Lend Your Leg Campaign 2017

ITF Enhancing Human Security organised the fifth edition of the Lend Your Leg campaign to mark this year’s 4 April, International Day of Mine Awareness and Assistance in Mine Action. Between 15 March and 4 April we addressed the Slovenian public and shared information on landmines and other explosive remnants of war (ERW). We aimed to make people aware that landmines and ERW remain a critical issue with detrimental and long-term consequences both in the region and in the world.

We invited people to roll up their pant-legs, symbolically lend their legs and express solidarity with mine victims. With this simple gesture, we wished for them to take a moment and try to identify with people who are still threatened by this danger, which too often fatally changes their lives. For every rolled up pant-leg, posted on social media with #PosodiSvojoNogo (#LendYourLeg), Ireland and Krka, d. d., Novo mesto, contributed 1 euro to the rehabilitation of a victim of armed conflict.

We are grateful that our cause and efforts have been acknowledged by renowned Slovenians. They include a Member of the European Parliament Tanja Fajon, TV anchor and traveller Mojca Mavec and music artists Vasko Atanasovski and Zlatan Čordić - Zlatko. As ambassadors of this year’s campaign, they helped us share our ideas.

As part of the campaign, we visited several faculties of the University of Ljubljana and partnered up with respective student organisations. Thus, we would like to thank the student groups Panda at the Faculty of Law, Obrazi MF at the Faculty of Medicine and DŠOS and the Student Council at the Faculty of Social Sciences. They presented the mine issues to fellow students and contributed a great deal of rolled up pant-legs to the campaign.

On 4 April we organised the main event of the campaign, where joined by the Administration of the Republic of Slovenia for Civil Protection and Disaster Relief we raised awareness on mine action, presented different types of landmines and other ERW, and the dangers they pose. We also invited people to take a photograph with rolled up pant-legs.

This year’s campaign was as a great success, and we raised 1275 pant-legs! The funds, which will be devoted in their entirety to the rehabilitation of the victim of armed conflict, will greatly contribute to the health, overall wellbeing and the quality of everyday life of a 12-year old girl from Ukraine.

We would like to thank everyone who participated in the campaign, by either helping us with the organisation and awareness raising or by lending their legs. Each little action contributed to the success, and we honestly hope that the great turnout is an indicator of the concern of the Slovenian public regarding mine action and mine contamination in the region and around the world!