A tantalizing story by a religious leader who received TOT and lives in Ethiopian Amhara region, South Wollo zone, Harbu town, Kebele 03. The story was told to one of the EPSS trainer. The story goes:

The story was shared by a religious leader named Shek Abdurahman Mohamed. He started his story by saying, for “your surprise, after receiving the TOT, there was something disturbing me that I saw in my sister`s house. My sister lives in a small village, 33 k.m away from Harbu town”. Then after receiving the enthusiastic EORE training, he could not sleep for few days because of what he saw his sister’s house. He saw an Artillery or heavy weapon ammunition that used as decoration and flower holders on the table.

During the training, he saw a number of ERW pictures in the poster and recognized that ammunition was one of the photos included as dangerous weapon in the poster. After that, he decided in a sense of urgency to travel to his sister’s residence to inform that ammunition was dangerous and find way to remove. Accordingly he left his house and went to sister’s house. All the way to his sister’s residence house, Shek Abdurahman was conscious and looking left and right if ERW are available and thought the community how dangerous they are and people should not touch them. After his arrival, out of respection his sister was happy and started to prepare food and other coffee ceremony for him. But he said “please we have serious issue to deal and delay is fatal for it that is related with your life”. She was engulfed by his seriousness and took a seat to listen what her brother is going to tell.

He started to give a small briefing about what ERW and EO are and how they adversely impact on human and living animals. He dded there is muchsecrecy with regard to ERW that civil societies don’t know. All civil societies assume once ammunitions are fired from the barrel of weapons, we assume all are already exploded and don’t harm individuals, that is completely wrong, he said. His sister was attentively listening what her brother was narrating. After his explanation to her, based on the training he received during TOT, he come to the main point. He described how the ammunition of heavy weapon put in her house on the table as decoration and material to hold flower is risky and danger to life of the family in particular and the community in general.

During their discussion she posed and asked it has already exploded, how the exploded one can affect people? Shek Abdurahman responded prudently that whether this is exploded or unexploded can be verified by experts not by us who have little or no expertise on the field. Based on that, she agreed on what he explained and decided to throw some where into the bush or ridge. Following that, both of them carried the ammunition and took to one of the deep ridge a little away from the residence house. As soon as they arrived in the ridge, they threw away and the ammunition started to scroll down in to the deep low land and smashed with a big stone, exploded and changed all stones availed around into pieces. That was the time Shek Abdurahman’s sister assumed her brother as a messenger and a savior who came to save her life and the entire community. After coming Shek Abdurahman back from his sister’s house, he met EPSS team members and told the whole story with high appreciation and gratitude because he was able to rescue his sister due to the TOT received

The gratitude and appreciation mainly goes to the republic of Japan, UNOPs and UNMAS who backed EPSS financially and logistically, to implement TOT and EORE in the field. Without them in the driving seat of the resource vehicle, no amount of effort could stop the damage on the society.

Even though, the ERW from the house were supposed to report and inform experts to remove the form the house instead of carrying and throwing by them, the awareness created via EORE and TOT within the society is highly valuable and significant to rescue the life of people.