Grants To Reinforce Humanitarian Mine Action

The Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement in the Department of State’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs has awarded over $5 million in grants to non-governmental and international organizations, educational institutions, and civic associations under a new Request for Applications procedure to reinforce humanitarian mine action. This is in addition to over $115 million that the Department invested in mine action in fiscal year 2004.

Twenty grants for special projects and crosscutting initiatives were awarded to the following organizations:

• Mines Advisory Group to conduct mechanical mine action support and mine clearance in Cambodia and Vietnam, respectively, mine risk education in southern Sudan, and to develop an abandoned and hazardous ordnance site survey methodology for Angola;
• UNICEF to conduct community-based mine risk education programs in Afghanistan and Senegal;
• United Nations World Food Program to demine roads in southern Sudan;
• Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation to provide post landmine impact survey assistance to Lebanon’s National Demining Office;
• Geneva International Center for Humanitarian Demining to study the synergy between humanitarian mine action and small arms/light weapons programs;
• Marshall Legacy Institute to expand two mine detection dog public-private partnerships in Azerbaijan and Sri Lanka and to expand its Children Against Landmines (CHAMPS) mine detection dog sponsorship project from Wyoming to schools in other U.S. states and in foreign countries, particularly mine-affected ones;
• Humpty Dumpty Institute to support its new model for monetizing surplus U.S. food aid in order to support humanitarian mine action;
• Rotary International District 5030, via the International Trade Education Foundation, to increase awareness, action and funding for humanitarian mine action among Rotarians worldwide and to create and distribute a video depicting Rotarians involved in supporting mine action;
• HALO Trust to match a contribution by an American citizen, Mr.George Begley, for demining in Afghanistan’s Shomali Valley;
• Mine Action Information Center at James Madison University to develop curriculum and training materials to support U.S. Government mine action training, and facilitate a public-private partnership workshop to assess civil society’s role in humanitarian mine action and potential for supporting small arms/light weapons abatement.
• Cranfield University to conduct mine action management training in order to enhance the capacity of Afghanistan’s and Iraq’s Mine Action Programs; and
• Roots of Peace to expand its "Pennies for Peace" student program from Marin County, California to other schools in the United States, Japan and Europe to encourage school children to support humanitarian mine action.