AAR JAPAN - Projects and Activities in SriLanka


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What We Do

Emergency Assistance

Assistance to Persons
With Disabilities

Mine Action

Action Against Infectious Deseases

Uganda

As a result of a civil war that lasted over 40 years, a vast amount of landmines and UXOs (unexploded ordnances) still remain in Uganda, a small country located in Central Africa. With a support from AEON Group, AAR JAPAN has launched projects to support survivors of landmines and UXOs in cooperation with Uganda Landmine Survivors Association (ULSA). ULSA is represented by Margaret Arach Orech, who participated in “Children’s Summit to Ban Landmines and Cluster Bombs” co-sponsored by AEON 1% Club and AAR JAPAN in March, 2009. Together we are pursuing the twin goals of establishing a network of landmine survivors in Uganda and empowering them economically.

Building a Survivors’ Network

AAR JAPAN and Uganda Landmine Survivors Association (ULSA) received representatives of the landmine survivors’ groups from across the country for their first national meeting held in the capital Kampala in July, 2009. The meeting fulfilled its primary puropose of strengthening the connections among the survivor groups, and also functioned as an opportunity to express a strong appeal to the government representatives to recognize the necessity of improving support for landmine survivors. The new ties will be useful in sharing relevant information as well as developing future activities to help them achieve economic independence.

AAR JAPAN urges strengthening the network-building among landmine/UXO survivors. ULSA Representative Margaret Arach Orech (third from right), staff members and participants to the meeting receive a gift of 1,000 Origami cranes and messages of support sent from the pupils of Sanbonyanagi Elementary School in Nagano, Japan.

Supporting the Livelihood of Landmine/UXO Survivors

It is estimated that there are at least 180 landmine/UXO survivors in the District of Kasese, in western Uganda, to whom very little support has been provided so far. Although the farming on mountain slopes is a major income source in Kasese, it is difficult for the people injured by landmines and UXOs to continue this style of work. As a result, many survivors had to move to lowland urban areas, where they have difficulty making a living, and many of them face severe economic hardship. AAR JAPAN tries to support them through the provision of vocational training so that they can improve their living.

A landmine survivor receives vocational training. An injured man living in Kasese shows a birdcage he produced following the training. He lost one leg in a landmine accident, and now uses a prosthetic.