by Monica De Astis
Mine Mark an education project born in Den Haag a few months ago, that has recently completed a successful crowdfunding campaign, was brought on the 23-26 of april to Azerbaijan by the founders to put their social ideas into practice.
Cartoons, coloring books, board and memory games were the main tools used by Mine Mark to directly engage with 6 – 12 years old children in refugee camps nearby Baku and Jojuq Marjanli. This azerbajani village has been chosen as it was heavily landmine-contaminated and occupied between 1993 and 2016, due to the Nagorno Karabagh war. Focuses of Mine Mark education package was stimulating children to report landmines and how they could react when they find one.
The trip has also been a good chance for the delegation from Zuid-Holland to held several fruitful meetings with Azerbaijani state bodies like the State Committee for Affairs on Diaspora, the State Committee for Affairs of Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons and the National Agency for Mine Action.
“Our next goal is to educated schools in 17 regions located on the front line of Azerbaijan, as we saw a need in additional education” stressed Mine Mark’s members. And in the thank you message to their supporters concluded: «We were really happy that both children and state agencies liked our project. Now we need to work hard and create new engaging games, cartoons and raise more funding for children».
