Philadelphia Eagles Named “Global Sports Team of the Year” and Sponsor MDD Lil’ Swoop!

By Dave Zangaro
Featured on CSNPhilly.com

Philadelphia – December 2011 – It has been a frustrating season of football for the Philadelphia Eagles.

The team is 4-8 and the Super Bowl aspirations they had to start the year have withered away. But on Wednesday, the team received some good news.

The Eagles were named as the global Sports Team of the Year by the international social change organization, Beyond Sport, for their work in the community addressing social issues.

It was the second year the Eagles were a finalist for the award and they beat out teams from 130 different countries.

“This season is unbelievably frustrating and it makes us want to work even harder to make it right and that’s why what we do in the community is just as important as what we do, if not even more in years like this one,” Eagles co-owner, and wife of Jeffrey Lurie, Christina Weiss Lurie said. “We recognize that our fans are really loyal. And yes, they’re frustrated too. But they’re so supportive of what we do, whether it’s through Eagles Youth Partnership or one of our other campaigns.”

The team was nominated for the award based on three of its programs: Eagles Youth Partnership, Tackling Breast Cancer and Go Green .

Eagles Youth Partnership provides eye care, reading support and mentoring programs to over 50,000 kids a year. Tackling Breast Cancer has raised more than $1.6 million for cancer research and care. And Go Green is the alternative energy initiative.

“It’s an unbelievable award, to be voted best team in the world,” Christina Lurie said. “The reality is, it’s a group effort. We wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for all of our partners, whether it’s the fans, whether it’s the entire organization, the players, the coaches, the employees.”

One particular story that came to mind for Lurie didn’t deal with one of their three major campaigns. Instead, it was through work with the Marshall Legacy Institute, which works with land-mine sniffing dogs.

After the Eagles signed Michael Vick, they were approached by the group and decided to engage in some philanthropy. The Eagles teamed up with the sixth grade class at John Wister Elementary School to give a mine-sniffing dog, which they named Little Swoop.

In addition to donating Little Swoop to a village in Sri Lanka, the sixth-graders also collected money to buy prosthetics for a kid who lost limbs from a land mine.

One little boy even took a trip to Sri Lanka to visit Little Swoop.

“Those are the kinds of moving stories that make a big difference to us and to the community and this kid’s life has been changed for ever,” Lurie said.

The Eagles were selected by a Beyond Sport judging panel, which is chaired by U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair.

“I’m really thankful that we live in a city, in a community that allows for that to happen,” Lurie said. “When Jeffrey and I bought the Eagles, it hit us soon after that we had an incredible platform with the team to help the community and create positive social change.”

E-mail Dave Zangaro at dzangaro@comcastsportsnet.com

Marshall Legacy Institute Provides Humanitarian Assistance to Sri Lanka

WASHINGTON – A delegation from the Marshall Legacy Institute (MLI), a US-based non-profit organization, arrived in Sri Lanka on November 15, 2011 to conduct a four-day assessment visit and attend the graduation ceremony of five Mine Detection Dogs (MDDs) that were donated to the Sri Lankan Army Engineer Regiment’s Humanitarian Demining Unit last June.  MLI is assisting Sri Lanka in clearing its land of the humanitarian dangers and destabilizing effects of landmines by developing and expanding the Engineer Regiment’s MDD capacity, which will greatly accelerate the pace of landmine clearance in Sri Lanka.   Dogs are critical to saving lives and returning the land to good use, and have proven to be one of the most efficient and effective tools for detecting mines in the world.

Sri Lanka is contaminated by landmines and other explosive remnants of war (ERW) as a result of nearly three decades of armed conflict between the Government of Sri Lanka (GSL) and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).  MLI donated 12 MDDs and provided integration training to the Sri Lankan Army’s Engineer Regiment in 2004 and 2005, but a surge in fighting in 2008 and 2009 resulted in the early retirement of these MDDs.  During this period, mine-production and mine-laying in the northern districts of Sri Lanka escalated, dramatically increasing the country’s landmine contamination.  The GSL declared the war over in May 2009 after seizing remaining LTTE-controlled areas, but mines continue to threaten civilians and prohibit access to agricultural land, water and roads, while also preventing the return of tens of thousands of internally displaced people to their homes.

To assist in their mine clearance efforts, the Engineer Regiment requested additional MDDs and MLI responded with an initial donation and integration training for five MDDs in June 2011.   MLI plans to donate an additional six MDDs to Sri Lanka in 2012.

On November 16, 2011, MLI participated in the MDD team graduation ceremony at the Sri Lankan Army Boo Oya Camp outside Vavuniya. The ceremony was attended by Brigadier Dhananjith, Chief Field Engineer of the Humanitarian Demining Unit;  Adis Pelto, MLI’s MDD trainer; Monty Ranatunge, Director of the Sri Lanka National Mine Action Center; a representative from UNDP; John Head-Rapson of Millenium IT; Prashantha Peiris, MLI’s in-country representative; and the SLA MDD handlers and support staff from the Engineer Regiment.

After an impressive obedience demonstration, the MDDs demonstrated how dogs are able to quickly locate landmines by “sniffing out” the explosive off-gas, without sacrificing safety or accuracy.  Following the demonstrations, the new handlers and their MDDs were presented with graduation certificates by MLI and were formally accredited.

To observe the new teams at work, the MLI delegation traveled to a SLA HDU demining site in Mannar, where a front line between the Sri Lankan military and LTTE forces left extreme mine contamination. The delegation observed the MDDs at this site, which is approximately ½ kilometer from the sea and 2 kilometers from a fishing village.  So far, more than 1,000 anti-personnel mines, 2 anti-tank mines, and 150 unexploded ordinances have been recovered from this area; the newly accredited dog teams will be critical in accelerating the pace of mine clearance in this region.

In addition to providing additional life-saving MDDs, MLI is exploring the possibility of initiating its Children Against Mines Program and Survivors’ Assistance Program in Sri Lanka.   During its visit, the MLI delegation met with Vijaya Ratnayake, President of the American Chamber of Commerce in Sri Lanka, and explored the possibility of donating large quantities of custom designed medical supplies to landmine survivors and other victims of war.  Additionally, the delegation met with Z. Thajudeen of the Ministry of Education, to explore initiating MLI’s Children Against Mines Program in Sri Lanka.

MLI is committed to helping Sri Lanka become a safe place for children to play, animals to live and communities to grow without the threat of landmines and plans to continue helping Sri Lanka address the long-term humanitarian dangers and destabilizing effects of landmines.

** The Marshall Legacy Institute (MLI) is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization that was established in 1997 to extend the vision of Nobel Peace Laureate George C. Marshall by alleviating suffering and promoting hope, growth and stability in war-torn countries. MLI’s primary mission is to establish practical, affordable and sustainable indigenous programs to help severely mine-affected countries rid their land of the humanitarian dangers and destabilizing effects of landmines.  This includes the development and implementation of the K9 Demining Corps (K9DC), which provides Mine Detection Dogs (MDDs) to accelerate the pace of landmine clearance operations; the Survivors’ Assistance program, which helps those who have been injured by landmines; and the Children Against Mines Program (CHAMPS), which promotes global citizenship and involves American youth in meaningful service-learning projects to help other children around the world. **

Contact:  Tycie Horsley
703-243-9200
tycie@marshall-legacy.org

Dogs that Sniff and Save

Arlington-based organization provides mine-detecting dogs.

Featured in the Arlington Connection
By Montie Martin

Arlington, VA – November 10, 2011 – Many people in the poorest countries in the world live with landmines, and the Arlington-based Marshall Legacy Institute helps to alleviate the burden with man’s best friend.

The institute trains and deploys mine-detecting dogs to some of the most heavily landmine-saturated countries in the world.

Dogs, with their finely tuned noses, can detect mines at significantly faster rates than traditional hand held detectors. While a person can clear 50 square meters of land a day, a dog can clear up to 1,500.

“Dogs have wonderful noses, and are naturally trainable,” said Perry Baltimore, CEO of the Marshall Legacy Institute. “Our dogs must make the highest echelon of training because so much is at stake.”

Not just any dog can become a certified de-miner. MLI mine-detecting dogs are selected from a pedigree raised specifically for their noses. The dogs are then sent to Texas for six weeks of intensive training.

The effort of bringing a dog up to professional standards is costly, and averages approximately $20,000 per dog. The investment pays off in the long term, however, as MLI has never lost an animal in the field.

“A dog can work between six and eight years and clear up to two million square meters of land before retiring to a good home,” said Baltimore.

The benefits of removing landmines are extensive. Landmines kill and maim civilians even after conflicts end, they prohibit the use of land for agriculture, and they cut off roads and access to markets.

“Landmines hamper the economic development of a country,” said Elise Becker, vice president of operations with MLI. “In a country like Angola, there are more mines than people.”

Angola is the most recent country to form a partnership with MLI. On Oct. 12, the organization held a signing ceremony and sent a team of six dogs and two handlers to train locals in canine-based de-mining techniques.

“Fifty percent of the country is mined; people can not move around safely,” said Delfina Nascimento, Second Secretary of the Embassy of Angola. “People have no water, no electricity, no homes. But there are landmines.”

According to Nascimento, during the 27-year civil war a landmine cost $50 to purchase and bury in the ground. Today that same landmine costs $5,000 to remove.

Despite the seemingly insurmountable hurdle of clearing landmines from a country twice the size of Texas, Nascimento remains optimistic for Angola now that peace has been established since 2002.

“There has been big progress,” said Nascimento. “The economy has grown and young people are going to university instead of the military.”

In Angola, as in many other countries plagued with landmines, mines were considered an instrument of war and used without considering their future impact. Landmines, however, do not discriminate between soldiers, and pose serious ethical concerns when civilians are maimed or killed.

“Anything that kills children in an attempt to stop combatants is unethical,” said Dr. Brian Doyle, an associate professor of theology at Marymount University. “The argument that they are not meant to kill but to act as a deterrent is political and does not, in my opinion, convince any ethicist.”

The unethical nature of landmines, their lethality, and their economic devastation was recognized universally in the 1997 Ottawa Treaty banning the production and sale of landmines. Although the United States is not a signatory of the treaty, according to MLI no other country in the world supports de-mining efforts more than the United States.

“We’re so grateful for loving, passionate, charitable Americans who sponsor this cause,” said Baltimore. “All of the dogs have been paid for by personal donations, and the government matches funding two-to-one.”

Major funding for MLI comes from the U.S. State Department, which supports 28 dogs in Afghanistan alone. Other significant funding sources include the military contracting firm General Dynamics.

“The success of the dogs is phenomenal,” said Rob Doolittle, a spokesman for General Dynamics. “Lives and land are saved because of the work of the dogs.”

Perhaps the most impressive funding source, however, has been the outpouring of support from schools. The MLI Children Against Landmines campaign offers students an opportunity to see first hand how a mine detecting dog operates in their classroom, and students can raise funds to support the cause.

Children can interact with peers from abroad over the Internet, and hear from survivors of landmines first hand.

“Young people get involved, and help victims of landmines,” said Yooh-yung Kim, a volunteer with MLI “No one can dispute the legitimacy of the cause.”

To date, there are 165 MLI dogs operating in 13 countries. The scale of the mission to eradicate landmines, however, is daunting. Landmines affect over 70 countries, and while the MLI program can point to great success having cleared an area the size of London, much remains to be done.

MLI’s 2011 Clearing the Path Gala was a Huge Success!

Washington, DC – The Marshall Legacy Institute (MLI), a Virginia-based international humanitarian organization, hosted its 14th annual Clearing the Path Gala on October 4th in Washington, DC at the elegant Fairmont Hotel. Nearly 350 guests helped MLI honor leaders whose extraordinary efforts have improved lives in war-torn countries. With dozens of generous Gala sponsors, including Title Sponsor General Dynamics, the event raised more than $300,000 to support MLI’s humanitarian programs.

MLI works to restore hope and promote stability in war-torn countries by implementing sustainable and affordable programs that help countries remove the scourge of landmines. Since its founding in 1997, MLI has donated 171 mine detection dogs (MDDs) to eleven different countries around the world, to include Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Eritrea, Iraq, Lebanon, Nicaragua, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and most recently, Angola. MLI’s CHildren Against Mines Program (CHAMPS) is an educational outreach program that fosters global citizenship by encouraging American students to help others in mine-affected countries through service-learning projects. Finally, MLI’s Survivors’ Assistance program helps landmine survivors who are struggling to overcome the devastating physical and psychological scars of their injuries by providing prosthetic devices, rehabilitative treatment and vocational training.

MLI was delighted to have veteran ABC News reporter, Sam Donaldson, and his wife and accomplished broadcast journalist, Jan Smith-Donaldson, serve as joint Masters of Ceremonies for the Gala. They kicked off the evening and introduced Deputy Secretary of State William J. Burns, who emphasized the importance of continuing the uphill battle to remove the grave threats that landmines pose to human life and security. “The Marshall Legacy Institute has become a premier example of how much we can accomplish when government and private organizations work together in common cause,” said the Deputy Secretary. The Department of State’s Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement has been a supporter of MLI since 1999 and has been indispensable to MLI’s programs.

After a delightful dinner and impressive performances of traditional Afghan and Azeri dances by the Nomad Dancers, the awards ceremony officially commenced. The first award presentation, the Joan Wismer CHAMPS Award, went to the Glenelg Country School (GCS) of Ellicott City, Maryland for their tireless enthusiasm for the CHAMPS Program. MLI founder and Board Chairman, General Gordon Sullivan, then took the stage to present the 2011 Public Policy Award to Senator Jack Reed (D-RI) in recognition of his endeavors to create a safer world for people and animals and his consistent advocacy for global diplomatic initiatives.

Following Senator Reed’s remarks, Dr. Ken Rutherford, Director of the Center for International Stabilization and Recovery, and former recipient of MLI’s Survivors’ Assistance Award, presented the Fantomi Sitting Volleyball Team with the 2011 Survivors’ Assistance Award. Mirsad Mirojević, co-founder and Director of the Fantomi Sitting Volleyball Team, and Marija Trlin of the Mine Dog Detection Center in Bosnia Herzegovina accepted the award on behalf of the team. The evening concluded with the presentation of the MDD Team of the Year Award, which went to MDD Pete and his handler Shah Mahmood, who have been working together in Afghanistan since 2008 to make the country a safer place. Although the team could not attend the Gala, Ambassador Eklil Hakimi of Afghanistan and MDD trainer Glenn Hayter accepted the award on their behalf. Ambassador Hakimi thanked MLI for the twenty eight MDDs that have been donated to his country over the past three years.

MLI is incredibly grateful to everyone who so generously contributed to the success of the Clearing the Path Gala, including the many sponsors, donors, volunteers, and members of the Gala Steering Committee. For more information or to take part in the 2012 Clearing the Path Gala, scheduled for October 10, 2012, please contact info@marshall-legacy.org or call 703-243-9200.

Click here for the printable version of the Press Release.

MLI Launches 1st Mine Detection Dog program in Angola!

Published by the Journal of Angola

October 12, 2011 -Luanda – The National Institute of Demining (INAD), the Marshall Legacy Institute (MLI) and the Mine Detection Dogs Centre (MDDC) Wednesday in Luanda signed a technical assistance accord for dog demining, a technique that will be used in Angola for the first time.

The accord was signed by INAD director, Leonardo Severino Sapalo, MLI chairman, Perry F. Baltimore III, and MDDC director, Nermin Hadzimujagic, at a ceremony witnessed by the Angolan institution’s technical personnel, including the US embassy official for political affairs.

The main purpose of the accord is technical assistance for the development of skills of INAD mine detection dogs.

Under the deal, INAD will build 12 kennels for the Viana (Luanda) demining school and secure training and accreditation for local trainers of mine detection dogs, seeking to speed up demining operations in the country.

The MDDC will supply two professional teams of dogs for detection of landmines to work in Angola for two months, under INAD demining operations.

In its turn, MLI will operate as the programme coordinating organ and help INAD choose a programme manager in the country.

The MLI official said his institution has so far supplied 165 explosive detecting dogs to various countries of the world.

NEWS AND EVENTS

Help MLI win $150,000 Humanitarian Award by voting for us by June 28th!

We are excited to announce that MLI was nominated this month to receive a Classy Award for our humanitarian achievements!  This is an amazing opportunity for us to not only win $150,000, but to also broaden our exposure and raise awareness about the global landmines epidemic. In order to become a finalist,we only need 100 people to “like” us on our new page at StayClassy.org by June 28th. Once you get to our page, just click on the small box with a “thumbs up” symbol - you do not need to provide any personal information or sign up  - all you have to do is “like” MLI’s page to help us win!  If you have a Facebook or Twitter account, please consider sharing this with your friends and be sure to go to MLI’s Facebook page for updates about how we are doing.

News and Events

The Brave Belgian Malinois, Lil’ Swoop

Published: Friday, May 6, 2011
By: My Fox Philly

Click on the image to go to the official Fox News website and view the video of Lil’ Swoop!

Lil’ Swoop is Belgian Malinois by breed and his job is to sniff out landmines.

Here are some facts you need to know about this impressive dog:

- Last year, fifth and sixth grade students from Wister Elementary adopted the shepherd that was trained, courtesy of Christina and Jeffrey Lurie and the Philadelphia Eagles Football Club, to detect landmines in war zones across the globe.

- He is named after Eagles’ mascot SWOOP.

- Lil’ Swoop’s passport has stamps from across the globe!

- The dog is about to be deployed to a long-term assignment in Sri Lanka.

Click on the video tab to watch a demo of this dog’s skills and to hear more about who sponsored this dog and the students who will follow Lil’ Swoop on his mission.

Good luck Lil’ Swoop. Stay safe!

For more information on the Eagles Youth Partnership, click

here.

Successful 1st Annual K9-9K Walkathon!

“More Than Man’s Best Friend”
By Sara Toth, Howard County Times

It takes seven laps around the campus of Glenelg Country School to equal nine kilometers.

A handful of people did just that, braving the cold and driving rain April 16, as part of the first annual K9-9K Walk for the Marshall-Legacy Institute, raising $8,000 toward the sponsorship of a land mine-detection dog.

About 150 people registered for the event, but only about 10 percent of them completed the walk, said Tycie Horsley, development director at the institute. The fact that so many people even made it out of their houses on such a dreary day spoke volumes, and Perry Baltimore, executive director of the institute, reminded a group of walkers of the importance of their attendance.

“In the few hours that we’ve been out here, four or five people have been hurt worldwide from land mines,” he said. “You can see the importance of these dogs. You are making a difference in the lives of children around the world.”

Glenelg Country School, in Ellicott City, has been partnered with the Marshall-Legacy Institute for the past three years through the Children Against Mines Program, or CHAMPS. Students already sponsor a land mine-detection dog, named Dragon, who is currently at work in Afghanistan, and are in the process of raising money to sponsor a second dog.

A land mine-detection dog costs $20,000, said Kimberly McCasland, director of the CHAMPS program, but it takes much less, only $5,000 to $6,000, to help survivors of land mine explosions.

Jocelyn Wright, 10, was one of the few to complete the whole nine kilometers of the walk. The Glenelg Country school fourth-grader individually raised the most money for the dog, collecting $300 by going door-to-door in her River Hill neighborhood.

“A lot of people just happened to say ‘yes’ ” Jocelyn said. “I really love animals, and I think it’s really sad that people in Afghanistan don’t have the right to have dogs or even to fly a kite.”

Every year, students participate in Kite Day, which is done to honor land mine victims in Afghanistan. Linar Etemadi-Cusic, originally from Afghanistan and Jocelyn’s homeroom teacher, is also head of the Building Bridges Club at Glenelg, which works with the CHAMPS program. Etemadi-Cusic said she started the Building Bridges Club to do just that — build bridges of similarity across the countries.

“Afghanistan, being the country that it is and in the situation that it is in, is so misunderstood,” Etemadi-Cusic said. “Middle Eastern countries dealing with land mines, it’s so far away from us here. Being in the states, we have the awareness, but we can’t get our minds wrapped around how difficult it is to walk from Point A to Point B.”

Etemadi-Cusic said she puts it to her students this way: Walking from a desk to a pencil sharpener across the room is simple. Running around flying a kite is simple. But in other countries, children can’t do that.

“They’re always wondering, ‘what am I going to step on?’ ” she said. “That’s huge. We don’t have that fear here. When we don’t have that fear, we can’t always understand the magnitude of the issue.”

Etemadi-Cusic said her students were very responsive to learning about land mines and land mine victims, and as students become aware, parents become aware and then whole communities as well.

With the help of Utsi, an 11-year-old Belgian malinois and retired detection dog, McCasland gave a demonstration of how a dog sniffs out a land mine. Once a dog detects a land mine through scent, it sits perfectly still, moving only its head, while its handler triangulates the area with pins and flags. Then, the dog quickly traces its steps back to its handler and safer land.

All land mine dogs, McCasland said, are trained in Dutch, and know the languages of their trainers. Utsi, for example, understands Dutch and two different African languages, as well as some German. In her career, McCasland said, Utsi has cleared more than 1.5 million square feet of land and has saved the lives of tens of thousands of people.

McCasland started the CHAMPS program six years ago, partnering schools in the United States with schools abroad. In those six years, 22 dogs have been sponsored by children in the United States.

Glenelg’s Building Bridges Club is partnered with Roshan High School in the Laghman province in Afghanistan, and classrooms there communicate with Etemadi-Cusic’s students every other week or so.

“Kids are kids,” Etemadi-Cusic said. “Even though their countries are so different, they are so much the same.”

In addition to building bridges across cultures, McCasland said the point of CHAMPS was to educate students about a little-known issue and to empower them to make a difference.

“Our kids have these huge hearts, and they want to solve the problems of the world,” she said. “You hear about terrible things and you can’t do anything about them. The thing is, kids are very powerful, and kids can bring awareness to their entire community. No one that somewhere between 50 million and 100 million land mines are out there, and that one-third of our world has land mines in it, and it’s these kids who are raising awareness in the United States.”

American Non-Profit to Assist Sri Lanka

February 14, 2011

The Marshall Legacy Institute, a U.S.-based non-profit organization, visited Sri Lanka from 26 – 29 January to discuss renewing a humanitarian project that will assist Sri Lanka in its efforts to clear the country of landmine contamination by 2020.

In 2004 and 2005, MLI donated 13 landmine-sniffing dogs and integration training to the Sri Lankan Army’s Humanitarian Demining Unit with funding from the U.S. Department of State and private donors. These dogs have now reached retirement age, and the Sri Lankan Army has requested from MLI additional dogs and training, so that dogs can again be included in humanitarian landmine clearance operations. Sri Lanka suffers from extensive mine contamination as a result of three decades of internal conflict ending in 2009. Landmines threaten the lives and limbs of people and animals, inhibit the return of internally displaced people, and limit access to agricultural land.

During the visit, the MLI delegation met SLA Commander General Jagath Jaasooriya and had detailed briefings with Brigadier Udayanta, the Commander of the Engineer Brigade, and Monty Ranatunge, Director of the National Mine Action Center. The delegation visited three of the retired MDDs, and traveled to the elephant orphanage in Pinnewela to see Sama, a 20 year old landmine survivor elephant. MLI also met with the Deputy Chief of Mission, Political Officer and Defense Attache at the U.S. Embassy in Colombo. SLA Chief of Staff Major General Daya Ratnayake joined the delegation for a dinner that concluded the visit.

As a result of the visit, MLI has committed to donating 6 Mine Detection Dogs and refresher training to the SLA, and aims to deliver the dogs to Sri Lanka by summer 2011.

For more information about MLI’s program in Sri Lanka, or to learn how you can sponsor a lifesaving dog for this country, please contact:

Elise Becker

Program Manager, MLI

(703) 243-9200

ebecker@marshall-legacy.org

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