“Through entertaining and informative educational puppet shows, No Strings aims to foster landmine safety awareness, bringing HIV education and AIDS information to children and teaching them about street kids' issues.”

Two Ranger Education units and two Ambulances are to be deployed in Afghanistan to assist in the work No Strings International is doing in minefield awareness, and HIV education and particularly (but not exclusively) aimed at children.

The Education Units are modified versions of the standard Ranger cinema and will be arriving on location later this year. The other two units are standard Ambulance vechicles.

Project details

Arrival date: 1st July 2006
Location: Afghanistan, Kabul and local area
Unites deployed: 2 Education Units and 2 Ambulances
NGO: No Strings International
Operators: OMAR

Arrival in Kabul - 3rd July 2006

We arrived in Kabul following a brief stopover in Dubai. Mike Norman and Ian Avery from eRanger and Johnie McGlade, Hugo Speer from No Strings and Clare Allen a freelance photographer. Meet up with Fazel Karim Fazel, Executive Director OMAR.

The bikes eventually arrived in Kabul with just enough time to get them assembled and to have a few practice runs around the the OMAR building. The backdrop of military hardware brought home the stark reality of how violent the history of Afghanistan actually is. The suicide bombing that morning reinforced the stark reality, that little has changed.

The OMAR staff were keen and helpful to get the bikes made ready to put to good use that evening. No Strings were due to present their Chuchi film to the children of school just outside Kabul in a village called – Qalai Zaman Khan. The show must go on!

The journey to the village illustrated the difficulty of reaching even the areas near Kabul, rough roads and inaccessable streets. The local dignity were invited to join in and view the film and the children were keen to get on with the show.

As the sun was setting the Education Unit was maneuvered into the tent that was used as the makeshift cinema and the show was introduced by local OMAR personel. The impact was apparent from the outset as silence decesended amongst the audience as they quickly became caught up in the entertaining and the message No Strings was trying to get across.

After the showing a Q&A session was carried out to test how effective the show had been. All those asked know the five steps to safe mine avoidance.

The following days in Kabul saw more presentations of the Chuchi film, with similar results. The visit to the Mine Museum illustrated the creativity that man can apply to doing harm to fellow man. The days we spent in Kabul with No Strings and OMAR showed the creativity that can be applied to helping making some of the harm less harmful.

We will continue to report on the No Strings / OMAR vehicles in these pages and in our news section.

Following the trip

Hugo Speer appeared on GMTV and Radio 5 Live (the Simon Mayo Show) on Tuesday 11th July giving interviews about the trip and the reasons behind it.

Previous news coverage:
Puppets warn children about landlmines
Experts from Jim Henson's Muppet Show are touring post-war Afghanistan to teach children about landmines. Click here