Throughout the week, our ACC Team searches through emails and news articles looking for someone who deserves to be the Hero of the Week… Find out how you can nominate a Hero of the Week at the bottom of the page.
This week’s story is about a rat named Magawa. He is an African giant pouched rat, who has been working for seven years in Cambodia sniffing out landmines. Magawa has cleared more than 141 thousand square meters of land – that’s equivalent to 20 soccer fields!
Thanks to their keen sense of smell and the fact that they’re lightweight, rats are perfect for discovering these landmines. Magawa has detected 39 landmines and 28 items of unexploded artillery.
There are 80 million landmines that are active and unknown in the world, and about four to six million of those are in Cambodia. That country has had 64 thousand casualties due to these landmines, so every time Magawa discovers a landmine, he saves lives.
Learn more about Magawa and how he finds landmines in this story as covered by CBS News.
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Kix’s Response:
I’ve heard rats are incredibly smart and obviously they can be trained… Magawa is providing a great service. He sure is one brave rat… and he’s this week’s ACC Hero!
Nominate a Hero of the Week
Now, we want to know who has made a difference in your life. Nominate a local firefighter, police officer, EMT or someone who is serving our country in the military. It could even be a neighbor, family member or friend who lent a crucial helping hand. Let us know all about the person who you feel is a real life hero by emailing us here and please feel free to send us a picture!