By Emma Mortiboy | Public Fundraising Officer
As you will recall from the last update, 16 of our HeroDOGs have now been mobilized in Turkey, meaning that your support has enabled the HeroDOGs to work in four different countries around the world now!
In South Sudan and Cambodia, we have been busy preparing the dogs for their yearly accreditation and assessing the tasks of 2022, whilst the HeroDOGs have a much-deserved break from operations. The HeroDOGs have not lost their touch, as our dog handlers continuously worked with the dogs to maintain their shape and conducted scent detection training. Through the last quarter of the year, our HeroDOGs completed the yearly re-accreditation with 100% accuracy. This time of rest also allowed a full health check and lots of play!
For example, in South Sudan, Cyklon passed his accreditation training with flying colors (picture of Cyklon with his handler, Jairo below) and in Cambodia, both Gizmo and Mannes have passed their accreditation and will start the 4th season of their career.
Coming up
In February, the Cambodian HeroDOGs will start searching for cluster munitions in the eastern province of Ratanakiri, bordering Vietnam and Laos. This farming province was one of the most heavily bombed areas in Cambodia during the Vietnam War, with the notorious Ho Chi Minh Trail crossing it from North to South. The province remains heavily contaminated with air-dropped bombs and other explosive devices.
This project is an international effort in collaboration with The Mines Advisory Group (MAG) and includes staff from Cambodia, Colombia, and Mozambique working together.
Our teams in Turkey will start the new season in March after it gets warmer and they pass the pre-season Accreditation. The project is on Turkey’s eastern border with Armenia and Iran and the temperatures are currently between -6 to 8 degrees, which is not optimal for scent detection training.
Thank you for supporting this incredibly important work. An incredible 90% of your donation goes directly to the work on the ground, making us a very efficient non-profit. Your support genuinely helps save lives.
Warm wishes,
Emma
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