Community liaison in Nong Boua village
Story and photograph by Sean Sutton
Thirty-six-year-old Dalivan is a community liaison team leader and has been working with MAG for nine months. She has a lot of experience having worked as a community liaison officer for UXO Lao, the national UXO clearance organisation, for five years and then as a team leader with development agency CARE International. Her job with CARE involved data collection and community development.
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| Dalivan and her two community liaison officers, Kham Mao and Kham Xay meet with villagers in the village school |
“We worked very closely with MAG. CARE helped to develop fruit gardens, fish ponds and irrigation. They also helped with access to farmland. Without MAG, CARE’s development work could not take place. I am very happy working with MAG and have learned a lot of new things, especially with mapping and survey work.
“In my role I am responsible for the work and development of my two community liaison officers. I liaise with Government authorities, community leaders and development partners like the World Food programme. I also work closely with the Technical Field Managers and the Team leaders for prioritisation, developing work plans, like organising villagers to cut vegetation.”
Today Dalivan and her two community liaison officers Kham Mao and Kham Xay have come to Ban Nong Boua to have a meeting with villagers and their leaders in the village school. They came here last week to arrange the meeting and to conduct a survey of the area developing a map showing houses, roads, tracks and agricultural land. Today they are going to have a discussion with the community gathered in the village school to develop a plan of action and o explain how MAG works and how villagers can assist. The community tell them their needs individually and a list is drawn up. Together they prioritise the list based upon the needs of the families and how poor they are.
Mr Kee is the village headman: “MAG has come here to help us – to assist us. All of the people here are farmers but there is not enough land. This is a great time for MAG to come and we are very happy to see the project start here. We will do whatever we can to help. So far 26 families have asked for help and I think more will have requests.”
Mr Kee then went on to describe what the situation was like for the people during and after the war: “So many people were killed in the bombing during the war. The villagers could not stay here – this was in the Ho Chi Minh trail area. They lived in caves and in the forest. Every house in the village was destroyed – everything was gone. After the war we tried to start again and many were killed farming because of the UXO.
“When we farmed we would fill buckets up with bombs and bury them in the bomb craters. We thought it was scrap – we didn’t know they were dangerous. Then people started to die. That’s how we found out. We found out the hard way. I found a bombie and threw it into a crater but it blew up in the air. I was lucky because I was behind a termite’s nest so I wasn’t hurt.”
One of the villagers called Gnang added: “One day I hit a bombie with my scythe cutting vegetation. I broke it in half! I ran away very quickly.”
“We are still at high risk here when we farm – we know that every day it could be us,” continued Mr Kee. “The bombs are in the ground and every year we find lots - but less than before. Because there are more people now we need more land. Most of the families have tried to extend their fields but found so many bombs they had to stop. They are too afraid. It’s better to be hungry than to be dead. We are all sad when we hear explosions – it usually means someone has died.”
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| Talking to villagers about the dangers |
Dalivan leaves her team to continue the discussion and joins a classroom full of children to give them a UXO awareness lesson. She starts by writing the words to a song on the blackboard and explains it to the children. Soon the classroom is filled with a chorus of young voices as they sing.
She then draws different kinds of ordnance commonly found in the area and invites children come up and also draw items they have seen. They play some games, sing more awareness songs and dance. The message is clear and repeatedly reinforced as the translated words to one of the songs demonstrates:
Don’t touch UXO
Children should remember that UXO are everywhere
UXO are bad, Bombies are dangerous
Children must not touch or handle
It is dangerous for your life
When you find them you must go away – be safe
Try to go away to be safe for your own life.
“Our work with the community has many different elements,” Dalivan told me after the village session. “First we meet the villagers, like we did here last week, to introduce MAG, what the organisation’s policies are and how we can help. Then we draw a community map together. After that we return for a village meeting like today. Everyone reports their problems and shares their ideas and we record all of the information. We have to consider many things like what the land will be used for after clearance and helping the poorest first. That is our policy. We talk about UXO awareness with the adults and the children and also discuss collecting scrap metal and the dangers. Here in Boulapha district all the people farm their land and after harvest they all collect scrap. We then go with the villagers to see the areas that the have requested for clearance.
“Using all of this information we develop a survey report. We then do a UXO survey. This involves visiting, marking and recording the location, using a GPS, of the items reported by the community. This information is then used by one of MAG’s roving teams to come and destroy the reported ordnance.
“After all of this I will get together with the expatriate community liaison officer the technical field manager and our development partners, they visit the site and we discuss the plan. Then we do a detailed clearance map for the clearance teams with the TFM. We prepare the site on the ground and regularly visit the site to monitor the work. Finally we produce a post clearance report, making sure that the land is being used as planned. It’s all very worthwhile when I see the land being used and the lives of the people improved. That makes me feel really good.”