The Humpty Dumpty Institute (HDI) is very busy setting up its "Mushrooms with a Mission" program in conjunction with its local partner, Project Renew. In this livelihood development program, we are providing some of the most vulnerable families in Qang Tri Province in central Vietnam with the tools and knowledge to become mushroom farmers.
Why mushrooms? Well, mushrooms are one of the easiest, most low-tech crops to grow. They virtually grow themselves. And since only survivors of landmine and UXO (unexploded ordnance) accidents can qualify for this program, we had to find something that even amputees could manage.
Meet Do Thien Dang. He lost both legs in a UXO accident but still had to find a way to provide for his three children and extended family. Do Thien is now supplmenting his income by farming mushrooms. HDI and Project Renew have been signing up families to join the program with a goal of 1,000 families over the next five years. We provide an automatic market to our mushroom growers by guaranteeing to buy as many mushrooms as the farmers can produce.
In a mushroom processing facility, the mushrooms will be organically certified, dried, packaged and marketed to various outlets in Vietnam and eventually to other coutries in the region and ultimately to Australia, Europe and North America.
All profits from the sale of these "mushrooms with a mission" will be invested in a fund used to remove landmines and UXOs from one of the most heavily bombed areas during the war between Vietnam and the U.S.
And for those of you who wonder how explosive remnants of war that was fought 40 years ago are still threatening the civilian population in Vietnam, just a couple of weeks ago two horrible incidents took place:
On February 7, 2010, a UXO explosion seriously wounded four men while they were weeding at a coffee plantation near the former U.S. Marine base at Khe Sanh. The accident occurred in Tram Village, Huong Tan Commune of Huong Hoa District, where the Van Kieu and Paco ethnic minorities make up most of the local population along the western border area of Quang Tri Province. Huong Tan Commune is close to the Ta Con Airstrip, the Vietnamese name for the area known by the U.S. military as Khe Sanh Combat Base, an outpost of the U.S. Marines operating in South Vietnam during the war.
In October 2008, also in Tram Village, an explosion of old wartime ordnance detonated in the kitchen of the Van Kieu family. The explosion killed a four-year-old boy and injured the mother and her three-year-old daughter.
Less then a week later, a cluster bomb exploded and killed Ho Van Nguyen on February 12, as he was cutting weeds around his banana trees and preparing for Tet, the Vietnamese New Year celebrations. The accident occurred in Mai Lanh Village, Mo O Commune of Dakrong District, which is in the western part of Quang Tri Province, along the former wartime DMZ. On the eve of Tet, Nguyen’s tragic death suddenly thrusts his family into extreme difficulties. His wife and six daughters, the youngest only three years old, are facing shock and grief, and an uncertain future. The family’s emotional tragedy (some of the images may be disturbing) is compounded by the loss of their only breadwinner, who also supported his aging parents.
Since the war ended in 1975, more than a third of the 105,000 casualties in Vietnam have been caused by cluster munitions, called “bombies” or guava bombs by the local ethnic minority people.
Watch a short news clip recently aired by World Focus: