COPE Visitors' Center, Laos and the problem of UXOs

The most impressive place we visited in Vientiane was the COPE Visitors' center.   I've shortened this article by about 1/3 but find it hard to make it shorter.  I do want readers to get the gist of the place but I also want to preserve the blog as a memory for myself.  I hope you make it through most of it.  It is shocking but also uplifting to see what is being done.

Dina

 The following is from the website:

http://www.copelaos.org/visit.php/
Cooperative Orthotic and Prosthetic Enterprise, otherwise known as COPE, is a locally run non-profit organisation working with the Center of Medical Rehabilitation (CMR), Lao Ministry of Health and four provincial rehabilitation centres in an innovative partnership to provide comprehensive rehabilitation services for Unexploded Ordnance (UXO) survivors and other people with disabilities across Lao PDR.

COPE and CMR together are currently the only provider of prosthetic, orthotic and rehabilitation services in Laos.

COPE was founded in 1997 and has since then developed its services from supplying prosthetics and orthotics to UXO survivors to providing physiotherapy, occupational therapy and paediatric services to other people with disabilities.

The COPE Visitor Centre was established in 2008 and provides a free permanent exhibition providing education on UXO in Laos, and information on the comprehensive rehabilitation services that COPE offers.

What does COPE do?

• COPE provides prosthetics and mobility devices for people who require them, free of charge if they cannot afford to pay for them.
• COPE supplies information to communities across Laos PDR about the types of services available.
• COPE supports the development of a multidisciplinary rehabilitation program through national staff training that includes physiotherapy, occupational therapy and pediatric services.
• COPE works to develop strategies to ensure that services are sustainable for the long term and always available.

All of COPE's administration is undertaken in Vientiane and is independently audited.

We later learned that there also is a COPE center in Luang Prabong. 

The above is rather dry, but the website is filled with amazing stories that pulled at our hearts.  If you have time, check it out.

The pictures, videos and personal stories told it all.  Marcy and I went back a second time to see more stories and be able to absorb all that we had seen.

About 260,000,000 million "bombies" were dropped on Laos between 1964 and 1973, mostly in the mountains bordering Vietnam and the Ho Chi Minh trail, in over 580,000 USA bombing missions..    30% of the bombs failed to explode on impact but still could explode. As a result, hundreds of people have been killed and/or injured since 1973 and continue to be "attacked" each year.

Entry sign made from homemade prosthetics

The sculpture above was made from over 1000 pounds of UXO including cluster bombs.  It was made by a local artist in 2008 in memory of the 50,000 Loatians who died or who have been injured by UXOs between 1964 to the present.  (20,000 of them were from 1974 to the present.)  People were injured or killed by UXOs for the following reasons:

24% from searching for scrap metal  (Scrap dealers pay 12 to 25 cents for metal per kilo)
22% from striking them while farming
14% from forest product collection
12% from cooking by fire outside
11% from playing with UXOs

Intro to video

From same video--girl working with brother in corn field when UXO explodes:

 

The picture below is a replication of cluster bombs falling from the sky.

cluster bomb, open

It was eye-opening for me to see cluster bombs.  In Nov. 1972, the kibbutz where I was living on the Golan Heights was attacked with rockets, each with anti-personnel bombs (i.e. cluster bombs) which exploded 2 meters in the air and sent schrapnel all over.  Micha Fichman got me out of the laundry folding area a few minutes before the shelling began.  Several minutes later as he was running to a shelter by the kibbutz garage, he got hit by such shrapnel.  He saved my life and the life of my unborn daughter Timna but lost his a short time later.  Now I could see what these bombs looked like.

More than 1/3 of Laos is contaminated with cluster bombs.  To clean one hectare (about 2.5 acres) can take ten days, open much longer if the area is hilly or covered with thick vegetation.  It has to be done by hand by well-trained workers.  After metal detectors find the UXOs, they are flagged and prepared for demolition.  If possible, they are blown up where they are found, but if they are close to schools, for example, this is not possible.  Over 1000 Lao have been trained to do this work, together with some international technical advisors, including Australians..

 We saw a video in which young children were interviewed, from ages 5 to 10.  All had known of other children who had been killed by UXOs that they tried to move to collect for money for their family.  The metal that they sold could help the family survive.  They have learned not to touch these pieces of metal but the temptation was great.

We saw a heart-retching video of a young family.  The father was cooking over an open fire just behind his house.  It was a place where he had made a fire before.  But this time the fire might have been a bit deeper or a bit hotter.  In any event, it exploded, seriously injuring the 20-year-old father's arms, and injuring a leg, but his most severe injuries were to his eyes and he was blinded.  His wife had to take over the subsistence farm work and he tried to take care of his two daughters, but feared that they might starve to death.

Kitchen items made from scrap metals from bombs, etc.

Drawings made by people who saw bombs dropped near their homes:

From a video--examples of unexploded devices--time bombs!

Most UXOs have been removed from Vietnam and Cambodia, but huge numbers remain in Laos, especially in the mountains.  When US bombers dropped bombs along the Ho Chi Minh trail in Vietnam, some landed across the border in the mountains of Vietnam.  Also when the US bombers finished a run and still had some bombs left, they emptied them in the hills of Loas as they could not return with bombs in the hold.  30% of the bombs did not explode and are in the ground, often covered with dirt or plants.  They have continued to  be found and to explode and as recent as last year, people have been maimed and killed by such bombs exploding.  The US has put very little money into the removal of such bombs.  I think I read recently that $9 million was allocated through USAID in the last year or two, a significant increase from past years but too little to do much.


Below are the documentaries available to view at the COPE center.  We saw the four in the first listing below.

The new COPE movie is online and you can see it here:
http://www.copelaos.org/cope_news_stories.php?WEBYEP_DI=22

It is a powerful story of a young man seriously injured by a bombie exploding, and how he got to Vientiane and got the support he needed and never thought was available.

There are some books available for reading at the center. One had the following maps.

An Australian book sold at the center

Below is a mobile made from homemade prosthetics.  Ironically, many were made from pieces of metal dropped from planes.

The costs include not just getting and fitting prosthetics, but providing transportation, housing and food to and while at the center, psychological counseling, physical therapy and occupational therapy.  There had been no OT in Laos, so the center has brought in trainers and developed OT specialists in the past few years in the country.

Items used in OT to help people do normal household work, chopping, eating, etc.

Small devices like the ones above can help a person with a disability live more independently.  For example, there are special forks and special knives for people with limited use of their hands.  Occupational therapists assess the needs of a patient, and often items are created like those above to meet needs of the patients.

Cope also helps train physical therapists who work at the center and 4 regional rehab centers.

It also treats people who have lost limbs from accidents and people born with club feet. The rate of industrial and work accidents in Laos is high, so COPE works to help those who have had series injuries.

Englivanh lives in the northwest part of Laos.  Several years ago while working in a forest, a tree fell on the back of his knee, cutting it deeply.  His village was about 8 miles from the district hospital but he had no way to get there after heavy rains.  He was treated with traditional medicines, but the wound got infected.  When he finally got to the hospital a week later, his leg had to be infected.

Recently someone told him about COPE so he traveled for 29 hours to Vientiane to see if he could be fitted with a prosthetic.   The prostheses are high tect but the materials just cost $75.

Ta was fishing with two of his songs ages 8 and 10 in 2004.  He knew it was dangerous but he had heard that explosives made it easy to catch fish.  He sent his boys behind a tree and crawled up to a bombie.  When he touched it, it exploded.  His sons dragged him to a boat and rowed back to the village.  It took 9 hours to get medical help.  Ta lost both arms and an eye.  He also lost all of his livestock to pay for his medical treatment.  For 4 years, he said he had to "eat like a dog."   An UXO clearance organization brought him to COPE and since then he has received 3 different types of arms.  He can now help his family and rebuild his life.

COPE estimates that there are up to 2000 children under 5 in Laos who would benefit from treatment for club foot.  The Ponseti technique was developed in the USA and introduced into Laos by COPE in 2004.   Details about it are found at:  http://www.ponseti.info/clubfoot-and-the-ponseti-method/what-is-clubfoot/ponseti-method.html..

A child treated for club foot

The center also works on a campaign to ban cluster bombs.  Lao PDR was the second national to sign  after Norway.  The first meeting of countries party to the convention of Cluster Munitions(CMM) was held in Vientiane in Nov. 2010.   The sign below clearly explains the CBB

Countries that have signed the treaty

Countries who have yet to sign it

Both Marcy and I were very touched by the exhibit and the programs that COPE runs and supports.  We both brought items from the COPE store and I also donated money online to this organization.  Friends in Seattle work with a non=profit that helps provide prosthetics (including surgery) in Vietnam and know of COPE and say that it was a very good organization, so I felt comfortable donating to it.  I urge you to learn a bit more about the problem of UXOs.  Thanks!

A boat made from B52 fuel tanks dropped during the war