Hero Rats and Hero People

Neil Hawkes
2 min readJun 4, 2024

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I never thought that holding a rate would bring tears of sadness to me. On my visit to Cambodia I had the privilege to visit the APOPO Centre in Siam Reap. APOPO is an NGO that specialises in using African giant pouched rats to detect anti-personnel landmines to clear them from Cambodia. Countless mines were laid during their genocidal war, which still kill people on a regular basis. On the day of my visit a tractor driver was blown up and killed as he drove across a mine.

Neil with a Hero Rat

The rats, which take a year to train, are able to detect DNT and do not set off mines because they are under 5 kilos. What horrified me, was to learn that despite a number of countries banning their production, the Russians are laying them in parts of the Ukraine.

When will the ‘open-hearted’ side of humanity take control of its ‘shadow’ ? Each one of us needs to examine our inner world of thoughts, feelings and emotions and come along any shadow aspect with a lot of love, thereby dissipating its energy. We can then be role models for others.

Such people are becoming Affiliates of the IVET Foundation and you can read about them here https://www.ivetfoundation.com/home and become one of them.

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Neil Hawkes

Dr. Neil Hawkes is well known as an inspirational speaker, educator, broadcaster, author and social commentator. He is a popular TEDx presenter.