Ending Abuse Yemen Project #6104

Help a Landmine Victim Walk Again

by The Marshall Legacy Institute (MLI)

Project Report | Dec 5, 2014
Landmine Survivors receiving the support they need

By Tycie Horsley | Development Director

Ms. Allau

Thank you for your continued support and interest in the Marshall Legacy Institute (MLI) and our humanitarian programs. With your generous gifts, we are able to continue providing critically needed medical care and vocational training for landmine survivors around the world. Through our Children Against Mines Program (CHAMPS) and Survivors Assistance programs, we provide mine survivors in countries like Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen with vocational training classes that enhance their skills in sewing, computers, electrical repair, poultry production, and much more. Additionally, each year, our Mine Risk Education classes reach thousands of people living in mine-affected communities, and we have helped hundred of severely injured survivors by providing them with critically needed medical care, prostheses, and mobility equipment.

For example, in Yemen, our programs are helping people like Wardah, a 35-year-old Yemeni woman who stepped on a landmine when she was 16 years old while she was helping her mother collect water from the well. At the time, she was carrying 20 liters of water and thought she would take a shortcut off the road to shorten her journey. Along the way, she tried to avoid the pieces of metal that poked out of the ground from the recent rain, but there was one piece that she saw too late. ”Next,” she says, “everything went quiet… I didn’t feel any pain at the time; I was only scared… I watched the sky and waited for the angels to take me.”

After losing her right leg in the explosion, she struggled to maintain hope for a bright future. "The first year was the worst," she said, ”I was thinking that death would be more merciful to me, but my feelings have since changed, and, after receiving a new leg and participating in MLI's classes, I now feel that I can do something for my family, myself, and others.”

In Yemen, MLI collaborates with our in-country partner, the Yemen Association for Landmine and UXO Survivors (YALS), and with funds raised from private donors, MLI helps landmine survivors like Wardah by providing them with medical assistance and the vocational training that they need to make them more successful in the job market. Last year, through this program, Wardah received a prosthetic leg and participated in MLI's computer training class and, with the knowledge and skills she acquired through the training, she secured a job at the Ministry of Industry and Commerce.

Today, thanks to the prosthetic leg and the training she received in the computer class, Wardah says she has regained her hope for the future and is very grateful to everyone who has helped her. Thank YOU for your continued support and for your generous gifts to support MLI's humanitarian programs that enable us to assist people like Ms. Allau.

Landmine survivors in a computer training course

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Jun 30, 2014
Helping Landmine Survivors in Yemen

By Tycie Horsley | Development Director

Children in Yemen learn about landmines

Thank you for your ongoing support and interest in the Marshall Legacy Institute's (MLI) humanitarian programs. With your help, we are working to create a safer and better world for all people and animals.

One of our programs, the Children Against Mines Program (CHAMPS), not only connects children in mine-affected countries with youth in the United States, enabling them to communicate via video conference on a regular basis and expand their global citizenship, but the program also includes a service learning component that involves all of the children in mine-action. In Yemen, CHAMPS youth receive Mine Risk Education (MRE) and then teach other children what landmines look like, why they are dangerous, and how to avoid them. They also locate and befriend mine survivors and introduce them to American students, who then raise funds to help the survivors in a variety of ways. In the past year, MLI has provided mine risk education, psychological counseling, vocational training, and prosthetic limbs to dozens of landmine survivors in Yemen. One of these survivors, Abdulfatah Mohammed, shares his story below.

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A Landmine Survivor's Story

Abdulfatah begins his story by invoking the following proverb:

"When old people fight, it is the young who will be the victims."

"On a hot day in 2000, I was on my way to school, lagging behind my friends with my nose in a book to prepare for an exam later that day. At the time, my village and the neighboring village where I attended school were fighting with each other, but despite the daily challenges of getting to and from school safely, I had dreams of becoming a doctor and I attended school enthusiastically with my friends. But on that particular day, my foot landed on a buried mine and changed my life forever."

Abdulfatah now works at the Internet

cafe established by MLI while he attends university

Abdulfatah continues his story, explaining that his friends were too scared to move him, as they had already passed over the area where the mine exploded and were afraid that there were even more landmines lurking just out of sight in the ground. Luckily, other people from the nearby village heard the explosion and rushed out to care for him, saving his life. But although his life was saved, the mine's explosion damaged his right leg so severely that it needed to be amputated and resulted in him missing two years of school because he wasn't able to walk the 40 minutes to and from school each day.

Today, nearly 14 years after his horrific accident, Abdulfatah is finally regaining hope for the future. With the support of the U.S. Department of State's Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement (PM/WRA), and in collaboration with the Yemen Association of Landmine Survivors (YALS), American children raised funds through CHAMPS that enabled a psychologist to speak with Abdulfatah and nineteen other landmine survivors about having patience with their disability, tactics to reintegrate into their communities, and ways to become economic contributors and providers for their households. Abdulfatah recounts that, "during the Psychological Rehabilitation Training, I learned many lessons on how to face life with resolve and to continue high school. I am now studying in the third level of my Trade & Finance College."

Abdulfatah was also hired to manage the Internet café established by MLI in 2010, which enables him to have an income while he attends university. Although it means a lot of work, he is determined to provide for himself and his family, so that he does not need to rely on others' aid. He is very grateful to all of MLI's supporters who have helped him regain hope and lead an independent life.

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Unfortunately, there are many landmine survivors like Abdulfatah in Yemen, but, with your help, MLI will continue to provide them with much needed support, including prosthetic limbs and other forms of medical assistance, vocational training, pyschological counseling, and mine risk education. Thank you for your support of these vital projects. We look forward to continuing to share with you how your generosity has made a positve impact on the lives of those living in mine-affected countries.

MLI provides prostheses to survivors in Yemen

Children learn about each other through CHAMPS

Many children are injured by landmines in Yemen

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Feb 20, 2014
Making a Difference for Landmine Survivors

By Tycie Horsley | Development Director

Young woman recently fitted with a prosthetic hand

Thank you for your continued interest in the Marshall Legacy Institute (MLI) and our humanitarian programs. Because of the generosity of people like you, we have been able to positively impact the lives of thousands of landmine victims and their family members. We are continuing to work hard in places like Iraq, where the civilian population has suffered incredibly from landmines and other explosive remnants of war. Both young & adult landmine survivors face long-term medical and psychological challenges. As young survivors grow, costly prostheses require replacement, repair, and maintenance. Landmine survivors often suffer psychological distress and require continued medical care & social integration. Unfortunately, these survivors and their families generally are unable to afford this care, and there is little psychological counseling available to children.

Even where rehabilitation facilities exist to provide artificial limbs and other medical care, survivors often lack transportation to travel to the facilities for the multiple appointments required for evaluations and fitting of artificial limbs. Because of their disabilities, landmine/war survivors also suffer high unemployment rates. Specialized vocational rehabilitation is limited, and when offered, is often unavailable to survivors who lack transportation.

Thousands of landmine survivors in Basra, Iraq are facing these issues, so last year, in partnership with the Iraq Mine and UXO Clearance Organization (IMCO) and the U.S. State Department's Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement (PM/WRA), MLI initiated a program to identify, interview, register, medically support, transport, train and help find jobs for these survivors. This ambitious & comprehensive program has been very successful thus far: over 2,000 survivors have been interviewed, evaluated & registered in the national database of persons with disabilities; 75 survivors have received prosthetic limbs, eyes, and/or orthotic braces; dozens have received special walking sticks and/or wheelchairs; 30 female survivors have successfully completed a sewing course and are now earning an income; and 17 survivors graduated from an air-conditioning repair course and are becoming employed in areas where they live. Additionally, MLI purchased a bus to transport survivors to medical appointments, training, and employment sites; and we provided specialized training to doctors & technicians at a local rehabilitation center to improve the quality of care for those who suffer traumatic injuries. We hope to continue to grow this important program in the coming year and look forward to providing you with updates.

Thank you again for your generous support. Because of you, we are able to help even more people who have been injured by landmines. To learn more about MLI's various programs around the world, including our Mine Detection Dog Partnership Program, please visit our website at www.marshall-legacy.org.

Recent graduates from the air conditioning class

Young boy being fitted with a prosthetic leg

Iraqi man being fitted with a new leg

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