Showing posts with label Landmine victim. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Landmine victim. Show all posts
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Nicolas Axelrod's 24hrs: Kanha
24 Kanha from Nicolas Axelrod on Vimeo.
For additional photos and multi-media videos by Nick, please visit:
http://www.nicolasaxelrod.com/
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Landmine survivor touched by local mine removal efforts
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| Song Kosal |
By Ni Kuo-yen and Christie Chen
Kinmen, Aug. 23 (CNA) Song Kosal, a Cambodian anti-landmine youth ambassador who attended the peace bell ringing ceremony in Kinmen Tuesday, said she was touched by the Taiwanese military's efforts to remove mines from the island.
Kosal, a member of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, was one of the more than 100 youths from 20 countries who gathered on Taiwan's outlying island of Kinmen for a bell ringing ceremony to pray for world peace.
Under the company of social welfare workers, Kosal, 26, toured several minefields after the ceremony to learn about local actions to clear mines and restore the land.
She touted Taiwan's accomplishments in removing mines and said her trip to Kinmen was an emotional one. Photos of war victims on display at the ceremony make one want to cry, said Kosal, who is a landmine survivor herself.
Wednesday, June 08, 2011
Cambodian activist to visit Mercer Island | The might of the many
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| Tun Channareth, a co-recipient of the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize, is in Seattle to receive an honorary doctorate at Seattle University and gather support for his cause. (Chad Coleman/Staff Photo) |
Wednesday, June 08, 2011
By MARY L. GRADY
Mercer Island Reporter Editor
The man in the handcrafted wheelchair does not have legs to speak of. They were blown off when he stepped on a land mine in 1982 when he was a young soldier on patrol searching for signs of the Khmer Rouge.
But he is not visiting Seattle University or Mercer Island Presbyterian Church to talk of himself, or his long painful journey from that day. No. He is here to talk about Cambodia and how the stifling presence of perhaps millions of land mines, most set more than 30 years ago, still haunt his country and hold it back.
Channareth is in Seattle to accept a honorary doctorate degree this weekend from Seattle University for his 14 years as a volunteer at the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL). ICBL won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997. Channareth was chosen to accept the award in Oslo on behalf of the organization along with the ICBL founder, Jody Williams.
Tuesday, June 07, 2011
'Suffering never stops,' says land-mine survivor
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| Tun Channareth, in a wheelchair he built, is greeted by a student on the Seattle University campus, where he will receive an honorary degree. Channareth was selected to accept a 1997 Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines.(ALAN BERNER / THE SEATTLE TIMES) |
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| Tun Channareth built this wheelchair and it's a model for thousands of other, made simply of bicycle wheels and a wooden platform. (ALAN BERNER / THE SEATTLE TIMES) |
Tun Channareth, who is a Nobel Peace Prize recipient, land-mine survivor and international crusader against the use of land mines, is in Seattle to receive an honorary doctorate from Seattle University.
June 6, 2011
By Jack Broom
Seattle Times staff reporter
One of his legs ends at the knee. The other, just below it.
It's a disquieting sight, but Tun Channareth, of Cambodia, sitting in a wheelchair he made himself, would not want you to turn away.
"Some people understand my English," he told a group of Seattle University students a few days ago. "Some people understand my body."
Channareth's speech, his body and his passion convey a simple message: that land mines, many of which were placed in wars and conflicts decades ago, continue to kill and maim thousands of men, women and children around the globe each year.
Monday, August 03, 2009
A beauty pageant with a difference [... the contest was banned by Hun Xen's order]
After losing a leg to a landmine, Song Kosal became involved in the campaign to ban the weapons. (Photo: Jared Ferrie / The National)August 02. 2009
Jared Ferrie, Foreign Correspondent
The National (UAE)
PHNOM PENH - Song Kosal’s life has so far taken her from the rice paddies of rural Cambodia, where she lost a leg to a landmine at the age of five, to the White House to present a petition urging the US to sign a treaty banning landmines.
On Friday she will embark on yet another journey when she takes part in the Miss Landmine competition, a beauty pageant for victims of landmines. Ms Kosal will be vying for the title along with 20 other women who have lost limbs to landmines left over from Cambodia’s civil war. The winner will be crowned in a ceremony in December and will receive a custom-made prosthetic limb.
Although she already has a prosthetic leg, it does not fit properly and it is painful to use, so she walks with a crutch instead. While a prosthetic leg designed especially for her would make walking much easier, the prize is not her reason for participating in the contest.
“I want to try to get people to pay attention to women with disabilities and to not discriminate. People with disabilities can do anything,” she said. “And if we do this project we can raise the issue of the ban [on landmines].”
Miss Landmine is the brainchild of Morten Traavik, a Norwegian actor and theatre director. He launched the first pageant last year in Angola, which is one of the three most heavily mined countries in the world, along with Cambodia and Afghanistan.
Mr Traavik was staying at the family home of his then girlfriend in Angola’s capital, Luanda, in 2003, just one year after the end of the country’s civil war.
“There was still a very palpable sense of a state of emergency,” he said. The streets were strewn with garbage, buildings were pockmarked with bullet holes, and of course there were thousands of amputees, victims of landmines that peppered the countryside. During his visit, Mr Traavik got to know some of the neighbourhood children and they asked him to be a judge at a contest they were organising called Miss “Beco”, meaning Miss Backstreet.
“It was such a wonderful event,” Mr Traavik recalled. “A narrow back alley was the catwalk. The women were of all shapes, sizes, nuances of brown and black. It was a very inclusive event. It made me see how uncomplicated it can be, a playful celebration of life and beauty.”
The experience stuck with him and before long Mr Traavik came up with the idea of organising a similar event to raise awareness about landmines, which are currently banned by 156 countries but continue to kill and maim decades after the end of armed conflicts. His idea was met with scepticism if not outright disgust by many of the international organisations he approached for funding.
“Some people have a purely gut reaction that all beauty pageants are bad no matter if they have a higher purpose,” said Mr Traavik, who said many people he talked to could not get past the concept of a pageant as “sleazy old men voting for young dancing babes in bathing suits”.
But the Angolan government and local community groups gave their support and after applying to the Norwegian Arts Council a few times he finally received a grant.
The Cambodian government, however, yesterday urged the cancellation of the event, Agence France-Presse reported. In a letter to organisers, the ministry of social affairs said: “The ministry asks the people who organise this contest to stop this action … for protecting … the honour and dignity of people with disabilities.”
While Miss Landmine is a far cry from the average pageant, it does follow the traditional aesthetic of beauty contests. The competition will kick off with the launch of a photo exhibit and a glossy magazine featuring contestants photographed against backdrops of beaches and Cambodia’s famed ancient temples. People throughout the world can cast votes online for their favourite candidate at www.miss-landmine.org/cambodia. Those votes will be taken into account by judges who will decide the winner at the December event, which will feature contestants on a catwalk in gowns and a brief interview conducted by an MC.
According to the Miss Landmine magazine, Ms Kosal lost her leg to a Gyata 64 anti-personnel mine, which was manufactured in Hungary and sold for about US$15 (Dh55).
Ms Kosal said she could not remember the incident, but her mother, who was working in a rice paddy at the time, told her that she was collecting firewood when she stepped on the mine. Her story is common in Cambodia, which is littered with mines left behind after a two-decade long war between government troops backed by Vietnam and Khmer Rouge rebels.
“I am very angry at these people who put landmines there,” said Ms Kosal. “But I am happy that I have the chance to join the campaign to challenge countries like the US that have not signed the treaty.”
The 1997 Mine Ban Treaty has yet to be signed by 37 countries, including the UAE. Ms Kosal is a youth ambassador for the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, a global advocacy network. In 2001, she travelled to Washington, DC, to present a petition containing 263,000 signatures to Colin Powell, who was serving as the secretary of state in the administration of George W Bush.
“I liked him, the way he spoke, the way he acted,” she said, but added that Mr Powell said the US would sign the treaty, which it has not done. “I was upset that he promised me, then he forgot what he said to me.”
Mr Traavik noted that the US, along with China and Russia, are major producers of weapons including landmines, and none of them have signed the treaty, also known as the Ottawa Accord. According to Landmine Monitor, a civil society group that tracks progress made in eliminating landmines, those three countries have by far the biggest stockpiles, with about 145 million antipersonnel mines between them.
“It’s not a coincidence that these countries unwilling to sign the Ottawa Accord are also the biggest weapons producers,” he said. “Of course there is a powerful arms industry and a powerful arms lobby that does not want to lose money.”
That is why it is important to keep pressuring such countries by bringing attention to the issue in any way possible, he said, even if it means challenging commonly held assumptions about the evils of beauty pageants.
On Friday she will embark on yet another journey when she takes part in the Miss Landmine competition, a beauty pageant for victims of landmines. Ms Kosal will be vying for the title along with 20 other women who have lost limbs to landmines left over from Cambodia’s civil war. The winner will be crowned in a ceremony in December and will receive a custom-made prosthetic limb.
Although she already has a prosthetic leg, it does not fit properly and it is painful to use, so she walks with a crutch instead. While a prosthetic leg designed especially for her would make walking much easier, the prize is not her reason for participating in the contest.
“I want to try to get people to pay attention to women with disabilities and to not discriminate. People with disabilities can do anything,” she said. “And if we do this project we can raise the issue of the ban [on landmines].”
Miss Landmine is the brainchild of Morten Traavik, a Norwegian actor and theatre director. He launched the first pageant last year in Angola, which is one of the three most heavily mined countries in the world, along with Cambodia and Afghanistan.
Mr Traavik was staying at the family home of his then girlfriend in Angola’s capital, Luanda, in 2003, just one year after the end of the country’s civil war.
“There was still a very palpable sense of a state of emergency,” he said. The streets were strewn with garbage, buildings were pockmarked with bullet holes, and of course there were thousands of amputees, victims of landmines that peppered the countryside. During his visit, Mr Traavik got to know some of the neighbourhood children and they asked him to be a judge at a contest they were organising called Miss “Beco”, meaning Miss Backstreet.
“It was such a wonderful event,” Mr Traavik recalled. “A narrow back alley was the catwalk. The women were of all shapes, sizes, nuances of brown and black. It was a very inclusive event. It made me see how uncomplicated it can be, a playful celebration of life and beauty.”
The experience stuck with him and before long Mr Traavik came up with the idea of organising a similar event to raise awareness about landmines, which are currently banned by 156 countries but continue to kill and maim decades after the end of armed conflicts. His idea was met with scepticism if not outright disgust by many of the international organisations he approached for funding.
“Some people have a purely gut reaction that all beauty pageants are bad no matter if they have a higher purpose,” said Mr Traavik, who said many people he talked to could not get past the concept of a pageant as “sleazy old men voting for young dancing babes in bathing suits”.
But the Angolan government and local community groups gave their support and after applying to the Norwegian Arts Council a few times he finally received a grant.
The Cambodian government, however, yesterday urged the cancellation of the event, Agence France-Presse reported. In a letter to organisers, the ministry of social affairs said: “The ministry asks the people who organise this contest to stop this action … for protecting … the honour and dignity of people with disabilities.”
While Miss Landmine is a far cry from the average pageant, it does follow the traditional aesthetic of beauty contests. The competition will kick off with the launch of a photo exhibit and a glossy magazine featuring contestants photographed against backdrops of beaches and Cambodia’s famed ancient temples. People throughout the world can cast votes online for their favourite candidate at www.miss-landmine.org/cambodia. Those votes will be taken into account by judges who will decide the winner at the December event, which will feature contestants on a catwalk in gowns and a brief interview conducted by an MC.
According to the Miss Landmine magazine, Ms Kosal lost her leg to a Gyata 64 anti-personnel mine, which was manufactured in Hungary and sold for about US$15 (Dh55).
Ms Kosal said she could not remember the incident, but her mother, who was working in a rice paddy at the time, told her that she was collecting firewood when she stepped on the mine. Her story is common in Cambodia, which is littered with mines left behind after a two-decade long war between government troops backed by Vietnam and Khmer Rouge rebels.
“I am very angry at these people who put landmines there,” said Ms Kosal. “But I am happy that I have the chance to join the campaign to challenge countries like the US that have not signed the treaty.”
The 1997 Mine Ban Treaty has yet to be signed by 37 countries, including the UAE. Ms Kosal is a youth ambassador for the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, a global advocacy network. In 2001, she travelled to Washington, DC, to present a petition containing 263,000 signatures to Colin Powell, who was serving as the secretary of state in the administration of George W Bush.
“I liked him, the way he spoke, the way he acted,” she said, but added that Mr Powell said the US would sign the treaty, which it has not done. “I was upset that he promised me, then he forgot what he said to me.”
Mr Traavik noted that the US, along with China and Russia, are major producers of weapons including landmines, and none of them have signed the treaty, also known as the Ottawa Accord. According to Landmine Monitor, a civil society group that tracks progress made in eliminating landmines, those three countries have by far the biggest stockpiles, with about 145 million antipersonnel mines between them.
“It’s not a coincidence that these countries unwilling to sign the Ottawa Accord are also the biggest weapons producers,” he said. “Of course there is a powerful arms industry and a powerful arms lobby that does not want to lose money.”
That is why it is important to keep pressuring such countries by bringing attention to the issue in any way possible, he said, even if it means challenging commonly held assumptions about the evils of beauty pageants.
Monday, May 18, 2009
CAMBODIA: Mine accident survivor becomes deminer
"[My work] has a lot of benefits. One, we receive salary from MAG to feed ourselves and families and two, we can rid our villages of landmines." - Chea Sia18 May 2009
Source: MAG (Mines Advisory Group)
Website: http://www.maginternational.org
MAG Cambodia Chea Sia, a 48-year-old amputee, has worked for MAG for 14 years as a deminer. He lost his right leg to a landmine explosion in 1982, when he served a soldier for the Khmer People's National Liberation Front, led by the late former Prime Minister Son Sann.
The accident took place in Batttambang province whilst patrolling the area around his camp.
"I stepped on a landmine laid by the Khmer Rouge. We didn't realise [they] had laid mines in the area," he says.
His fellow soldiers fired a few times into the air as a distress signal, and other soldiers came to assist them.
"They arrived and sent me to the camp where I received first aid from the paramedics," he recalls.
After receiving first aid, Chea Sia was put on a tractor and sent to a French hospital in Thailand near the Cambodian border, and was then transferred to a hospital in Khao-I-Dang refugee camp run by the International Committee of the Red Cross.
He stayed at the hospital for about three months and was then sent to a refugee camp in Thailand, where he lived for the next decade.
Along with many other refugees, he was repatriated to Cambodia in 1992.
"During the first four or five months [back] in Cambodia, I didn't do anything but depended on some money I had left from the camp," he says. "When I returned to Cambodia, we had big problems....we needed everything, unlike life in the camp where we were given food."
Chea Sia and his wife struggled to survive and eked out a living by buying and selling small items and farming. Then he heard about MAG.
"Initially, I wasn't aware that MAG recruited amputee deminers. My friend asked me to join. Frankly speaking, at that time I knew nothing about demining. While I was a soldier, I only knew that mines are dangerous. But I was assured that I would be sent to be trained."
Currently, Chea Sia carries out demining tasks in Pailin province, the former stronghold of the Khmer Rouge.
He says that it is difficult for disabled people with little education to find good jobs, and that he is lucky to work for MAG.
"I don't have any knowledge or education, so I depend on my physical strength to get a job. It would be difficult for me to find a better-paid job than the job I have with MAG."
As a deminer, Chea Sia has to wear a special prosthetic leg, which will not affect or disrupt a metal detector.
"Prosthetic limbs usually have a metal bar inside but those provided for amputee deminers contain no metal," he explains.
Chea Sia says that amputee deminers sometimes find it difficult when they have to walk up or downhill to get to a minefield, and said that they may work marginally slower than able-bodied persons.
"But it's not a big deal at all. We can perform our job. We are not asked to work where disabled people find it difficult to perform their tasks."
Chea Sia says that he is very happy to work with MAG, an organisation which has benefited people from the communities affected by landmine contamination.
"It has a lot of benefits. One, we receive salary from MAG to feed ourselves and families and two, we can rid our villages of landmines."
For more information on MAG's work in Cambodia, please visit
www.maginternational.org/cambodia
The accident took place in Batttambang province whilst patrolling the area around his camp.
"I stepped on a landmine laid by the Khmer Rouge. We didn't realise [they] had laid mines in the area," he says.
His fellow soldiers fired a few times into the air as a distress signal, and other soldiers came to assist them.
"They arrived and sent me to the camp where I received first aid from the paramedics," he recalls.
After receiving first aid, Chea Sia was put on a tractor and sent to a French hospital in Thailand near the Cambodian border, and was then transferred to a hospital in Khao-I-Dang refugee camp run by the International Committee of the Red Cross.
He stayed at the hospital for about three months and was then sent to a refugee camp in Thailand, where he lived for the next decade.
Along with many other refugees, he was repatriated to Cambodia in 1992.
"During the first four or five months [back] in Cambodia, I didn't do anything but depended on some money I had left from the camp," he says. "When I returned to Cambodia, we had big problems....we needed everything, unlike life in the camp where we were given food."
Chea Sia and his wife struggled to survive and eked out a living by buying and selling small items and farming. Then he heard about MAG.
"Initially, I wasn't aware that MAG recruited amputee deminers. My friend asked me to join. Frankly speaking, at that time I knew nothing about demining. While I was a soldier, I only knew that mines are dangerous. But I was assured that I would be sent to be trained."
Currently, Chea Sia carries out demining tasks in Pailin province, the former stronghold of the Khmer Rouge.
He says that it is difficult for disabled people with little education to find good jobs, and that he is lucky to work for MAG.
"I don't have any knowledge or education, so I depend on my physical strength to get a job. It would be difficult for me to find a better-paid job than the job I have with MAG."
As a deminer, Chea Sia has to wear a special prosthetic leg, which will not affect or disrupt a metal detector.
"Prosthetic limbs usually have a metal bar inside but those provided for amputee deminers contain no metal," he explains.
Chea Sia says that amputee deminers sometimes find it difficult when they have to walk up or downhill to get to a minefield, and said that they may work marginally slower than able-bodied persons.
"But it's not a big deal at all. We can perform our job. We are not asked to work where disabled people find it difficult to perform their tasks."
Chea Sia says that he is very happy to work with MAG, an organisation which has benefited people from the communities affected by landmine contamination.
"It has a lot of benefits. One, we receive salary from MAG to feed ourselves and families and two, we can rid our villages of landmines."
For more information on MAG's work in Cambodia, please visit
www.maginternational.org/cambodia
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Independent Appeal: 'I was shunned for disability, now I'm shown respect'
A farmer whose legs were blown off by a mine is rebuilding his life with the help of a charity in Cambodia. Paul Vallely reports
Saturday, 27 December 2008
The Independent (UK)
Ou Sarin was 43 when both his legs were blown off. You have probably never heard of the war in which it happened. Look in the record books and you won't find anything about minefields being laid in Cambodia as recently as 1991. It was just one of those small local wars – between a group of rebels whose cause was lost in the midst of history – and government troops.
When the fighting was over in the fields where Mr Sarin grew maize and rice, the departing government soldiers told him: "Don't worry. All the mines have been 100 per cent cleared." But they hadn't.
It took 24 hours for his friends to carry him from the village of Kamnop to the nearest hospital in Takeo province. By the time he got there the doctor had no other choice than to amputate both his legs, one below the knee, the other above. Because he also had severe malaria he was kept in hospital for two months. He told his relatives to sell all his oxen and his wife sold her gold jewellery. Between them they raised $2,500 (£1,700). It just about paid the hospital bill.
He returned to his village in a battered old wheelchair given to him by the hospital. "When I got back there was a big change in how everyone treated me," he recalls. "No one wanted to speak to me. I was shunned. Everyone treated me as a burden."
Worse than the ostracism was the mockery. The villagers gave him the cruel nickname "the Frog" because of his posture. "They said that all frogs were good for was eating." Cambodian drinkers like grilled frogs to eat while drinking alcohol. The disdain became so bad that, combined with his sense of shock at the condition in which he now found himself, he decided to kill himself. "I would have done it many times but my wife was strong and counselled me and built the strength in me."
For the first year his wife ran the farm. "All I could do was help clean the rice after the harvest and put it in sacks." But he was determined to keep on. From his wheelchair he began to plant trees – 20 mango, 15 jack fruit, 30 lemon trees. But, despite all his efforts, he could not make a success. Then, four years after the explosion which took his legs, an aid worker came to the village and suggested that he go away to a rehabilitation centre for people with disabilities, to get some training. He learnt how to repair motorbikes and afterwards returned to Kamnop to set up his own one-man business.
"I had a lot of customers but they would only come to me when they had no money," he says. "They asked for credit, but they never paid the bills. They felt they could cheat me because they knew that I would not be able to catch them to get the money."
For Mr Sarin the turning point came with the arrival of workers funded by Action on Disability and Development (ADD) which is one of the charities being supported by this year's Independent Christmas Appeal. They taught him that he had rights under Cambodian law as a disabled person. ADD also offered to fund a scheme which had been germinating at the back of his mind since he first went to the training centre. "Until I went there I had never met another disabled person. I thought I must be the only one who had to live like this," he recalls. "I developed a plan to go to all the villages around Kamnop to find out whether there were other disabled people like me."
But he had lacked the confidence to set out to fulfil the plan. ADD gave him that confidence: "My son began to give me a lift on his motorbike to other villages." ADD expanded Mr Sarin's initiative and three other disabled people joined him in what it now calls the "counterpart" programme. "We now have joined up 294 disabled people in three different communes in 22 self-help groups," he says.
That work has been replicated elsewhere, thanks to ADD. The counterpart programme now reaches hundreds of disabled people – and educates local officials, teachers, council staff and community and religious leaders about the rights of disabled people. The status this has given Mr Sarin with the local authorities has rubbed off on the people in his village. "Today I am treated with respect. People have listened to me for the first time. They have begun to think what life must be like for someone with a disability. Attitudes have really changed."
Saturday, 27 December 2008
The Independent (UK)
Ou Sarin was 43 when both his legs were blown off. You have probably never heard of the war in which it happened. Look in the record books and you won't find anything about minefields being laid in Cambodia as recently as 1991. It was just one of those small local wars – between a group of rebels whose cause was lost in the midst of history – and government troops.
When the fighting was over in the fields where Mr Sarin grew maize and rice, the departing government soldiers told him: "Don't worry. All the mines have been 100 per cent cleared." But they hadn't.
It took 24 hours for his friends to carry him from the village of Kamnop to the nearest hospital in Takeo province. By the time he got there the doctor had no other choice than to amputate both his legs, one below the knee, the other above. Because he also had severe malaria he was kept in hospital for two months. He told his relatives to sell all his oxen and his wife sold her gold jewellery. Between them they raised $2,500 (£1,700). It just about paid the hospital bill.
He returned to his village in a battered old wheelchair given to him by the hospital. "When I got back there was a big change in how everyone treated me," he recalls. "No one wanted to speak to me. I was shunned. Everyone treated me as a burden."
Worse than the ostracism was the mockery. The villagers gave him the cruel nickname "the Frog" because of his posture. "They said that all frogs were good for was eating." Cambodian drinkers like grilled frogs to eat while drinking alcohol. The disdain became so bad that, combined with his sense of shock at the condition in which he now found himself, he decided to kill himself. "I would have done it many times but my wife was strong and counselled me and built the strength in me."
For the first year his wife ran the farm. "All I could do was help clean the rice after the harvest and put it in sacks." But he was determined to keep on. From his wheelchair he began to plant trees – 20 mango, 15 jack fruit, 30 lemon trees. But, despite all his efforts, he could not make a success. Then, four years after the explosion which took his legs, an aid worker came to the village and suggested that he go away to a rehabilitation centre for people with disabilities, to get some training. He learnt how to repair motorbikes and afterwards returned to Kamnop to set up his own one-man business.
"I had a lot of customers but they would only come to me when they had no money," he says. "They asked for credit, but they never paid the bills. They felt they could cheat me because they knew that I would not be able to catch them to get the money."
For Mr Sarin the turning point came with the arrival of workers funded by Action on Disability and Development (ADD) which is one of the charities being supported by this year's Independent Christmas Appeal. They taught him that he had rights under Cambodian law as a disabled person. ADD also offered to fund a scheme which had been germinating at the back of his mind since he first went to the training centre. "Until I went there I had never met another disabled person. I thought I must be the only one who had to live like this," he recalls. "I developed a plan to go to all the villages around Kamnop to find out whether there were other disabled people like me."
But he had lacked the confidence to set out to fulfil the plan. ADD gave him that confidence: "My son began to give me a lift on his motorbike to other villages." ADD expanded Mr Sarin's initiative and three other disabled people joined him in what it now calls the "counterpart" programme. "We now have joined up 294 disabled people in three different communes in 22 self-help groups," he says.
That work has been replicated elsewhere, thanks to ADD. The counterpart programme now reaches hundreds of disabled people – and educates local officials, teachers, council staff and community and religious leaders about the rights of disabled people. The status this has given Mr Sarin with the local authorities has rubbed off on the people in his village. "Today I am treated with respect. People have listened to me for the first time. They have begun to think what life must be like for someone with a disability. Attitudes have really changed."
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Cambodian teen one of thousands left maimed by buried explosives
Maria Almudevar-van Santen (left) fields questions put to landmine survivor Min Vanna, 16, at St. Bernadette School in Kitchener. (Photo: MATHEW MCCARTHY, RECORD STAFF)December 12, 2007
KAREN KAWAWADA
RECORD STAFF
The Record (Ontario, Canada)
KITCHENER
In her pink sweatshirt, jeans and shy smile, she looks like any other 16-year-old. Then a child asks her what her leg looks like.
Min Vanna pulls up her jean leg and pulls down a sock. There, coloured a light brown that doesn't quite match her skin, is a hard plastic cylinder.
It's the type of leg she's had for most of her life, since she lost most of her real one by stepping on a landmine.
Min -- Vanna is her given name -- stopped at Kitchener's St. Bernadette School yesterday to speak to Grade 4 to 8 students, two of whom have a special connection with her.
Oliver Sangster and Victoria Seitz, respectively in Grade 7 and 8, contributed drawings to Vanna's Dance, a children's book penned by Kitchener author Maria Almudevar-van Santen.
Min is from a rural area of Cambodia and she's one of thousands of landmine victims in her country -- about one in every 350 people is an amputee, according to UNICEF.
Although the country has been largely peaceful since 1998, three decades of civil war left it one of the most heavily mined countries in the world.
The casualty rate has dropped from more than 4,000 in 1996, but mines still kill or maim 800 to 900 people a year.
Through Prak Sokhon of the Cambodian Mine Action Centre, who is acting as her interpreter on her first visit to Canada, Min said she remembers the day she stepped on a landmine.
It was the afternoon of Aug. 8, 1997. She was five years old, and her father had asked her to feed the chickens.
She was trying to catch a chicken when she stepped on an antipersonnel mine about the size of a hockey puck. It tore the lower half of her leg to shreds.
Her father and brother bound up her leg with a scarf and took her to hospital in an ox cart, a five-hour journey, said Almudevar-van Santen.
Min said she remembers being loaded onto a stretcher in hospital and taken into an operating room. A doctor gave her a needle to knock her out, then started cutting off her trousers.
When she woke up, her leg was gone below the knee.
She has since had three more surgeries to trim bones that kept growing. The last was in 2004.
As she's still growing, she needs a new prosthetic leg every year, and it hurts every time she gets a new one. It takes about six months before she's fully comfortable on a new leg.
Almudevar-van Santen heard about her from a Belgian filmmaker who was at the hospital when Min came in and was impressed by her bravery. Almudevar-van Santen wrote her book based on what she knew but had no way of contacting her at the time.
It wasn't until last year that Min learned someone had written a book about her. It was a surprise, but a good one, she said through Prak.
Profits from book sales have always gone to Adopt-A-Minefield, but now Almudevar-van Santen has started raising money to put Min through school, including university if she wants.
She now lives in town, 50 to 60 kilometres from where her parents still live, so she can go to school. She lives with a family that runs a tailor shop and she sews for her room and board. Her family struggles to pay her school fees.
Her goals are to finish school, perhaps become a tour guide and continue to raise awareness about mines.
Min has already touched people -- since she arrived in Canada Nov. 20, she has spoken at several events, including a Winnipeg landmine conference where former foreign affairs minister Lloyd Axworthy joined the crowd in giving her a standing ovation.
Though it's cold in Canada, people are more welcoming than at home, Min said.
Amputees are often shunned and considered unmarriageable in Cambodia, said Almudevar-van Santen.
Oliver, 12, whose drawing appears on the cover of the book, said Min has already inspired him to do something about landmines. He has raised $800 for Adopt-a-Minefield.
"It was very exciting" to meet her at last, he said.
"She has so much courage -- even though her leg is gone, she's still able to go to school and stuff."
To donate to Min's education fund, go to www.vannasdance.com.
Min Vanna pulls up her jean leg and pulls down a sock. There, coloured a light brown that doesn't quite match her skin, is a hard plastic cylinder.
It's the type of leg she's had for most of her life, since she lost most of her real one by stepping on a landmine.
Min -- Vanna is her given name -- stopped at Kitchener's St. Bernadette School yesterday to speak to Grade 4 to 8 students, two of whom have a special connection with her.
Oliver Sangster and Victoria Seitz, respectively in Grade 7 and 8, contributed drawings to Vanna's Dance, a children's book penned by Kitchener author Maria Almudevar-van Santen.
Min is from a rural area of Cambodia and she's one of thousands of landmine victims in her country -- about one in every 350 people is an amputee, according to UNICEF.
Although the country has been largely peaceful since 1998, three decades of civil war left it one of the most heavily mined countries in the world.
The casualty rate has dropped from more than 4,000 in 1996, but mines still kill or maim 800 to 900 people a year.
Through Prak Sokhon of the Cambodian Mine Action Centre, who is acting as her interpreter on her first visit to Canada, Min said she remembers the day she stepped on a landmine.
It was the afternoon of Aug. 8, 1997. She was five years old, and her father had asked her to feed the chickens.
She was trying to catch a chicken when she stepped on an antipersonnel mine about the size of a hockey puck. It tore the lower half of her leg to shreds.
Her father and brother bound up her leg with a scarf and took her to hospital in an ox cart, a five-hour journey, said Almudevar-van Santen.
Min said she remembers being loaded onto a stretcher in hospital and taken into an operating room. A doctor gave her a needle to knock her out, then started cutting off her trousers.
When she woke up, her leg was gone below the knee.
She has since had three more surgeries to trim bones that kept growing. The last was in 2004.
As she's still growing, she needs a new prosthetic leg every year, and it hurts every time she gets a new one. It takes about six months before she's fully comfortable on a new leg.
Almudevar-van Santen heard about her from a Belgian filmmaker who was at the hospital when Min came in and was impressed by her bravery. Almudevar-van Santen wrote her book based on what she knew but had no way of contacting her at the time.
It wasn't until last year that Min learned someone had written a book about her. It was a surprise, but a good one, she said through Prak.
Profits from book sales have always gone to Adopt-A-Minefield, but now Almudevar-van Santen has started raising money to put Min through school, including university if she wants.
She now lives in town, 50 to 60 kilometres from where her parents still live, so she can go to school. She lives with a family that runs a tailor shop and she sews for her room and board. Her family struggles to pay her school fees.
Her goals are to finish school, perhaps become a tour guide and continue to raise awareness about mines.
Min has already touched people -- since she arrived in Canada Nov. 20, she has spoken at several events, including a Winnipeg landmine conference where former foreign affairs minister Lloyd Axworthy joined the crowd in giving her a standing ovation.
Though it's cold in Canada, people are more welcoming than at home, Min said.
Amputees are often shunned and considered unmarriageable in Cambodia, said Almudevar-van Santen.
Oliver, 12, whose drawing appears on the cover of the book, said Min has already inspired him to do something about landmines. He has raised $800 for Adopt-a-Minefield.
"It was very exciting" to meet her at last, he said.
"She has so much courage -- even though her leg is gone, she's still able to go to school and stuff."
To donate to Min's education fund, go to www.vannasdance.com.
Monday, December 03, 2007
Defying the odds
Reason for living: Ek Leng with his wife, Kan Vy, whose love has enabled him to keep going. Monday December 3, 2007
The Star (Malaysia)
A stone’s throw from the Kampung Speu physical rehabilitation centre is the home of former mine victim Ek Leng.
An ex-Khmer Rouge soldier, Ek Leng was involved in a battle against the Vietnamese army before stepping on a mine in 1982 at Battambang province.
He lost both his legs (upper limbs included) in that incident.
“When I regained consciousness, I realised I was already in hospital. I thought I would die soon but it didn’t happen,” said the 50-year-old.
And in Ek’s case, love transformed everything. Love gave him a new lease of life and showed him that there were things he could look forward to every day.
“My wife helped me see life in a new light,” Ek admitted unabashedly. “Despite my disability, she never gave up on me.
“I was touched by the girl who loved me for who I was, and we got married in 1985, three years after I had my legs amputated.”
Ek met his wife, Kan Vy, when she was hired to cook for the soldiers. Both of them had a lot in common since they came from the same town.
Love was indeed in the air in his wooden home built on stilts, where Ek has heart symbols glued onto a frame holding the couple’s wedding photograph, and on his modified tricycle, which is his mode of transportation nowadays.
He has also become a coach for a wheelchair race team which he leads in an annual national competition in Phnom Penh.
Sport has become therapy for him and many of his friends, too, as it helps keep them occupied and prevents their minds from wallowing in the past.
He rears chicken on the spacious grounds of his home, and had been invited by the community on numerous occasions to give motivational talks to other disabled persons.
“I earn about US$45 (RM152) as a coach, and receive a government allowance of US$25 (RM84).
“My biggest achievement is having a job, compared to others who are not so lucky.
“I also buy young calves and sell them at a higher market price once they have become adults. Cows are assets to Cambodians.
“All this money helps fund my three children’s education in university,” said the cheerful Ek.
Continuing our journey three hours northwest towards the province of Pursat to meet another victim, we rolled pass verdant fields, simple thatched shacks built of wood or palm leaves, the many pagodas with their spiral architecture, people thronging wet markets and food stalls, and long stretches of undeveloped land.
Our taxi driver Pen Sophat seemed bent on using the horn to ward off motorcyclists who veered dangerously in the middle of the two-lane road, or cars heading for us in the opposite direction as they attempted to overtake.
But using their horns is second nature for drivers in Cambodia. And the daredevils that they are, they only slam on the brakes when they are inches away from the vehicle in front!
Turning off the main road, the route leading to the home of Heng Sophal was a rough and bumpy one, with deep potholes and puddles of water.
His shack, made of dried palm leaves, was a small cubicle where his family sleeps and cooks in. Heng makes a living climbing palm trees to tap and extract their fresh sap, which is then cooked into a sticky sugary pulp for sale.
The gaps in his home are no protection against the rain, so when it pours, the whole family shift their sleeping positions to another corner of the hut.
The place was pervaded by poverty, yet Heng did not once indulge in self-pity. He happily regaled us with adventures of his everyday job, and demonstrated to us how he would climb a tree, using a thin long tree trunk with protruding stumps as his ladder and his prosthesis from the ICRC.
“I stepped on a mine when I was 14 while looking for my buffalo near the mountains.
My leg had to be amputated below the knee.
“Most of the time, I rely a lot on my hands for strength. We need to be independent and earn our own income because no one can help us if we don’t,” said the 28-year-old.
Heng earns about RM5 a day from the palm sugar, which his 23-year-old wife has to diligently stir while it boils in a wok, and harvests his own rice that yields about 500kg a year, which is sufficient for his family’s consumption.
The government, he said, has also implemented a programme to help poor villagers earn a living through a buffalo adoption scheme.
“Poor families get an adult female buffalo so that it can give birth, and when the baby is old enough to work, the government will take back the adult female so we can still use the baby to make a living.”
And with that, Heng gathered his two young children and wife to pose for a family photo, before sending us off with true hospitality and a broad smile.
He may be poor, lives a life that is most basic, and has to deal with the unfortunate fate of a mine victim, but Heng’s optimism reminded us that it is important not to despair or give up hope even in the most trying times because life has to go on.
An ex-Khmer Rouge soldier, Ek Leng was involved in a battle against the Vietnamese army before stepping on a mine in 1982 at Battambang province.
He lost both his legs (upper limbs included) in that incident.
“When I regained consciousness, I realised I was already in hospital. I thought I would die soon but it didn’t happen,” said the 50-year-old.
And in Ek’s case, love transformed everything. Love gave him a new lease of life and showed him that there were things he could look forward to every day.
“My wife helped me see life in a new light,” Ek admitted unabashedly. “Despite my disability, she never gave up on me.
“I was touched by the girl who loved me for who I was, and we got married in 1985, three years after I had my legs amputated.”
Ek met his wife, Kan Vy, when she was hired to cook for the soldiers. Both of them had a lot in common since they came from the same town.
Love was indeed in the air in his wooden home built on stilts, where Ek has heart symbols glued onto a frame holding the couple’s wedding photograph, and on his modified tricycle, which is his mode of transportation nowadays.
He has also become a coach for a wheelchair race team which he leads in an annual national competition in Phnom Penh.
Sport has become therapy for him and many of his friends, too, as it helps keep them occupied and prevents their minds from wallowing in the past.
He rears chicken on the spacious grounds of his home, and had been invited by the community on numerous occasions to give motivational talks to other disabled persons.
“I earn about US$45 (RM152) as a coach, and receive a government allowance of US$25 (RM84).
“My biggest achievement is having a job, compared to others who are not so lucky.
“I also buy young calves and sell them at a higher market price once they have become adults. Cows are assets to Cambodians.
“All this money helps fund my three children’s education in university,” said the cheerful Ek.
Continuing our journey three hours northwest towards the province of Pursat to meet another victim, we rolled pass verdant fields, simple thatched shacks built of wood or palm leaves, the many pagodas with their spiral architecture, people thronging wet markets and food stalls, and long stretches of undeveloped land.
Our taxi driver Pen Sophat seemed bent on using the horn to ward off motorcyclists who veered dangerously in the middle of the two-lane road, or cars heading for us in the opposite direction as they attempted to overtake.
But using their horns is second nature for drivers in Cambodia. And the daredevils that they are, they only slam on the brakes when they are inches away from the vehicle in front!
Turning off the main road, the route leading to the home of Heng Sophal was a rough and bumpy one, with deep potholes and puddles of water.
His shack, made of dried palm leaves, was a small cubicle where his family sleeps and cooks in. Heng makes a living climbing palm trees to tap and extract their fresh sap, which is then cooked into a sticky sugary pulp for sale.
The gaps in his home are no protection against the rain, so when it pours, the whole family shift their sleeping positions to another corner of the hut.
The place was pervaded by poverty, yet Heng did not once indulge in self-pity. He happily regaled us with adventures of his everyday job, and demonstrated to us how he would climb a tree, using a thin long tree trunk with protruding stumps as his ladder and his prosthesis from the ICRC.
“I stepped on a mine when I was 14 while looking for my buffalo near the mountains.
My leg had to be amputated below the knee.
“Most of the time, I rely a lot on my hands for strength. We need to be independent and earn our own income because no one can help us if we don’t,” said the 28-year-old.
Heng earns about RM5 a day from the palm sugar, which his 23-year-old wife has to diligently stir while it boils in a wok, and harvests his own rice that yields about 500kg a year, which is sufficient for his family’s consumption.
The government, he said, has also implemented a programme to help poor villagers earn a living through a buffalo adoption scheme.
“Poor families get an adult female buffalo so that it can give birth, and when the baby is old enough to work, the government will take back the adult female so we can still use the baby to make a living.”
And with that, Heng gathered his two young children and wife to pose for a family photo, before sending us off with true hospitality and a broad smile.
He may be poor, lives a life that is most basic, and has to deal with the unfortunate fate of a mine victim, but Heng’s optimism reminded us that it is important not to despair or give up hope even in the most trying times because life has to go on.
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