A few months after the Somali experience, the Rwandan kit was developed. Although the immediate problem was the same, the audience and the situation were quite different. The Rwandan crisis was very violent and short lived. The home population had not had the same opportunity to live with mines, opposing forces had not had time to lay elaborate mine fields and there was a very large proportion of live ordnance. Thus the mine awareness programme for Rwanda attempted to utilise the experiences gained in the Somalia programme and at the same time take into account the specific situation of Rwanda. The mine awareness programme in Rwanda was able to take advantage of the infrastructure established by the emergency educational intervention jointly developed by UNESCO-PEER, UNICEF and the emerging Ministry of Education. The UNESCO-PEER/UNICEF programme trained 886 trainers in 10 prefectures, and distributed approximately 16,000 kits throughout Rwanda.

Rather than the military manual approach, the poster for Rwanda showed the most common mines in situ with sketches of the mines in relation to the size of a hand in the corner of the poster. This was to avoid two of the problems of the Somali poster-the military manual picture style was not an appropriate learning tool for children and explaining relative size was very difficult.

The lesson plans for Rwanda were more comprehensive than those for Somalia and there was an attempt to write them so that they could be used in Language or Social Science lessons or even Health and Morale lessons. The lesson plans utilised the "something dangerous" approach first developed in Somalia, with visual aids for the teachers to be used as discussion starters in the classroom. Through the lessons, a series of situations was presented where mines or unexploded ordnance may be found. A pupil booklet was devised so that the children could follow along with the principles of the lesson. The teachers' notes were also in the booklet in a different font and written in a conversational style so that, if necessary, the children could work alone using the notes as a guide.

Again, teacher training was undertaken through the cascade model. But the lessons were still isolated and there was an assumption that the teachers understood the dangers of mines and would therefore give the lessons appropriate time and emphasis. Although some of the shortcomings of the Somalia approach were repeated, in essence, there was no choice. Nevertheless, it was a campaign undertaken educationally rather than an education programme. There is now a National Demining Body in Rwanda and it, in conjunction with UNESCO and UNICEF, is planning a community "road show" programme.

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.