February 9, 2006 | Read Time: 2 minutes
Photograph by Erin Fredrichs
The war in Vietnam ended 30 years ago. But for some Vietnamese — many of them children — it’s far from over.
Since the war’s end, nearly 40,000 people have been killed and 64,000 injured by land mines and bombs left in Vietnam. Even today, it is the rare week when someone’s life is not shattered by the explosions — a farmer tending her field, a worker digging a ditch, or a curious child who thinks he’s found a toy.
Clear Path International, an American charity, has tried to ensure that victims of the tragic accidents do not have to bear the consequences alone. The organization, in Dorset, Vt., raises awareness about the land-mine problem in Southeast Asia and offers medical care and scholarships to affected families, as well as financial aid to cover hospital bills. Its annual budget is about $500,000, raised in about equal proportions from individuals and foundations.
“These people, who already had nothing to begin with, will sell their homes and farms to pay the bills and they’ll go into a spiral of poverty,” says James Hathaway, who co-founded Clear Path International in 2000 with his wife, Martha, and colleagues, Imbert Matthee and Kristen Leadem. “We try to stop that spiral.”
Clear Path began as a land-mine-removal organization, but its founders quickly recognized the lack of aid for accident victims. “Nobody was paying attention to that side of the equation,” says Mr. Hathaway. “We were concentrating on the cause, not the effect.”
And the effects are devastating. Ho Van Nghia, the 13-year-old Vietnamese boy shown here, lost both of his lower legs and half of his left arm when he tampered with an unexploded bomb he found while bringing lunch to his mother in a rice paddy.
“Nghia’s father and grandfather were land-mine survivors too,” says Mr. Hathaway. Clear Path will cover all of Nghia’s medical expenses, pay for prosthetics, set up a scholarship fund, and ensure that his house is handicap-accessible. “We hope that, as Americans, we can be part of a reconciliation, if that’s possible in incidents like these.”
