly 50 cases so far this year.

Read the rest of the story here.

A landmine survivor is fitted at the Mae Tao Clinic in Mae Sot