QUẢNG TRỊ — The central provincial Women’s Union, in co-operation with PeaceTrees Việt Nam (PTVN), has put into operation a kindergarten in Tà Lênh village of Đăkrông district – the 12th of its kind – with funding from donors.

Phạm Thị Hoàng Hà, of PTVN, a non-governmental organisation that has been searching for unexploded ordnance (UXO) in Quảng Trị since 1995, said the kindergarten was built with funding from Jeff Nielsen and his friends in memory of Arthur Bustamante who died in Quảng Trị in 1968, at the age of 21.

She said the school provides safe and clean facilities including sleeping areas, tables, a playground, kitchenware and clean water well for kids of the ethnic Vân Kiều group living in the area.

Hà said the Vân Kiều community living in the remote mountainous areas in Quảng Trị lacked clean water and kindergarten facilities for years.

As planned, PTVN will add two more kindergarten schools in the remote communes in 2018.

These schools will be built on land which has been cleared of UXO.

According to the latest report, PTVN’s Exploded Ordnance Disposal teams have found over 106,513 pieces of unexploded ordnances and cleared 163ha of land contaminated by landmines, especially in remote mountainous areas such as Hướng Hóa, Cam Lộ, Gio Linh and Vĩnh Linh and Đakrong – former sites of battles and the Demilitarised Zone during the war.

The PTVN’s Danaan Parry Landmines Education Centre in Đông Hà has provided landmine awareness education to more than 65,000 people in the province, 17,500 of them children.

In 2014, teams also cleared UXO on area of 90ha to resettle 50 households in Ba Lòng commune in Hướng Hóa district with funds from the US veteran Dan Gilman and his friends in Washington. — VNS