As well as removing and destroying the landmines and other unexploded ordnance that prevent communities from developing and securing their futures, MAG also educates people about the risks of living in contaminated areas.
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Community Liaison teams collect important information about dangerous areas; through talking to people they not only discover where dangerous items have been found, but also find out where military activity took place during war, identifying potentially dangerous zones.
MAG trains and employs local staff to do the work – around 93 per cent of our 2,800-strong staff around the world are natives of the countries in which they work. This not only provides desperately needed employment for people in post-conflict countries, but also provides them with valuable skills and experience.
On top of this, in Equateur province MAG has developed a partnership with a local non-governmental organisation, Humanitas Ubangi, training its staff to perform Community Liaison and Mine Risk Education work….
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A Community Liaison team from MAG and Humanitas Ubangi collects information from villagers about a suspected mined road and about other remnants of war in the area of Bongala, Equateur province. |
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A map is drawn in the ground in order to establish the location of suspected dangerous items. |
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Village children pass by a sign indicating a suspected mined road left over from civil conflict in the region. |
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MAG Community Liaison Manager Hussein Kamuhira (right) and Philippe Sobinzi Dombale, Executive Director of Humanitas Ubangi, discuss a plan of action in the North Ubangi region. |
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The MAG-Humanitas Ubangi Community Liaison team travels to Gbadolite, a small village deep in the jungle which was the birthplace of the former president of Zaire, Mobuto Sese Seko. Zaire was renamed after Mobuto was overthrown in the first Congo war of 1997. Ever since then, the village and surroundings have been a centrepoint of the various vicious civil conflicts that have plagued the Congo and, as such, the whole region is heavily contaminated with unexploded ordnance. |
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MAG's Community Liaison Manager briefs the team ahead of the day's work in Gbadolite. |
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After unrolling banners, the Community Liaison team begins giving lively
presentations in two separate groups – one for the adults... |
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...and another session, in a different hut, for children. |
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Using visual tools, skits and songs, the teams teach villagers how to recognise the different ordnance that may be in the area. |
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They explain how bombs are easily confused with common, everyday items, what the dangers are and what to do if they find something suspicious. |
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Afterwards, the team asks villagers which areas they think are contaminated. Several men take the team down a path to an area of open grasslands and point out two places near the path where they had found unexploded items. |
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The Community Liaison team examines the items, takes GPS readings of their locations, fills out their reports and marks the items with red and white warning tape. The men are assured that, within a few days, a MAG clearance team will come to remove the dangerous items. |
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[Photos: J.B. Russell / MAG] |
Links:
- MAG DRC - more on MAG's work in the country
- Donate to MAG online - more than 90 per cent of MAG's income is spent directly on clearance programmes
- Other ways to Get Involved - shop, run, walk, skydive, drink wine...
- Click on Tags below for related articles
10 September 09
MAG's work in DRC is supported by: Belgian Ministry of Foreign
Affairs; DFID (UK Department for International Development); Dutch
Ministry of Foreign Affairs; UK Ministry of Defence; UNICEF; Office
of Weapons Removal and Abatement, U.S. Department of State; Sida
(Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency).
