Oct. 2025: Partner Mines Advisory Group honored
Restoration Laos' operating partner, Mines Advisory Group, has been honored by the Conrad Hilton Humanitarian Prize. This award, which has been described as the Nobel Prize for humanitarian organizations, recognizes MAG's extraordinary record of bomb clearance across the world. Laos, the most heavily bombed country per capita in history, is MAG's largest operation. Restoration Laos celebrates this recognition of MAG's life-changing work, and by extension, our part in it. Read the press release here.
March 2025: Update on Mine Action Team 35: Mission Continues
Several years ago Restoration Laos kept Tam 53 from bring shut down when their UK Government funding evaporated. We preserved their mission of clearing farmland and restoring safety, dignity, and the ability to plant and harvest without fear of death or injury. We are proud that with our support, Team 53 has brought rural Lao villagers prosperity and peace at last, and that they have now graduated to new, ongioing funding.
February 2025: Preparing for Emergency Response
Some bombs don’t wait to be found by experts. Imagine an anti-personnel bomb found in your children’s playground: nothing good can happen until that bomb is gone. Ordinary Lao people regularly find bombs in their farms, homes and villages. A plow or a child, a bamboo shoot or a rainstorm unearths the bomb, whose movement-triggered mechanism is now poised to arm. Lao people die every year this way, and the bombs are a source of terror.
There’s a pressing need for rapid response to these emergencies. Starting in April, Restoration Laos will make that happen in one of the most contaminated, hardest-to-reach parts of Laos. Working again with our expert operating partners at Mines Advisory Group, our new team will scramble when the phone rings. Whether it’s a village chief, or a farmer, or a rural school principal, our team will be ready to turn on the flashing lights and say, “don’t worry—we’re on our way.” The team will cost about $115,000 a year to operate, and we’re committed to that funding.