Author(s):
Site Admin <webmaster2@icbl.org> .
Monday 20 August 2007
People visiting the three-day Woodstock festival at the beginning of August in Kostrzyn, Poland had a chance to see an exhibition composed of 24 photos and short movie spots on the issue of landmines, organised by the Polish Red Cross (PRC). It was the second time this organization took part in such an event but the first time they showed the problem of landmines.
Despite some doubts that such a difficult, ‘unpleasant’ and non-commercial theme would meet with some degree of attention, the team plucked up the courage, packed all equipment and faced the risk of being unnoticed or ignored by people seeking to have a good time.
They were positively surprised. Many from the 85,000 people who attended the Woodstock Festival also visited the PRC landmines exhibition. Some of them just briefly looked at the photos or watched movie spots but others engaged more deeply, sacrificing their time to read some information about the human cost of landmines and the problem of the ratification of the Ottawa Convention by Polish government.
The most popular activity among young participants of the Festival at the PRC information stall was the game of finding 14 differences between two pictures of sappers at work. Clever and captivating were also small “Pick me up” leaflets symbolising landmines.Many
visitors strongly wanted to become actively involved, so the PRC team hopes that in the next year this will lead to some new initiatives in support to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, such as collecting signatures on a petition or preparing some symbolic action expressing solidarity with landmine victims
The Woodstock Festival ended with a success for the PRC team. The mission to show that the problem of landmines exists worldwide has been accomplished, but the job is not completed. There is still much to do and a chance to do it better...next year.
