Founders

Coalition Against Landmines (CALM)

Helping child survivors of war get rehabilitation & attend school

Founders of CALM

Dr. Dessu Sam

Sam noticed the increasing number of civilian landmine victims in Ethiopia in the 1980s. Among them were children between the ages of 5 and 12. In the 1980s and early 1990s, the Ethiopian government in collaboration with the International Red Cross paid for rehabilitation and prosthetic needs of the members of injured military personnel. However, at the time poor children and civilian landmine survivors had to pay from pocket for their rehabilitation services. Child victims and their families travel several hundreds of miles to get to rehabilitation centers in Addis Ababa (the capital city). Most end up being homeless on the streets of Addis for they can't afford to stay in the city or pay for the prosthetic limbs. Having learned this, Sam knew he had to make a difference.

With dedication and full support of friends and family, Dr. Sam moved forward to help child landmine and explosive remnants of war survivors, and took the lead in establishing CALM in Washington, DC in 2007, and a nonprofit known as Child Survivors of War (CSW) in Juba, South Sudan in 2012 .

Shumye Gebrehiwot

In the late 1990s, Mr. Shumye worked as a program Director for the U.S. based Landmine Survivors Network (LSN) in Ethiopia. Shumye represented LSN and helped with development of action plan and project budgets that largely benefit landmine survivors in Ethiopia. He participated and advocated for the global initiative to ban landmines. Worked with the Ethiopian Government to promote survivors' assistance, disability sport activities and socio-economic re-integration of persons with disabilities. Shumye firmly advocated for the rights of landmine survivors and other persons with disabilities. He also helped develop a nation-wide rehabilitation service directory in Ethiopia.

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