PEACEBOMB STORY

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Pictured L, is the first man in the village to learn how to cast spoons in 1975. He developed the craft and passed the skills on to his son, pictured R.

A bracelet. A story about war and peace. Destruction and reconstruction. History. Instead of words, this story is composed of fragments of bombs, melted and shaped into a circle, a bracelet, a reminder.

1973. Laos. A major theatre of war during the Vietnam conflict, the US has ceased its 9-year long aerial bombardment known as the Secret War intended to halt the spread of communism across Indochina. Communist Lao leaders and 23,000 civilians slowly emerge from homes carved in the karst cave complexes of Houaphan Province.

1975. War is over. Saigon has fallen to the North Vietnamese Army. Victory within near reach, the Pathet Lao advance westward. A lone man from Houaphan also moves west. He journeys through the emerald-mountain passes toward the bomb-cratered Plain des Jars.

Naphia Village, Laos. The man makes a temporary home. He collects scrap metal from farmland and forest scarred by war debris from the 250-260 million bombs that were dropped. He crafts spoons from aluminum melted in an earthen kiln and cast in hand-sculpted molds of wood and ash.

Villagers watch, listen, learn. The first Ban Naphia resident learns the trade from the lone traveler. He begins to craft and sell spoons. Eventually, he teaches the technique to his son. Today, 10 resourceful and enterprising Naphia families supplement subsistence farming activities with income from repurposing war scrap metal. Through resourcefulness and problem solving, they take a constructive approach to a legacy of destruction.

2009. peaceBOMB bracelets. Developed through the collaboration of Naphia spoon makers, the Rural Income through Sustainable Energy Project of the NGO, Helvetas, and ARTICLE 22, a social enterprise that supports sustainable development through design thinking. Each bracelet purchase brings: income to households otherwise dependent on subsistence agriculture as well as two levels of donations, first, to the locally-managed Village Development Fund for electricity, small infrastructure projects and individual business micro-loans and, second, to a larger fund co-managed by RISE and ARTICLE 22.

NOW. BUY BACK THE BOMBS.