The most recent attempt at an educational approach to mine awareness has been in Bosnia. Once again the situation is different. There is a high level of understanding of mine dangers in the community as the population lived through the conflict. Schooling was maintained (albeit intermittently) and the school population, which again is the primary target group, is academically inclined.

Traditionally, the solution to the problem of a rigid syllabus had been to put the information into lesson plans that could be implemented quickly. While this approach added another subject to an overcrowded syllabus, it was short, situation specific and very structured. This approach was linked with the demining operations in the country. Thus mine awareness was integrated with demining operations and not into the school system-still the case for most mine awareness programmes around the world. This is partly attributed to the fact that mine awareness campaigns are usually conceived and developed by those who know the most about mines-deminers and those who deal with the tragedy of mine victims, such as medical personnel. Only recently have home governments accepted that mines will not be cleared quickly and that there is a long-term problem to be addressed.

This attitude has been reflected in the mine awareness education programme in Bosnia. The approach has been to initiate a programme that can be sustained in a classroom situation. There is acceptance and understanding that the problem is long-term and hence the information programme must be equally long-term. There is a difference in the emphasis as well. In both Somalia and Rwanda the information concentrated mine recognition, what informal signs existed and what to do if a mine was found. Although there was an underlying philosophy of living safely with mines, the emphasis was on escaping the problem.

In Bosnia, the approach has been to learn to live safely with mines, knowing where they may be and therefore being able to avoid them. The mine education programme has attempted to examine the economic problems of having to use land or buildings which have been mined, as well as the greater humanitarian and ethical problems of using land mines. The programme has been designed to be truly integrated into the school syllabus by cross- referencing the lessons to sections in the existing syllabus.

The mine awareness education programme in Bosnia consists of a kit of materials for the classroom, a video and a "road show" as well as a teacher training component. In the kit there is a well-developed teacher resource book which provides approaches for integrating the materials, appropriate activities that can be used across all primary level grades, information on mines and unexploded ordnance and a series of demonstration lesson plans. In addition, there are games for classroom use and pupil activity booklets to be used to reinforce the information and understanding. The video includes a series of scenarios that can be broadcast on television, used as discussion starters in class, or just give information about dangerous situations with mines and how to live safely with them.

With the production of 3,250 Mine Awareness Kits, approximately 260,000 Bosnian school children will be targeted for mine awareness activities in-school and in the community Twenty-five trainers will be prepared to disseminate the Mine Awareness Kit. The trainers will prepare over 13,000 teachers in Bosnia-Herzegovina to teach mine awareness. Instruction to teachers at the national level will be on the basis of a multimedia mine awareness package that will be jointly developed by UNHCR, UNICEF and UNESCO/IBE.

The teacher training programme is once again the cascade approach but this time it will also utilise a network element so that teachers will have the opportunity to try the programme before they return for the next level of the training. Thus the methodology can be monitored to ensure its effectiveness and modifications can be made as the programme develops. The programme will therefore remain an effective tool in the classroom. The training will take place through the governmental teacher training institutes and will work with both pre-service and in-service teachers. This will be the most comprehensive approach to mine awareness education attempted thus far.

This text is an excerpt from Baxter and Hoffman's chapter entitled "Awareness Campaigns vs. Education Programmes: Experiences Developing Mine Awareness Education for Children" in the forthcoming joint IBE-Cassell UK publication Education as a Humanitarian Response.