CONSULTANCY FOR SKILL AQUISATION TRAINING PROGRAMME FOR LANDMINE VICTIMS

Introduction
It is estimated that there is a decrease in the number of new cases of casualties
from landmines worldwide each year from 26,000 cases to 15,000 cases. But the
number of survivors requiring assistance continues to grow. Nigeria is among
countries whose nationals are killed or injured by landmine while abroad engaging
in military or peacekeeping operations. Nigeria is not known to have produced or
exported antipersonnel mines. Nigeria procured its anti personal mines from
Yugoslavia , Russia and Czechoslovakia It also includes MIAPID48 antipersonnel
mines from France and Ranger AP mines from Britain. Landmines were laid during
the Biafran war but all minefields laid during the Biafran war are reported cleared.
In 1990s , the Nigerian- led Economic Community of West African States
(ECOMOG) used landmines in Liberia and Sierra Leone. These operations have
claimed a number of Landmine victims although their numbers have never been
established. Many of the surviving victims are residents in their various
communities and a number of Rehabilitation centres across the country of which
many are ex service men and some civilian population. Landmine problem is a
developmental issues and their socio economic impact on mine affected victims
and their communities must be considered. Whether the accident occurred
recently or several years previously, most landmine survivors continue to require
medical and rehabilitative assistance. In many of the reported casualties, the
provided to mine victims is inadequate to meet thier needs. Most services are
located in the urban centres whereas the majority of mine survivors can be found
in rural arear. Majority of resources and assistance continue to be directed towards
medical and physical rehabilitation, nevertheless the demand for prothese exceeds
the supply. The availabity of assistance in psychological support and socio
economic reintegration is limited or non- existent.

Key Issues in Survivor Assistance

 The needs of landmine survivors are long-term, and include medical and
rehabilitation services, socio-economic reintegration and psychological
support.
Landmine survivors should not be viewed as a group separate from other
war victims, or persons with disabilities.
Programs should focus on local capacity-building in mine-affected
communities.
Resources should assist in building the infrastructure that will benefit all
persons with disabilities in mine-affected communities.
A commitment to long-term funding is needed to ensure sustainability of
programs.
The goal of survivor assistance programs should be the complete
rehabilitation of survivors, and other persons with disabilities, into the
wider community.

Scope of work
The scope of this consultancy service is socio-economic reintegration of landmine
victims.
Socio- Economic integration programme is a valuable tool in assisting landmine
victims. Nine factors are considered to be target areas for socio-economic
reintegration. Factors (1-4) are classified as Pre-conditions for socio-economic
reintegration. Factors (5-9) are target areas which provide activities that directly
affect socio-economic reintegration.
The first four factors preconditions for reintegration are:

Factor 1: Evacuation, First Aid and Emergency Care

Factor 2: Physical and Psychological Treatment

Factor 3: Medical and Psychosocial Rehabilitation

Factor 4: Ongoing Medical Follow-up

To illustrate the importance of the preconditions, let us consider the situation of A

Nigerian Military personnel victim, he first received emergency care and was
treated medically, including amputation surgery. After the surgery he was given a

wheelchair. Sometime after receiving the wheelchair, he was fitted for an artificial
limb.
The emergency care may well have allowed him to survive death and the
wheelchair provided him with mobility. Now that he is receiving prosthesis, it is
likely that his mobility is increased as is his access to various services and job
opportunities. Thus each medical treatment has enabled the survivor to gain
greater and greater access to skill acquisition, entrepreneurial activities and
employment though none of these treatments directly links the survivor with any
improvement in socio-economic participation.
Here are the five factors considered to be target areas for socio-economic
reintegration.
Factor 5: Psychosocial Support
Factor 6: Vocational Rehabilitation
Factor 7: Economic Development
Factor 8: Education
Factor 9: Community Integration and Support

Psychological Support:
The goal of Psychological Support is to assist landmine survivors, through a well
balanced team of peer support workers and professionals, to resume their role in
the community by helping them to cope with psychosocial adjustment issues and
assisting them to regain and maintain a healthy and positive outlook on life. An
array of professional and peerbased psychosocial resources should be available
from which landmine survivors can be provided with a program appropriate to
their individual needs, including:
Psychological counselling and social work support servicesprovided by
trained personnel having access to people with a graduate degree in social
work, psychology and/or counselling.
Community-based rehabilitation (CBR) and other outreach services, which
should have access to facility based programs with professional staff for
back-up support.

 Peer counselling and support, which should include practical training in

setting and achieving realistic goals.

Vocational Rehabilitation:
People with disabilities often have to rely on their families or on charity for
survival. Furthermore, women with disabilities are generally worse off than men
with disabilities; they have less access to jobs and earn half the income of male
peers in similar jobs. Participation in economic life is a necessity. People with
disabilities need to earn a living and contribute to the support of their families.
Landmine survivors are not considered a separate group from people with
disabilities. Usually, victims assistance programmes like this one inscribe their
activities within larger disability and development programmes. It is important to
remark, however, that landmine survivors also need specific initiatives, including
accessible first-aid, intensive medical care, and life-long rehabilitation. Landmine
survivors have affirmed that their main priority is to earn an income and to
contribute to their families well-being; often, economic inclusion is considered
even more important than medical care and mobility per se. Economic inclusion is
important to guarantee the independence of landmine survivors, but also to help
them maintain their place as productive members of the community. For those
who want to start a business, the main obstacle is often the lack of skills and access
to capital. There is growing recognition that Vocational training and facilitating
access to existing microfinance is an important step for inclusion.
Economic activity is also one factor that enhances self-fulfilment and self-esteem.
Work offers people with disabilities the opportunity to be recognised as
contributing members of their communities. People with disabilities usually have a
higher rate of unemployment than the rest of the population. And when they do
work, they tend to do so for longer hours and lower incomes, face a greater risk of
becoming unemployed for longer periods, and have fewer chances of promotion.
This may be due to lack of adequate education or training, lack of motivation,
preconceived ideas about people with disabilities on the part of employers, lack of
physical accessibility to the workplace, and lack of adequate transportation.
It is estimated that 80 per cent of all people with disabilities of working age are
unemployed. The goal of Vocational Rehabilitation is to assist landmine survivors
to either learn new skills for entrepreneurship or prepare for and find suitable
employment. This involves Vocational training and job placement programs.

Landmine survivors should have access to case management services to assist in

coordinating vocational and medical rehabilitation programs with other aspects of
their individual rehabilitation plan to ensure that a smooth continuity of service
can be achieved. In Nigeria, most people with disabilities turn to self employed
because of a lack of opportunities in the job market. Although many would prefer
to have a job with a regular income, self-employment is often the only option
available. It is estimated that for each person with disability employed by a
company in Nigeria, four more generate their own income through selfemployment, most of them in the informal sector. Many people with disabilities
have started shops, craft workshops and farming activities; others are involved in
street vending, tailoring, carpentry, etc.
In rural areas, self-employment also includes farming or agricultural activities. The
majority of people with disabilities in Nigeria live in rural areas, like the rest of the
population. Economic inclusion programmes for people with disabilities should also
give attention to rural livelihoods. Grants or loans for investment in crop
production are not very common; self-help saving and lending groups are mostly
used to obtain loans to buy seeds, insecticides or pesticides, to pay land rent, or to
hire agricultural labour. First and foremost, people with disabilities who opt for
self-employment should have their basic needs covered prior to starting their
projects. Food security, understood as guaranteed access to safe, sufficient and
nutritious food, should be the first priority. According to their personal situation,
people with disabilities may also need assistive devices, rehabilitation,
psychological support and social inclusion programmes prior to, and/or during,
their economic activity. Successful self-employment also requires motivation,
adequate personal attitude, self-confidence, and some specific know-how
(education, vocational training or prior business experience) that will allow the
person to successfully develop a sustainable micro or small business.
People with disabilities, as with all micro-entrepreneurs, need start-up capital for
their activities. Sources of start-up capital include family savings, and grants and
loans from relatives, moneylenders, NGOs, microfinance institutions or banks.
However, the demand for capital from people with disabilities remains largely
unfulfilled.
In areas where there are formalized employment opportunities, trainees should be
counselled on how to apply for jobs in these industries. Where relevant, placement
readiness training should be available. This training would instruct candidates in
job search skills, such as filling out job applications, preparing resumes, mastering

effective interview techniques, etc. Successful trained placement candidates

should receive both short and long-term follow-up visits by the organization that
assisted in the placement process. Vocational training will be in following field:

Trading
Art and craft making
Farming and Animal Husbandry
Tailoring
Carpentry
Detergents and household usable products making
Information and Communication Technology

Economic Development:
The goal of Economic Development is to assist landmine survivors to initiate and
maintain their own businesses. It involves Comprehensive business training should
be available for landmine survivors, including the development of business plans
and other business related activities in areas such as sales, pricing, purchasing, etc.
The Business plans should include strategies for income generation that promise to
result in sustainable business ventures.

Education:

The goal of education is to address systemic disadvantages in educational access,

and enable adults disabled by landmines to full and equal educational access.
Instructors in adult educational upgrading programs should receive training in
educating students with physical and emotional disabilities.

Community Integration and Support:

The aim is to assist landmine survivors to return and participate fully in the life of
their community. It should be assured that landmine survivors have the
opportunity to participate in the fundamental activities of a normal community life
including home, education, employment, socialization and transportation in
facilities free from physical barriers. Communities should participate in assisting

landmine survivors to return to their village and be socially and economically

reintegrated into the community.
Community leaders should ensure that landmine survivors be provided land rights
similar to other community members upon their return to their home villages.
Families and peers should be educated to assume supportive roles, both to assist
survivors to re-adapt to their family and to help them assume independent roles as
active contributors to their communities. Disability awareness programs/materials
should be locally-developed and make use of landmine survivors and other persons
with disabilities as trainers and spokespersons.
Advocacy mechanisms should be developed/supported with community leaders,
peer support workers, rehabilitation professionals and family members.The
formation of self-help/self-advocacy groups of persons with disabilities, which
include landmine survivors, at the community level, should be assisted