Communiqué

The Humpty Dumpty Institute

Monthly Communiqué from Laos

September 2007

With funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food for Education program, the Humpty Dumpty Institute (HDI) is continuing to implement its UXO clearance and school rehabilitation project in Laos according to plan.

In August, the Mines Advisory Group (MAG) demining teams funded by the HDI program carried out clearance activities at 7 school sites, clearing a total of 42,735 m2 and 47 UXO. Since the project's start a total of 16 schools have been handed over and the demining teams have cleared a total of 730,748 m2.

HDI's development partner in Laos, International Relief and Development (IRD), received the remaining food shipments (230 MT of beans, 180 MT of corn-soy blend and 230 MT of rice), finalized sufficient and suitable warehouse space, and distributed food and cooking supplies to most of the 110 villages participating in the school-feeding program. The HDI project coordinator in Laos led 7 cooking workshops. IRD completed the hiring process for the program by recruiting the Monitoring Manager and Community Monitor.

Mr. Sinthone Phongsavath is newly appointed
demining team leader.

This month's communiqué profiles 36-year-old Sinthone Phongsavath, one of MAG's team leaders in the field.

Mr. Sinthone completed only the second year of secondary school in Bokeo province, which is in the northwestern part of Laos. After leaving school, he moved to Khammouane province, where he lived for 7 years. He worked for 3 years at a plywood factory at Mahaxay district. In 2004 he joined MAG.

He lives at the deminers' camp and gets up at 4:30 AM every day. He checks the team's equipment and mine detectors and supervises the loading of the cars before leaving the camp to travel to the clearance site at 6 AM.

Immediately after arriving at the site he re-checks the mine detectors and tools and helps his team to unload the equipment. He then conducts a short meeting to plan the day's work, gives a safety briefing, and then sets up a control point. He draws a map of the day's work and records the number of cleared UXOs and the amount of scrap metal found. If there are guests visiting their site, he also explains the demining team's activities and gives a safety briefing to the guests during their visit.

The teams usually stop work in the field at 2 PM every day. At the end of the day, Mr. Sinthone helps his team clean the mine detectors and other equipments and assists with packing them for the next day. He conducts a short meeting again after work to discuss the day's events with the team. If a problem is raised, he will try to find a solution to improve the next day's work. If he cannot solve the problem, he will radio MAG managers for assistance. After work is finished, he will radio the Gnommalath office to inform them about the day's work and then return to the camp. Along with the rest of his team, he works a 22/23 day per month cycle and stands down 8 days.

Mr. Sinthone says he is ready to continue working for MAG as long as the project is running. Since he began working on the HDI program, he met a woman from a nearby village and married her. He is very happy and thanks MAG for providing him with his job (and his wife). Mr Sinthone and his wife now have twins (one boy and one girl) who are two years old.

For more information on HDI's work in Laos, please contact Dr. Robert Keeley, the HDI Laos Country Director, at Bob.Keeley@thehdi.org.