Shipping Clothing to Colombia's Landmine Victims

Otilia Rigelis participates in Mercy Corps' programme to provide emergency assistance, physical rehabilitation, and social and economic reintegration help to landmine victims in Colombia. Photo: Mercy Corps

Landmines don't choose their victims. Most people who set one off escape with their lives, but suffer permanently disabling injuries. And in Colombia's impoverished countryside — home to one of the highest concentrations of landmines in the world — survivors have few places to turn for help.

Mercy Corps is helping 600 landmine survivors in Colombia rehabilitate and reintegrate into their communities.

As part of our effort, we recently sent donated shoes and sweaters to 240 survivors in Nariño, where Mercy Corps opened a rehabilitation centre equipped with latest technology for physiotherapy, rehabilitation and neurology. The centre, in a remote area near the Ecuadorean border, serves hundreds of people injured by landmines and armed conflict, as well as other people with disabilities.

Our programme provides first-class physical rehabilitation, counselling and economic support. We train local mine action committees in first aid, support local manufacturers of prostheses, and lobby for early warning systems and other ways to reduce mine accidents.

Donated clothing is a small but important part of the project.

You can help lift the hopes of people in need. Help us do more with a donation to our shipping appeal. Your $1 sends £42 worth of medicines, books, clothing and other critical supplies to families in crisis.