It is sunset at Nimule Way Station, a facility set up for internally displaced people and refugees to stay in for a night or two while they await transport back to their home communities. Four hundred and eleven returnees are in the process of retrieving their personal belongings from the trucks and buses that brought them from Uganda.
MAG's Community Liaison team starts to attract the attention of the 179 adults and 232 children in order to gather them at the two pre-arranged meeting points where Mine Risk Education (MRE) will be given.
The returnees have been travelling for at least five hours to reach this way station, where they'll receive food and other items and information to assist them in settling back into their home communities. And, after unpacking the vehicles, attending an MRE session is not the most appealing thing to do. It is of crucial importance, however, so the experienced Community Liaison team prepares the venue with different warning signs and other attention-catching MRE material to ensure everyone attends.
Mines and unexploded bombs threaten returnees' security and well-being. These vulnerable groups are not only at risk from mine and unexploded ordnance accidents on their arrival home, but also on the journey back.
Because of this, MAG specifically targets returnees with MRE at way stations, to ensure people have an understanding of the different threats they will face and the strategies they can adopt to keep themselves and their families safe, en route and on arrival home.
In order to reach returnees, MAG identifies formal and informal stopping points, where Community Liaison teams can carry out MRE. Way stations can be one of the few places where MAG can access returnees for a long enough period to carry out its MRE work effectively.
At Nimule, children and adults are split up so that specific targeted sessions can be delivered to both groups. Most of the children are keen to go to the "children venue" but some others look suspicious - everything is new for them, they are coming back to their parents' country, with most of them having been born at the refugee camp in Uganda - so they sometimes choose to stay with their parents.
The reason for this division though is because MAG teams use different communication strategies to make sessions more comprehensive, attractive and understandable for all audiences. For instance, games are used to relay MRE messages to children, and role-plays for the adults.
Apire John, a 30-year-old man married with four children, is excited: "I cannot believe that I will see my mother homeland, Panyikwara Village. I flew out of Sudan in 1993 when I was only 14 years old".
"I am impressed with MAG's work of providing Mine Risk Education to people who are coming back like us. I understand why your team has split the audience, separating children from the elders, this ensures that myself and my children have really picked up the information. For this I say we shall stay safe when I arrive my village in Panyikwara in Magwi County."