RENEW team cleans up site to build a cultural center (21-04-2010)

1. Community Survey Team interviewing a beneficiary family. 2. Team members cutting vegetation to prepare for site clearance operations.

Cam Lo, Quang Tri (21-04-2010): Moc Duc Village, the only village in Cam Hieu Commune that does not have its own community cultural center, is about to get one - constructed on land that is being cleared of dangerous ordnance by a Project RENEW clearance team. Project RENEW’s Battle Area Clearance (BAC) team, deployed as part our partnership with Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA), began operations last week in Moc Duc Village of Cam Hieu Commune, Cam Lo District last week, following completion of an impact survey of unexploded ordnance (UXO) in the area. The site for the cultural center covers 1,000 square meters. "Local people desperately wanted a community center to conduct village affairs," said Mr. Nguyen Thien Truong, chief of Moc Duc Village, "but limited budget and land contaminated by UXO delayed our plans for a long time. All village meetings have had to be held righ in my house." The village board long ago identified a suitable location for the center, but construction could not begin because of fear of UXO left from the war that ended 35 years ago. “Now with substantial support from RENEW's clearance team, we will have peace of mind to undertake this construction work right after this site is cleaned up”, Truong said. Located right on the northern bank of Hieu River, about 7km

west of Dong Ha City, Moc Duc Village residents are seeing a clearance team at work for the first time since the war ended. The village is made up of 112 families with a total population of 480. Despite its proximity to the urban center of the province, Moc Duc Village is the poorest in Cam Hieu Commune with 50 percent of the families living under the poverty line.

According to local residents, after the war they found many UXO in their fields. Some people, with no safe alternatives available, took it upon themselves to try to remove the ordnance. Some dug holes and buried it. An accident in 1978 badly wounded two women farmers when they hit a 40mm grenade (also known as M79) while farming.

According to Peter Herbst, NPA's Technical Advisor assisting the RENEW BAC team, it would take roughly three weeks for the team to complete clearance work at the site, using new MINELAB detectors recently imported from Australia. “This is a very experienced team who work very hard," Peter said. " We just finished a ten-day training course on using the new detectors, and the team members picked up the new technical skills very fast,” said Peter.

To assist BAC operations, a community survey team has been established with members trained to provide operational field support and post-impact assessment. This three-man team will evaluate socio-economic impacts of clearance operations to ensure that the operations are cost efficient and achieve the intended impact.

During 2010-2011, in addition to continuing support to improve quick response EOD capacity, NPA has prioritised its assistance to build more BAC capacity for Project RENEW in response to local authorities’ needs for clearing small and medium sites for public works, including schools, clinics, community centers, and residential areas. The end goal of NPA's mine action strategy and support of Project RENEW is a significant reduction in the number of accidents caused by UXO in Quang Tri Province, and providing Project RENEW with the skills and competency to sucessfully plan and manage future BAC operations according to International standards.

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