The guns may have fallen silent in Vietnam more than 30 years ago, but the war isn’t over for many residents of the area around the former Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) at the 17th parallel. Once a week, someone in central Vietnam is killed or injured by an encounter with unexploded ordnance (UXO).

Along the central coast, where some of the war’s heaviest fighting took place, Clear Path International has provided assistance to more than 2,500 survivors of ordnance accidents and their families since the year 2000. The organization is active in 14 provinces, where it provides emergency medical care for new accident victims. It provides an array of medical, social and economic services to survivors in the provinces directly to the north and south of the former DMZ.

In Quang Tri and Quang Binh provinces we provide emergency medical care, hospitalization, surgery, long-term health care support, prosthetics and physical therapy. In the social realm we offer scholarships for children who have been injured by accidental explosions or those whose parents have sustained such injuries. And, Clear Path offers household support grants to families whose household economy has been devastated by the hope-shattering death or injury to one of its members.

Since the end of the war in 1975, more than 500 children have lost their lives and 4,000 have been injured in Quang Tri Province alone. Some of the bombs left over from the war have shapes that resemble toys, such as balls, making them hard to resist for curious kids. Many boys, traditionally charged to care for the family’s water buffalo, get killed or injured when their animal steps on a hidden piece of ordnance.

As part of effort to help strengthen the medical infrastructure in this former war-torn country, Clear Path has sent 20 containers of medical equipment and supplies to 28 hospitals mostly in central and northern Vietnam. It has sponsored the purchase and shipment of equipment for a prothestics and orthotics fabrication shop in Dong Ha, QuanTri Province. And, it co-sponsored the creation of a community-based physical rehabilitation training center in Le Thuy, Quang Binh Province.

Clear Path International has a very close relationship with the Da Nang Orthopedics & Rehabilitation Center, where it has not only sent numerous pieces of high-end medical equipment and supplies but also sponsored the training of its physicians and supported foreign volunteer missions.

Clear Path has a permanent office in Dong Ha with a full-time staff of five Vietnamese employees (see About Us), two part-time medical laisons in Hue and Da Nang, and six social outreach workers.