Landmines Museum & School - Cambodia

Educating local villagers and tourists about landmines, this project helps with landmine identification and the impact they have on peoples lives when they are triggered.

The Landmines Museum has been set up in the home of ex-soldier Aki Ra who fought with the Vietnamese forces to rid Cambodia of the Khmer Rouge. An enormous number of landmines were left hidden in Cambodia after the country's years of conflict, killing and maiming many civilians every year. The landmine museum educates local villagers and tourists about landmines, how to identify them and the impact they have when they are triggered.

Aki Ra also uses his home as a free school for local children where English-speaking volunteers take classes outside. Any Imaginative Traveller interested in visiting the museum can do so as part of any tour in Cambodia. We can also offer travellers information on how to become a volunteer at the museum. Our Responsible Travel fund is spent on a variety of essential products at the museum and school, including books, stationery and furniture.

Since the Khmer Rouge lost power in Cambodia and especially since the end of the civil conflict in 1998 several organizations have made it safe for foreigners to travel in this fantastic country. However there are still in the region of 100,000 pieces of unexploded ordnance throughout the country and a lot of this ordnance is made up of landmines.

Aki Ra set up the museum as a reminder to the Cambodian government that more had to be done to protect is citizens who rely heavily on agriculture. The site is also used as a workshop and school for victims of landmine accidents as well as other local children. Aki Ra regularly searches the city streets for children using their severed limbs as a way of begging for money from foreigners and takes them home, offering them a basis for a good education. He has volunteers who generally stay for around three weeks and instruct the children in basic English and other school subjects. The volunteers also work as guides around the museum and explain to visitors about the issue of mines in Cambodia.