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A SPECIAL REPORT ON THE LEGACY OF THE SECRET WAR AND HOW A SOCIAL ENTERPRISE AND NGO PARTNERSHIP IS HELPING TO HEAL IT
Can fashion really make a difference? Can artisans be agents of change? Could a humble bangle help make post-conflict land safe for the people who live there?
It sounds crazy to be talking about war and bombs in the same sentence as fashion and jewellery. But that’s exactly what Article 22, a New York-jewellery brand and social enterprise that’s handmade in Laos, seeks to do.
They upcycle shrapnel and scrap metal from The Secret War into jewellery, and they called their first collection Peace Bomb. For every jewellery item they make, Article 22 donates to MAG, the Mines Advisory Group - an NGO that’s on the ground clearing undetonated bombs so that local families can live and farm in peace.
In this Episode, we travel to Xiang Khouang province with Article 22 to meet the artisans whose land is contaminated, and the NGO workers from MAG whose job it is to clear it. And along the way hear powerful stories of positive change.
WHO YOU’RE HEARING FROM
ELIZABETH SUDA & CAMILLA HAUTEFORT New Yorker Elizabeth Suda and Parisian Camille Hautefort are the founders of ethical jewellery brand and social enterprise Article 22.
MANIVONE SORABMIXAY is Article 22’s country manager. Prior, she worked with an Italian non- profit, focusing on maternal health: the Women’s Maternity Waiting Home Center and Weaving Group. Her role also included organising skills training for women around weaving and other crafts.
MANIXIA THOR joined the Mines Advisory Group (MAG) after completing high school in 2007. She started as a UXO clearance technician, then worked her way up to become the Deputy Team Leader of one of MAG’s all-female UXO clearance teams.
BOONCHAN, LAI AND LADONE are Lao artisans who work with the upcycled aluminium. Boonchan was the first person to return to Ban Napia and do this work.
Manixia Thor, Deputy Team Leader of one of MAG’s all-female UXO clearance teams.
NOTES
THE SECRET WAR From 1964 to 1973, the U.S. dropped more than two million tons of ordnance on Laos during 580,000 bombing missions - equal to a planeload of bombs every 8 minutes, 24-hours a day, for 9 years. Then acted like it never happened. It took 45 years for an American President (Obama, in 2016) to formally acknowledge the bombing campaign. Yet, Laos still lives with that legacy every day. More than 20,000 civilians have since been maimed by unexploded ordnance (UXO) left behind.
MAG or Mines Advisory Group is an NGO that assists people affected by landmines, unexploded ordnance, and small arms and light weapons. MAG takes a humanitarian approach to landmine action. They focus on the impact of their work on local communities.
BOMBLETS or BOMBIES A cluster munition is a form of air-dropped or ground-launched explosive weapon that releases or ejects smaller submunitions. Commonly, this is a cluster bomb that ejects explosive bomblets that are designed to kill personnel and destroy vehicles.
FRED BRANFMAN was an American anti-war activist and author of a number of books about the Indochina War who exposed the covert bombing of Laos by the US. Working as the Director of Project Air War in 1969 he wrote about the U.S. bombing in Indochina, which he claimed was directed at civilians. He died in 2014.
OBAMA During an address to the Lao people in the country's capital in September 2016, Obama pledged $90 million in a joint three-year project with the country's government to clear tens of millions of unexploded US bombs.
"Villages and entire valleys were obliterated," during US bombardments, Obama said. "Ancient plains were devastated. Countless civilians were killed. That conflict was another reminder whatever the cause, whatever our intentions, war inflicts a terrible toll, especially on innocent men, women and children." Via CNN
PLAINE OF JARS is a megalithic archaeological landscape in Laos that’s on the UNESCO World Heritage List. It consists of thousands of stone jars scattered around the upland valleys and the lower foothills of the central plain of the Xiang Khoang Plateau.
HUMAN RIGHTS The UN Universal of Human Rights was created in 1948, with the aim of avoid the atrocities of WWII from being repeated. Read it here. Article 22 states that everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realisation, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organisation and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.
On the road, Clare & Elizabeth
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