As you have hopefully already figured out, Youth Against Landmines (YAL) is an organization dedicated to the eradication of anti-personnel landmines. In the most simple terms our goal is a landmine free world. We feel, with much of the rest of the world, that landmines are an illegal weapon as a result of their cruel, indiscriminate nature. Indiscriminate in the sense that a landmine cannot differentiate between a child or a solider and particularly cruel in the sense that they are designed to maim not kill.

But why specifically fight against landmines, you may ask. Why not nuclear weapons, or war in general? The landmine crisis is one of the most urgent and critical crises facing our world today. Someone steps on a landmine every 22 minutes. Experts estimate that up to 80 million landmines are buried in over 80 countries. And the most disturbing fact is that 80% of landmine victims are civilians.

We recognize that there are many global crises worth fighting for. However we have specifically chosen landmines as the infrastructure necessary for their eradication is already implemented; all that is needed now is a mass movement to push non-signatories of the Ottawa Treaty to sign, funding for the clearance of pre-existing minefields and landmine survivor assistance -- all areas that YAL is more than willing and more than capable to work on.

But YAL is not simply an organization or a single group of individuals. Youth Against Landmines is a movement. We hope to act as an umbrella organization from which hundreds of groups across Canada can work with in a powerful harmony that accomplishes so much more than if groups were working alone. Our goal is to join all the many streams of youth landmine activism to make one strong river.