The Vital Role of Community Volunteers in Mine Action

At the margin of a risk education training for volunteers, UNMAS had the opportunity to interview one of their previously trained community volunteers named Babagana Mala. The conversation, which lasted one hour, shed light on the complex and vital role of community volunteers to keep their communities safe from the threat of explosive ordnances (EOs), and protect livelihoods through knowledge.

UNMAS, leading the UN mine action response in Nigeria, including the delivery of explosive ordnance risk education (EORE), helps mitigate the risks posed by explosive ordnance to returnees, host community members and humanitarian and development actors in the three northeastern states of Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe (the BAY states).

Security, access, health and nutrition are among the many challenges that people face and which civil society organizations try to provide. The increase in the use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs)by non-state armed groups makes every trip a risk to one’s life, including to humanitarian and development workers. Internally displaced persons (IDPs) and refugees are particularly vulnerable, and among the 15 LGAs where people have returned, 13 recorded the most number of incidents from explosive ordnance in 2025.

This is the case for Babagana Mala, a resident of Konduga and a community volunteer, who in June 2025 received training on risk education and awareness provided by UNMAS with the generous support of the Government of Japan.

“We were trained on the consequences of unexploded ordnance, because our people are in danger ; we need to raise awareness.”

His testimony is essential to understanding the importance of these community volunteers and the missions they are carrying. His own words, “I create awareness.”. In an eye-opening example, he explains how, after an incident involving a motorcycle driver, he was able to reach out to his community and share awareness messages about roadside IEDs, which the drivers then shared with their colleagues themselves.

But the work of a community volunteer goes beyond the prevention and awareness messages of EORE programs ; it also involves the ability to support victim assistance activities by identifying victims of EOs, one of UNMAS’s core areas of work, as Babagana Mala explains in his testimony: “You learn how to refer people to the exact services they need—food, supplies, and medical assistance.”.

In 2025, there were 211 (92 female, 119 male) community volunteers deployed across the three states that make up the country’s northeastern BAY region. Thanks to this network, 339,625 civilians — including 70,374 men (20,7%), 79,155 women (23,3%), 100,764 boys (29,7%), 89,342 girls (26,3%) — gained access to awareness messages and education on the risks of explosive ordnance in 2025. To conclude with the wise words of Babagana Mala : “Education is the backbone of everything.”.