Facilitators of the Humanitarian Demining Engineer Battalion No.2, with the support of the Government Secretariat and the Mayor's office of Ibagué, Tolima, held Anti-Personnel Mine Risk Education workshops in the municipalities of El Cai, Villa Restrepo and Juntas.
The objective of touring those areas that stand out for being tourist, is to educate locals and tourists, promoting safe behaviors that help prevent accidents by anti-personnel mines.
Troops distributed brochures, and conducted conferences, spreading the message of prevention of accidents with explosives, they provided information of how to make an alert in the shortest time possible, and how to actively participate in the identification of areas with potential anti-personnel mines in the national territory and how to react in case of being in the areas of risk or how to deal with a situation of crisis in case of being in front of anti-personnel Mines, Unexploded Ordnance and Booby Traps.
Cristian Caicedo, representative of the municipality of Villa Restrepo of the municipality of Ibagué, highlighted the visit of the facilitators and added: “This type of workshops is important for people because they teach us good practices at the time of encountering an explosive device that may cause damage to the community. Now if we educate ourselves, many accidents can be prevented in our territory”.
In the same way, Hernando Caicedo, president of the municipality 7 Juntas, said that he finds this type of activities carried out by the Demining Battalion and the municipal mayor's office very good, by educating people about the possible risks arising from anti-personnel mines and in the same way highlights the lesson of how to act when facing a potential environment with anti-personnel mines.
The promoters continue their work in the south of Tolima, where in addition to train the communities, they in the same way encourage the adoption of safe behaviors in members of the national police who accompany the Land Restitution Unit in the department.
Source: Press - National Army
