CISR Supports Expansion of Peer Support Activities to Burundi’s Capital

In April, CISR Peer Support Specialist Cameron Macauley returned to Burundi to assist in the training of new peer support workers for a program expansion into Bujumbura, Burundi’s capital. CISR’s Burundian partner since 2010, CEDAC (Center for the Education and Development for Ex-Combatants) operates a highly successful program for survivors of war-related violence in Muramvya, a community about 20 miles east of the capital. CEDAC’s peer-support workers provide counseling and psychosocial support to survivors who are recovering from traumatic experiences suffered during Burundi’s civil conflict, which ended in 2006.

With support from CISR, CEDAC implemented a new monitoring and evaluation system last June to assess the results of its work with 363 survivors. Preliminary data suggests that CEDAC’s services are overwhelmingly successful, with 99 percent of survivors reporting positive changes in their lives as a direct result of peer support.

With generous assistance from Action on Armed Violence (AOAV), a London-based nongovernmental organization, CEDAC will begin providing services in Bujumbura, where thousands of war survivors still need assistance. This most recent training prepared 30 women with disabilities to offer peer support in the capital. CEDAC’s supervisors were also trained to respond to issues related to disability, such as discrimination, domestic violence, and lack of access to schools, clinics and government buildings. Participants also learned how to help survivors overcome low self-esteem and how to build self-confidence.

“With help from CISR and AOAV we hope to eventually become a national organization,” said Eric Niragira, CEDAC’s executive director. “We look forward to the day when all war survivors can participate fully in Burundian society.”

~ Cameron Macauley, CISR Peer Support and Trauma Rehabilitation Specialist

A “Nobel” Cause: Portraits of Peace

by Nora D. Sheets [ WVCBL/PSALM ]

Students from St. Francis de Sales Central Catholic School in Morgantown, West Virginia, U.S., created an art exhibit to recognize International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) advocates and landmine survivors.

Members of Proud Students Against Landmines and Cluster Bombs/West Virginia Campaign to Ban Landmines and Cluster Bombs (PSALM/WVCBL or PSALM for short) met in fall 2012 to discuss how to join the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) and celebrate 20 years of campaigning for a world free of landmines. It seemed fitting that a youth campaign born from an art project would commemorate the event with artwork. Portraits highlighted ICBL campaigners and a timeline of photographs celebrated the 20th anniversary of ICBL winning the Nobel Peace Prize, along with PSALM’s work with the campaign. The exhibit, A “NOBEL” CAUSE: Portraits of Peace, opened at the Monongalia Arts Center in Morgantown, West Virginia, U.S., on 11 January 2013.      

PSALM students spent hours painting and preparing large-scale portraits of ICBL campaigners, mentors and role models, as well as landmine survivors who participated in the 2012 Paralympics in London. The subjects of the portraits are people who inspired PSALM students to use their talents and energy to make the world safer for children everywhere. These portraits represent a mere fraction of the many amazing people PSALM had the privilege of working with over the years. In addition to creating the artwork, PSALM students acted as gallery guides for visitors during the event.

ICBL, a global, civil movement, was born in 1992 to put an urgent stop to a humanitarian crisis. ICBL’s efforts were crucial to the development, negotiation, adoption and signing of the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-personnel Mines and on Their Destruction and in the same year ICBL was a co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.

As a teacher, I can attest to how often the student becomes the teacher and the teacher becomes the student. In 1999 I assigned a project to my eighth-grade art students: Design a piece of artwork that will educate the public about a global social-justice issue. The students chose landmines, and local veteran and ophthalmologist Dr. Larry Schwab encouraged my students to join the effort to rid the world of landmines. In 2000 PSALM students met with Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Jody Williams; Landmine Survivors Network co-founders Ken Rutherford and Jerry White; and Cambodian Campaign to Ban Landmines members including Nobel Peace Prize co-recipient Tun Channareth, ICBL Youth Ambassador Song Kosal and Sister Denise Coghlan. All went out of their way to educate the students about the issue. The students were dedicated to the mission. PSALM co-founder Ryan Lynch stated, “I learned a lot from working with the campaigns, lobbying lawmakers, raising awareness and meeting with other inspiring advocates, but most of all it empowers and inspires students to create change in a real way. I learned that social-justice advocacy is a powerful tool that can be utilized by anyone with hope.” 

Fourteen years later, PSALM is still committed to educating the public about the devastation caused by landmines and cluster munitions, and their indiscriminate nature that leads to loss of life, especially children’s lives, after wartime hostilities have ceased. Students and members work to raise awareness about survivor issues, prevent future casualties through service projects and contribute to the universal signature of the conventions banning landmines and cluster munitions. The service projects that PSALM students completed include collecting medical supplies for landmine victims in Nicaragua, providing a prosthetic device to a Bosnian landmine victim, raising funds in order to train mine detection dogs, as well as sponsoring three water wells in mine-affected regions of Cambodia. “We want a world where all children can walk to school, gather food or water, and play without the fear that each step may be their last,” said a PSALM student during the exhibit.

Biography

Nora D. Sheets has worked as an art teacher at St. Francis de Sales Central Catholic School in Morgantown, West Virginia, U.S., for 26 years. She is the coordinator for the student organization Proud Students Against Landmines and Cluster Bombs/West Virginia Campaign to Ban Landmines and Cluster Bombs (PSALM/WVCBL) Sheets has represented PSALM/WVCBL at International Campaign to Ban Landmines and Cluster Munition Coalition conferences in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cambodia, Colombia, Croatia, Jordan, Kenya, Laos and Norway.

Contact Information

Nora D. Sheets

Coordinator

PSALM/WVCBL

41 Guthrie Lane

Morgantown, WV 26508 / USA

Tel: + 1 304 291 5070

Email: noracat@yahoo.com, nsheets@stfrancismorgantown.com

Website: http://wvcbl.org

More photos from CISR Director Ken Rutherford’s Vietnam trip as part of CISR’s conflict survivor survey mission to adapt information management system along the lines of the Convention on the Rights and Dignity of People with Disabilities.

Prime Tech launches the new PT-D:Mine series.

PT-300 D:Mine e PT-400 D:Mine: the new tracked PrimeTech vehicles for demining

The PrimeTech brand was founded in 2005 within the Italian FAE Group from which it inherits 20 years of experience in the design and realization of  professional mulching shredders for tractors, skid steer loaders, excavators and special vehicles (prime movers). Since then PrimeTech’s signature designs tracked carriers that, depending on the fitted FAE head are used, can be used for forestry applications and for the stabilization and the remediation of soil, also in depth.

After extensive research and development in the field of mine clearance, PrimeTech has recently adapted its two top vehicles, the PT-300 with 275 HP and the PT-400 to 415 HP, to the remediation of mined areas. Both have been reinforced with special steel and equipped with demining heads that hit the ground causing detonation of the mines due to milling. PT-300 D:Mine (category Medium Machine) is a tracked carrier with a remote control module  that receives the signal up to a distance of 1000 m. It is equipped with the forestry tiller FAE 300/TD of which its working width is 2500 mm and is designed to clean up areas affected by dense vegetation and to withstand explosions of anti-tank and anti- personnel mines. The Hardox ® and Weldox ®  steel makes tool and rotor wear-resistant  while the Periflex system ® protects the head during the explosion. Depending on the type of ground on which it operates (which is made of earth, sand, or gravel) PT-300 D:Mine reaches a daily productivity up to 25000 m² and is able to work at depths of up to 250 mm. The ground pressure exerted by the vehicle is of only 0.26 kg/cm ², thanks to the oscillating undercarriage which is capable of maintaining excellent mobility both on land with steep slopes and in swampy areas which are made inaccessible due to mud and snow.PT-400 D:Mine belongs to the category Heavy Machine and is equipped with an armoured cab that is driven by the operator. The demining  head is a FAE 500/TD,  designed with the same technical characteristics of the FAE 300/TD but with a working width of 2750 mm and a working depth of  up to 300 mm depending on the type of soil. The daily production of the PT-400 D:Mine, which is always subject to the conditions of the remediation area to be cleaned up, is around 35000 m², while the pressure that the vehicle exerts on the ground is just 0.35 kg/cm ².