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Now that you have a general idea of Youth Against Landmine's philosophy, we can dive into the nitty
gritty details. At the heart of YAL's plan of action is a national collective fundraising scheme
working with the United Nation's program Adopt-A-Minefield®.
Background information from the Adopt-A-Minefield® website:
The Adopt-A-Minefield® Campaign seeks national and international sponsors to adopt minefields that the United Nations has identified as being in urgent need of clearance. Sponsors raise funds in their communities to clear their adopted minefields and return land to productive use. The cost of clearing these areas ranges from thousands to millions of dollars, depending on the size and type of minefield and the complexity of the demining task. Sponsors may adopt entire minefields (typically between $25,000 and $40,000) or contribute smaller amounts (as little as $5), which are pooled with other contributions. Every dollar raised is forwarded to the United Nations for mine clearance.
Adopt-a-Minefield® provides a simple, practical way to remove minefields, but is rather expensive for youth groups. $50,000 is quite a sum of money to raise for highschool students. That is why Youth Against Landmines plans to develop a practical collective fundraising system following the engagement of a sufficient number of member groups. Essentially the fundraising system works as follows:
- Members will vote online to remove a particular minefield off of the Adopt-a-Minefield® website.
- The cost of the minefield will be divided equally by the number of member groups signed up.
- Each member group will be assigned their equal share and given a specific deadline to raise that amount of money by.
- Each member group will be sent a fundraising booklet for suggestions and ideas on how to raise that amount of money.
- The money will be collected, added up, and if the fundraising goal was reached, sent off to Adopt-a-Minefield® for the removal of that particular minefield.
- This process will be repeated every two or three months depending on the number of groups in the database.
Collective Fundraising Example:
* This example assumes that Youth Against Landmines contains 100 member groups across Canada.
- An online poll is conducted and members, based on the urgency of the situation, choose the minefield ATC-07-07 in Kabul, Afghanistan. As you can see from the following screenshot, the Adopt-a-Minefield® website provides detailed information on the location and condition of the minefield:
- The cost of ATC-07-07 is $33,290; therefore, each group will be assigned the same fundraising target of $339.20 and a deadline of 2 months.
- Youth Against Landmines will send a fundraising booklet to all member groups with detailed information on fundraising and how to raise the money.
- At the end of 2 months the member groups will be directed to send their funds to Youth Against Landmines, who will then total the amount and determine if it reached the fundraising goal of $33,290.
- If all goes well, the money will be sent to Adopt-a-Minefield® and there will be one less minefield on the planet.
The beauty of the collective fundraising idea lies in its potential to periodically remove minefields. Imagine if every 2 months enough money was raised for one minefield!
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