International Day for Mine Awareness and Assistance in Mine Action was marked in Libya by these boy and girl scouts, a drawing exhibition and official speeches for the occasion. It was the children’s day to show that their efforts could make a difference.
The unseasonal hot springtime weather did not deter the scouts, who were determined that their campaigning to raise awareness about mines and unexploded remnants of war makes a difference.
“It is the duty of every scout to take part in the campaign,” Mahmoud Salem Dangir, a 15-year-old from the Tripoli Scouts Regiment, said in an interview.
“On every international day we act, we launch an awareness campaign, be it about mines, human rights or AIDS. We go out in a parade, raise banners and highlight the information we have so that the media is alerted and so that people will see the campaign and absorb it,” added Mohanad Al-Tarhouni, also 15.
As they set off on a two-kilometre march from a downtown square to a hotel where the official speeches were made, some of Tripoli’s residents along the march route stood on windows to snap pictures. Motorists where traffic was blocked to make way for the march waved, smiled or honked. Several revolutionaries from the Supreme Security Committee in military fatigues stood outside one of their posts along the way curiously looking at the children as they marched.
A group of schoolgirls took part in the parade, one saying they were invited because their school’s football team won the competition in Tripoli.
