Message of Hope

Landmine Survivors Network’s list of accomplishment in the Vietnam network office is most meaningful immediately after you have visited the country and seen the extent of the poverty and of the tragedy wreaked by landmines. LSN continues to train outreach workers who themselves are landmine survivors and to make hospital visits. Jerry White was inspired to make these peer visits a critical element of LSN’s work bases on his experience in Israelis hospitals where visits by survivors inspired him. LSN also trains outreach workers to visit survivors in their homes. Materials printed in the United States under the title “Surviving Limb Loss” have been translated and printed by LSN’s US office in Washington DC.

The power of LSN’s work in Vietnam and in other communities where landmines continue to threaten innocent victims lies in the role of survivors helping survivors. Those who have survived a tragedy are able to carry a message of hope to those just in the process of recovering. In doing so these survivors provide a purpose. From the depths of a tragedy that effect survivors physically, emotionally, and spiritually they are able with the help of LSN to find purpose and meaning that results directly from their experience as landmine survivors.

"To be an instant landmine expert, just remember the number 80: There are up to 80 million mines buried in over 80 countries and more than 80 percent of the victims are innocent civilians, including thousands of women and children each year."

- Jerry White