To use specially trained rats to detect and remove landmines, which harm or kill one person every 20 minutes.

Background:

Bart Weetjens

More than 70 million landmines are still in the ground in at least 60 countries, posing great risk to civilians. Each year, they harm or kill as many as 20,000 people.

Cheap to produce, landmines are costly and dangerous to remove. That’s why Bart Weetjens decided to recruit rats in the heroic effort. They have a highly developed sense of smell, are easy to train, cheap to sustain, and they are not heavy enough to set off the mines (unlike dogs).

After training them in Tanzania, Weetjen’s organization (apopo) has deployed them in real minefields in Mozambique.

Countries/Regions Affected:

For now, Mozambique.

Which groups do this?

• Hero Rats

Measurable Result

For €5 a month, you can “adopt” a rat through Hero Rat. But Hero Rat does not specify how many landmines each rat helps clear on average.

What You Can Do

• Donate money to Hero Rat and help fund the training and deployment of the rats.

Videos:

• Hero Rats (PBS Frontline/World)
• Animal Planet

That was what my Dad told me on the phone last week when I told him that I wanted to extend my time volunteering to help homeless people in Ireland. 

Coming from a middle class Chinese family in Thailand, my parents tend to push me towards the way they believe is best for me and my future: studying hard to get into the best universities, getting a good job in a big company, and having a long career there.
Volunteering is a concept they never appreciate. They call it, “Letting others exploit you for free.”

Despite what they think, volunteering is what I have done the most in the last five years.  Actually, when I started volunteering, I was in a very severe state, having suffered an emotional breakdown in my transition to the university.  I was very lonely and vulnerable.  I had to wear a fake-smile mask to the university every day to pretend that I was fine.  I made no friends in my university and I could not trust anyone.

My life started to change gradually after I started volunteering with the university magazine whose mission was to protect the rights of the students.  I started to make friends with students from diverse backgrounds.  My friendship with them started to develop as we shared the same beliefs and worked together towards the same goal.  

My time at the magazine and my colleagues’ friendship helped me gain my self-respect back and I became happier with my university life.  I was chosen to become the editor of the magazine in my second year with them.  The responsibility of being the editor boosted my self-confidence and even developed my leadership skills.  I become more and more active, energetic, and optimistic without consciously realizing it.

Amazing opportunities came to me to further expand my horizons.  I was chosen to represent my country at many international youth conferences, won a scholarship to study in Japan for a year, and got an internship with the World Bank.  On reflection, I believe that it was the experience I gained from volunteering, combined with a strong giving spirit that have transformed me to become a brand new person.

I believe that even though volunteering is primarily to help others, you always get back much more in return. 

Now I am happy with my life.  I get my whole life back from the deep dark hole of depression.  And, I also have a bright future waiting for me. 

Could I ask for more from volunteering? I do not think so.

—

Chawapol: “I am a 22 year-old guy from Thailand, but having pure Chinese blood. Now I work as a full-time volunteer to help homeless people here in Ireland. I am fluent in Thai, English, and Japanese language. My nickname is “Gun” which seems very strange to be a name in English, but it means “together” in Thai language. Writing, taking photos, and dancing are my hobby. I also love travelling, and learning different cultures.”

I’m in love with a person who is different from me.  When I say different, I mean in the religious, national, cultural sense.

My love relationship started 4 years ago and I didn’t even know that it would go this far or that it would become my fate.

I’m Orthodox Christian, living in Serbia – a Balkan country in Southeast Europe – and my lover is Egyptian and a Moslem.  We met on the internet, which wasn’t a common way of meeting at that time. 

When I started talking to him, everything seemed like ”déja vu,” like any other conversation.  But day by day, I was showing more and more interest in him which then resulted with love.  It took a long time for us to understand our relationship, to make a straight line between imagination and reality. 

For the first time in my life I felt like someone was listening to what I had to say.  I found out that there’s someone like me.  Beside having the same taste in music, movies and those basic things, we realised that we shared the same principles of life such as morality, honesty, respect, dignity, sense of justice, and many others. 

I knew that we would be inseparable.  But, my happiness  was interrupted with one thought.  What would people around us say?  Will they be able to understand? 

I started talking about him – first with my parents then with my friends – trying to make this story closer to them but I saw that they were not delighted and did not take me seriously. 

I had prepared myself for a long and difficult period of fighting for my happiness but I had no idea that my fight would last this long.  I do know that it’s the only way.  If I want to save my love, I have to fight for it and show the world it’s not just a game, a caprice.

The most beautiful moment in my life was when we finally saw each other in person.  We acted like it’s not our first meeting.  It was more like we had known each other for several years.  I was sure that we deserved to be together forever and that we made good choice.  It also showed me that my fight wasn’t useless, that love is worth fighting for. 

We’re living in a world of intolerance, hate, nationalism and religious fanaticism.  In such a world not just love but also a common friendship between a Christian girl and Moslem guy is almost impossible. Even if they are soulmates and truly love each other, their being together just can’t be accepted.  

But nowadays there are more and more people like me.  For them and for all of you who still doubt, I would like to send a message – that love is the strongest thing besides faith and if it’s true and honest it can’t fail.  

But for love to triumph we must be very brave, we must be persistent, and above all patient.  If I didn’t believe in love I wouldn’t take my part in this battle, which is a battle for free choice no matter what the obstacles may be. 

I believe in love without borders because only free love can make us united and make all the boundaries between us disappear.

Ana: “I graduated in Turkish language & literature on Faculty of philology at Belgrade University.  I’m about to get my Master of literature science.  I’m a writer and have already published 3 books of poetry.  Also, I’m interested in art and foreign languages.  I like to explore different cultures and religions.  I would like to travel around the world to meet different people, their customs and to write about them.  The values I appreciate are love, good education, strong will (which makes everything possible).  My aim is to become a famous writer so my works could be widely read and so I could make this world better.”

When I was only one year old, my father died of AIDS, leaving behind four orphans, I being the last born. 

When I started going to school, I used to miss classes most of the time due to school fees problem.  And I remember one instance when I sat home for almost two months because I couldn’t pay my school fees.  Even if my mother acquired my fees, she could not afford all the scholastic materials. So I had to ask for assistance from my friends at school, who later insulted me in class, preaching to everyone that “Hilda is too poor! She can not even afford herself a book or a pen to use.” 

Moreover I had become a laughing stock because I used to go to school bare footed and was always identified at school assembly as a school fees defaulter.

Outside of school, I was also stigmatised together with my family members by schoolmates and the community.  Everyone pointed fingers at my mother calling her a moving corpse!  This used to hurt me so much.  I even remember those days when we could only have one meal a day as a family because it’s only what we could afford.

With God’s grace, I managed to reach my 7th lower grade.  Again my mum failed to raise my school fees just towards my final exams.  Since I was good at singing and dancing for the previous six years of my education, I had made my school popular in the catholic world.  This forced my headmistress to allow me sit for my exams free of charge.

During my vacation, my mum fell seriously ill.  This really tortured me both physically and emotionally.  Thinking that she was going to  die, I had to wipe my tears away and take her to the Aids Supporting Organisation (TASO) centre for treatment every morning, while my elder brothers and sister had to take care of the family which was child  labour indeed.  But I later recovered my happiness when she was given ARV (anti-retroviral) drugs.

Deep inside of me, I always bore a thought in mind: “One day one time, I shall overcome the suffering, because no child is meant to suffer in God’s presence.”

I had also a saying that, ‘Forget the past and look at the future.”

So in 2005, I was rescued from all the suffering by Outside The Dream foundation, an organisation helping orphans and street kids (by paying their school fees and preparing them for university).  That is when I came to realise that “No Child is meant to suffer.”

I believe that all this suffering I passed through will come to an end because as I speak now, I am in my second year of college in one of the best schools in Uganda.  

And for this I believe that God has another plan for me to go ahead to the next level, where there is no suffering and crying, but peace and joy together with all my brothers and sister who have been good companions and encouragement along my journey on earth.         

—

Hilda: “I am in my 9th grade at one of the best schools in Uganda.  My favourite subjects are Chemistry, Physics, Biology, English and Mathematics.  I am able to get distinctions in all my subjects.  I have always had a dream of becoming a doctor.  I like listening to music, swimming and dancing.”

Saturday night was a full moon and I was in a bar in Santa Monica. On my left side sat an old man nursing a tall glass of Southern Comfort.

If I seemed too young for this bar, then this fellow was definitely too old and noticing my curious stare, the barman leaned over conspiratorially and whispered, “You see him?” I nodded. 

“That’s Ralph Waldo Emerson.”

I was taken aback. Sitting next to me was one of the greatest American thinkers in history, and I at least wanted to get an autograph on a cocktail napkin. I turned half way around to listen to his conversation.

“You know what I hate?” he slurred. The barman grunted and raised his eyebrows while he wiped down the counter. “I hate how in this distribution of functions, the scholar is the delegated intellect. In the right state, he is Man thinking. In the degenerate state, when the victim of society, he tends to become a mere thinker, or, still worse, the parrot of other men’s thinking.”

The barman’s eyes narrowed and he slowly took off his hat “Ralph, I think you’ve had enough, it’s time to go.” Emerson turned to me and demanded, “What the hell are you looking at anyway, junior?”

I answered, “I was wondering if you would sign my cocktail napkin for, umm, a friend of mine?”

He sighed. “This makes me sick. Instead of your generation going out and doing your own thinking, there you are still reading shit that I wrote over one hundred and fifty god dammed years ago and repeating it without even lifting a finger or a brain cell to update it or add to it.”

“Let’s get out of here, there’s a place I have to show you.” He tossed a handful of grubby notes onto the counter and slid on his jacket. It was a vintage leather Harley Davidson jacket with “The Original American Scholar” written across the back in white letters. He staggered out the door and I followed.

* * *

I recognized where we were going and in no time, we pulled up in the U.C.L.A. carpark and were walking towards the library.

He strode into the main hall and hopped onto a table with the agility of a man half his age (and since he is almost 188 years old, it did actually take him a while).

Many students were looking in horror at the old man on the counter and more and more gathered as the news spread. There was a din of angry students telling him to get down so they could study. He pulled an old pearl-handled Colt 38 out from his jeans and fired it up into the ceiling twice. The crowd became hushed as bits of wood and plaster fluttered down from where the bullets struck the ceiling.

“Listen up, bookworms, books are the best things well used; abused, among the worst. They are for nothing but to inspire. The one thing of value is the active soul -- the soul, free sovereign, active. This every man is entitled to; this every man contains within him, although in almost all man, obstructed, and as yet, unborn.”

The shots must have attracted the campus police and out of the corner of my eye, I saw a squad of SWAT men, clad in black, fanning out along the upper level. He continued, “I’m not saying don’t read books, but for Gods sake read them to inspire you, not to be ruled by them. As the Arabian proverb says, “A fig tree becometh fruitful.”

The next second, there was a flash from behind the Balkan History shelf as a sniper sent a round straight into the back of Emerson’s neck, shattering his spine.

I screamed and ran towards the body and lay behind him, holding his bloody head in my hands. I looked up at the police with tears in my eyes: “My God, you don’t know who you’ve just shot.”

Emerson’s trembling fingers reached inside his jacket and pulled out a pen. I had produced the cocktail napkin from my pocket to try to stop some of the bleeding.

Emerson took it and with his last ounce of dying energy wrote, “The active soul.” And signed it.

Adapted from an essay Dan wrote for a class at UCLA during the fall of 1991. Visit DanEldon.org to see full version.

Dan Eldon was an artist and photojournalist who freelanced for Reuters news agency and was one of the first to bear witness to the famine in Somalia. He was killed on assignment in 1993 at the age of 22. Thirteen years after his death, Dan is better known today than he ever was, due to the publications of his artistic journals and the critically acclaimed documentary, Dying to Tell the Story. His life story and the unique way in which he went about documenting it through art have become his enduring legacy. It speaks to an idealism, a Romantic seeking that cuts across generations but inspires young people especially.