Croatian mine action centre

According to the Article 6 (3), the Republic of Croatia as the Ottawa Convention signatory is obliged to ensure and implement the above-mentioned programs and inform the UN Secretary General about it.. The basic aim of all public information available and different ongoing programs is keeping the continuous level o mine awareness in the period until mined areas are cleared from mines and UXO and handed over to the final beneficiaries for safe usage. Different mine risk education activities, marking of mine suspected area, possibility of getting an insight into mine situation through submission of MSA maps and CDs as well as using CROMAC web portal have a positive effect on the prevention of mine incidents, but also require additional activities of informing the public and media with mine action aspects.

Since 2002, CROMAC has been organizing the action ''April – Month of Protection from Mines' aiming at mine incident prevention. Independently and despite of the fact that 2008 has been the year with smallest number of incidents registered so far, there is an obvious need for the implementation of mine risk education through application of methods suitable to a particular context and target groups – e.g. farmers, hunters, children, tourists, media.

There is the need for involvement of media in sensitization and informing the public about the existing threat and mine-related problems such as barriers to the return of refugees and internally displaced people, economic development, mine incidents and constant care for mine victims. The ultimate goal is permanent media coverage of the problem and active involvement through all-year broadcasting activities (radio and TV spots) as well as reminding the citizens of responsible behavior. All other associations and institutions are invited to actively participate in the implementation of various programs as well as permanent media coverage – all for the purpose of reminding the citizens of responsible behavior.

In the part where the emphasis is put on CROMAC’s co-coordinative role, the co-operation is created and the continuity of different educative programs realized. A very good co-operation is established with a number of non-governmental organizations, international and domestic organizations. The associations and organizations that have so far been continuously involved in the process are: Croatian Red Cross, International Committee of Red Cross, Croatian Mine Victims Association, Association of Organizations of Croatian Civil Victims of Homeland War in co-operation with Associations of Homeland War Veterans, Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA), Mine Association, Recobot Trust Fund, Croatian without Mines trust fund, Daska theatre from Sisak, OSCE Mission to the Republic of Croatia, Children’s amateur puppet theatre "Pinokio" Knin, Puppet scene MM from Osijek, BEMBO Association in co-operation with the NPA and many others.

The Ministry of Education and Sports played an important role and gave a considerable contribution to different forms of promotional and educative contents in co-operation with other organizations.

Basic forms of mine risk education (MRE) are conducted through the following activities:

• Presentations and lectures in schools, public companies, by holding the panels;
• TV/radio spots, jingles;
• Theatre plays, cartoons, films, different performances;
• Educational notebooks and special booklets, informative leaflets;
• Picture books
• Media-covered projects, fairs, expositions with info-desks and promotional material;
• Marking of the world day of mine action entitled "April – Mine Action Month",
• Different initiatives of show business people, concerts, art expositions, sports events etc.

Mine risk education activities in 2008:

In line with the Law on Humanitarian Demining, mine risk education and mine victims assistance were being conducted during 2008 with the coordinative role of the Croatian Mine Action Centre and joint cooperation with the relevant ministries, domestic and international organizations and associations.

In 2008, there were numbers of lectures entitled "Children in mine environment" held in elementary schools. The lectures were organized by the Union of Associations of Civil Victims of Homeland war of Croatia, Croatian Red Cross and Anti-explosive Department of Police Administrations. There were also the projects of other organizations and associations realized such as the ones of the Norwegian People's Aid, Bembo Association, Puppet Theatre Scena MM from Osijek (the play "The Dangerous Adventure"), Pinokio Theatre (the play "The Dangerous Game") and Daska Theatre (the play "No, no MINES").

In the framework of the project "Watch out – mines" of the Centre for Neohumanist Studies from Karlovac, there were 10.000 picture books distributed.

The Croatian Red Cross made a new educative poster and continued with the project of building children's playgrounds in mine-contaminated areas.

Joint action of the Ministry of Interior and UNDP entitled "Less weapons-less tragedies" gave very good results.

The central ceremony of marking April 4 – "International Day of Mine Awareness and Mine Victim Assistance" was held in the community of Tenja, Town of Osijek. On that occasion, there were lectures relating to mine action held and the theatre play "No, no, mines". There were also humanitarian concerts and auctions of paintings held, TV spots of the Croatian Hunting Society broadcasted at the Croatian Radio television as well as some other radio shows. All these activities were undertaken with the purpose of mine risk education and raising the level of mine awareness.