St. Martin’s Primary School is a lively community in Nyandoro Village, Zimbabwe, with five teachers and 140 students eager to learn and grow together. But the school's location near the border of Mozambique means that the institution has been witness to the wars of the 1970s and 1980s that left deadly remnants of conflict in the ground for decades.
Today, all students live near unexploded bombs, and 35 students have to cross an active minefield twice a day to get to and from school. MAG has been working to clear the affected areas in Zimbabwe since 2017, but until all the land is safe we must do more to protect the children and families in Nyandoro.
With leadership funding from the UK government’s Department for International Development (DFID), MAG’s team has visited the school and provided the students and teachers with vital risk education classes.
These classes provide lifesaving messages on how to identify and avoid mined areas. Specially designed to engage children, the program gives kids of all ages the knowledge they need to avoid and report danger until the surrounding area is cleared.
”These lessons help people stay safe when they have no choice but to live and work around landmines left over from past conflicts,” says Adam Komorowski, MAG’s regional director. “It is crucial that people, especially children, are able to recognize, avoid, and report threats to the local authorities.”
Since MAG began these classes in March 2018, the number of students traveling to attend St. Martin's has more than doubled. School headmaster Mr. Munyoro attributed the increase to people knowing how to avoid dangerous areas and the reassurance that the landmines along their path are being cleared.
MAG teams around the world have been working to remove landmines and unexploded ordnance left behind from conflict for the past 30 years. Thank you for your support as our teams save lives and build safer futures!
