“It’s great to see how much has changed in the health sector, five years after my first mission, and things are moving forward,” explains Caroline. “It’s taking time, but they are moving forward.” To instigate and support these advances, Handicap International works with a number of local operators (health centres, primary schools, disabled people’s organisations and rehabilitation centres) and focuses its activities on three key issues: reproductive health, particularly maternal health, HIV issues, and the early detection and case-management of impairments.

“Our awareness campaigns are having an impact and habits are beginning to change,” says Caroline. “More and more women are going for prenatal check-ups, for example, which prepare them for possible complications and help prevent them and/or their child from developing impairments following obstructed labour. For traditional reasons, it’s still hard to convince women to give birth in a health facility, rather than at home. But we’ve been getting our message across and people now understand the need to put a system in place so that these women can get to a health centre if something goes wrong. Everyone lends a hand, including the men, who organise the emergency transport, such as carts or ‘ambulance’ canoes. We feel it’s essential to target them as part of our awareness actions because they have the final say on family matters. We’ve been trying to involve them as much as possible over the last two years by reminding them how important it is to plan childbirth and to monitor on their wife’s pregnancy.” 

A lot of progress has also been made in reducing the vulnerability of people with disabilities to HIV. “They don’t have access to available information on HIV issues and are simply not - or hardly ever - targeted by awareness campaigns,” explains Caroline. “Our role is to build bridges between disabled people’s organisations and HIV services so that they can work together to increase the number of people screened for HIV and ensure care adapted to the needs of people with disabilities is available. The results of this project are already positive and the number of people with disabilities who volunteer for screening has risen considerably.”

Although Caroline is satisfied with the progress made so far, the threat of a major food crisis in Mali and the rest of the Sahel, combined with the political crisis that has gripped the country since the military coup d’état on 22 March 2012, and the occupation of three regions in northern Mali by armed groups have cast a shadow over these achievements: “Health is still our main concern but we’re facing renewed pressure to cover people’s basic health needs. The food shortages are really biting. During the ‘hunger gap’ people have to eat seeds normally used for sowing in July. Added to this, looted health facilities need to be reequipped and reopened, vaccination campaigns have ground to a halt, the rainy season has arrived, bringing with it a heightened risk of epidemics, and we need to educate people on the risk of unexploded ordnance. To complicate matters even further, a lot of people were displaced from their homes when they fled the fighting. We’re obviously very worried and concerned, and we’re working harder than ever to help the people of Mali get through this extremely difficult time.”

HANDICAP INTERNATIONAL - 14, avenue Berthelot - 69361 LYON CEDEX 07 - FRANCE
Email: recrut14@handicap-international.org
Website: www.handicap-international.fr
Please do not phone

HANDICAP INTERNATIONAL - 14, avenue Berthelot - 69361 LYON CEDEX 07 - FRANCE
Email: recrut14@handicap-international.org
Website: www.handicap-international.fr
Please do not phone

HANDICAP INTERNATIONAL - 14, avenue Berthelot - 69361 LYON CEDEX 07 - FRANCE
By Email: recrut07@handicap-international.org
Or by our website: www.handicap-international.fr
Please do not phone

On 24 April, the Handicap International team in Lebanon restored two plots of cleared land to villagers from Toula, in the district of Batroun as part of a demining project launched 20 months earlier with the support of the European Union and the French Development Agency. More than 60,000 sq.m. of land were manually cleared by deminers, who advanced slowly, metre by metre, to avoid exposing themselves to danger in the mountainous terrain of North Lebanon where anti-personnel mines and explosive remnants of war dating from the civil war have posed a threat to the local population for more than 30 years.
 
The work performed by Handicap International, the only humanitarian demining operator in the region, has been welcomed with relief by the populations at risk from these weapons. The project’s dual aim - reducing the threat to inhabitants and improving the socio-economic development of the region - immediately gained the support of the local population. Eliminating the danger of mines will benefit 33,000 people living in the region. Plans are already being made to use this land, now free of danger, to grow olives and restore or build new facilities. Some projects were launched in strategic areas as soon as the land had been decontaminated, including the widening of a road, the erection of electric pylons and the completion of a bridge. Mission accomplished for the twelve brave deminers trained and managed by Handicap International!
 
Handicap International is continuing its demining activities in North Lebanon and aims to clear all potentially dangerous sites earmarked as priorities by the Lebanese National Demining Centre in the district of Batroun. Many years of work still lie ahead. Lebanon has made an international commitment to demine its territory by 2020.