| Media Note Office of the Spokesman Washington, DC February 21, 2008 West Virginia Firm Donates Detectors to Locate Landmines and Explosive Remnants of WarSchonstedt Instrument Company ( www.schonstedt.com ), an employee-owned company in Kearneysville , West Virginia , is one of the 61 Public-Private Partners of the Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement ( www.state.gov/t/pm/wra ) in the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Political-Military Affairs. Since May 2007, the company, which manufactures specialized detectors used by survey, demining, utility, telecommunications, and energy firms around the world, has donated 74 of its GA-72Cd magnetic detectors for demining in Laos , Somalia , Tajikistan , and Vietnam , in coordination with the United Nations Mine Action Service ( www.mineaction.org ). Some of the 20 detectors donated to Somalia have also been used by the International Mine Action Training Center ( www.army.mod.uk/unitsandorgs/trestabl/imatc/index.htm ) in Kenya . See related photos at www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/pix/b/101187.htm. Schonstedt Humanitarian Demining Initiative (“Buy a Schonstedt, Save a Life”) donations can come about in two ways. First, companies that buy one of Schonstedt's TraceMaster II or XTpc pipe and cable locators can have a magnetic detector donated in their name to a United Nations Mine Action Team for use in a conflict-affected country. Second, companies can make direct donations. Quakers in Woodstown, New Jersey, recently raised money to purchase 12 Schonstedt magnetic detectors for donation, which were matched with another 12 detectors from Schonstedt. All 24 detectors have been sent to Vietnam where they will be used by MAG ( www.mag.org.uk ) and Norwegian Peoples Aid ( www.npaid.org ), both of which are also Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement Public-Private Partners. To learn about the Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement's bilateral and multilateral humanitarian mine action programs, and its Public-Private Partnerships, which together have contributed to dramatically reducing the rate of reported casualties from landmines and explosive remnants of war around the world to 5,759 in 2006, visit www.state.gov/t/pm/wra/partners/ and read its Safe Passage newsletters at www.state.gov/t/pm/wra/partners/c14838.htm. 2008/131 |
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![Tajik children in one of the villages whose surrounding fields are impacted by explosive remnants of war. [Photo courtesy of Tajikistan Mine Action Center.]](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/eot2008/20081018200308im_/http://www.state.gov/cms_images/080221_5tajizkids140.jpg)
