Man and dog provide land-mine education
SOUTH HADLEY - An effort by a local high school girl to raise $20,000 to train a land-mine sniffing dog to be named "South Hadley" and to work with the Children Against Mines Program overseas got an assist from former Clinton Administration National Security Advisor Anthony Lake during a recent assembly at Mosier Elementary School. "We're going to introduce you to a hero who has saved more lives than you can imagine," Lake said before he introduced the students to Rosa, an 11-year-old Belgian Malinois breed dog.
Rosa has sniffed out land mines in Lebanon and other countries for more than seven years as part of the Marshall Legacy Institute's Children Against Mines Program. The nonprofit institute based in Arlington. Va., has 800 dogs now working in 24 countries.
Lake, a former international relations professor at Mount Holyoke College, is chairman of the institute.
"There are 50 million land I mines buried around the world in over 70 nations," Lake said. Every 22 minutes someone in the world is either killed or maimed by a land mine, according to a filmstrip shown as part of the program.
Lake explained that after a war so many land mines are left that they pose a danger to people and animals.
Holding up an alarm clocksized land mine, he said, "This is what our dogs are out finding ... Imagine you live in some little village in Africa, in Asia, in Latin America where there is a war."
When land mines are left behind, children can be too afraid to walk to school and may grow up to hate and want to kill other people in more wars, Lake said.
To lessen the danger, the institute relies on trained land mine sniffing dogs, who are much more effective locating land mines than a person with a metal detector, he said. The animals smell the explosives in the land mines.
The program included a demonstration of Rosa detecting a land mine that had been disarmed but still had residues of gunpowder and was buried in a potted plant.
Chelsea P. Fernandes, a sophomore at South Hadley High School, has launched a drive to raise the money to train a dog and plans to seek contributions from the business community and have students request donations from family and friends as part of a walk to be held later this year.
The program and its filmstrip, which featured child and adult amputees injured by land mines, appeared to have left a deep impression on Mosier students.
Asked how he would feel if there were land mines in his neighborhood, fourth grader Robert J. Loughrey. 10 said, "I wouldn't feel too good because it would be hard to get around because you'd have to look out for land mines and probably wouldn't be able to get out to get an education or go outside a lot".