Goldman Sachs HeroRAT Adoption

It's time for your HeroRAT update!

The Goldman Sachs Gives rat continues to do well in the field with some great numbers for the second quarter of the year 2018. 

In the months of April to June your HeroRAT cleared a whopping 5820 square meters of land in 19 days. Working a total of 839 minutes across the quarter, they discovered 2 AP directional mines and 1 item of unexploded ordonnance.

It's thanks to the work by your HeroRAT that we're able to continue our life-saving work in Cambodia where at least 26 million explosive sub-munitions were dropped during the Vietnam War, mostly in eastern and north-eastern areas bordering the Lao People's Democratic Republic and Vietnam. The bombing is estimated to have left between 1.9 million and 5.8 million cluster munitions remnants.

Over 64,000 landmine and other Explosive Remnants of War (ERW) casualties have been recorded in Cambodia since 1979; with over 25,000 amputees, Cambodia has the highest ratio of mine amputees per capita in the world.

With their sensitive nose, the Goldman Sachs Gives rat can check the area of a tennis court in just 30 minutes, a job that would take a deminer with a metal detector up to four days.

It's time for your HeroRAT update!

The Goldman Sachs Gives rat continues to do well in the field with some great numbers for the first quarter of the year 2018. 

In the months of January to March your HeroRAT cleared a whopping 6745 square meters of land in 39 days. Working a total of 8335 minutes across the quarter.

In his down time, he received a HeroRAT health check by one of our specialist team members in addition to a favourite treat - banana!

Thanks to the incredible work by your HeroRAT we were able to hand back more land to local communities. We're also able to continue to protect the lives of local inhabitants, people like Lann, a former soldier who lost part of his leg to an unexploded mine.

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LANN'S STORY

"I am Lann and I am a farmer at Khnar Phtuol, near Siem Reap. Twenty-five years ago I was a soldier defending our village against the Khmer Rouge. One day whilst on patrol I stood on a landmine that the Khmer Rouge had laid. I heard a loud crack and I fell over, then my comrades were shouting and screaming above me before I blacked out. I woke up in the hospital to find that I had lost my lower right leg. I was devastated.

For some years I was recovering. Not just physically but mentally. To lose a leg is no easy thing, especially when you need to be strong and physical for a living. Worse, the landmines were still lying hidden around my home and the fields of the community. We were terrified.

Eventually I met my wife and started a family, and they gave me something to work for. I learned better how to cope with only one leg, and a local charity gave me good crutches. I was able to farm well; I could plant rice, cut wood, and harvest the crops. But the landmines were still there, and my kids were growing up. They began helping with work, and playing in the fields. We knew the dangers but what could we do? We had to survive. Accidents happened. A child in our community lost an eye when he found an old bullet and began to polish it and it exploded. And we lost many of our precious cows and goats to landmines.

"Then we heard about an organization called The Cambodian Mine Action Center (CMAC) who were clearing away the landmines and slowly working their way towards us. We were so happy about this and couldn’t wait for them to arrive. To our surprise, they turned up with a team of rats that they said would help find the landmines for them so they could get the mines out of the ground and destroy them. They said they were called ‘HeroRats’ and they were trained by their partner APOPO. 

Those rats scuttled about, sniffing here and there, and then they would stop, smell the air, and then scratch the ground. That means they found a landmine! CMAC said that the rats were fast and had really speeded up their work. So together CMAC and APOPO had helped many communities. Less than two weeks later, our fields were free of landmines. Our kids were safe, our fields full of growing crops. We need to give all our thanks to CMAC, APOPO and those speedy HeroRATs!"

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Thank you for your incredible support for work and keep an eye out for future updates about your HeroRAT!