{"id":11133,"date":"2026-04-06T16:07:06","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T09:07:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/landmines.org.vn\/?p=11133"},"modified":"2026-04-06T17:39:50","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T10:39:50","slug":"renew-ar-safe-steps-safe-life-app-quang-tri","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/landmines.org.vn\/vi\/renew-ar-safe-steps-safe-life-app-quang-tri\/","title":{"rendered":"A Smartphone That Shows You a Cluster Munition \u2014 Before You Ever Touch One"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A Behalf Studio team member introduces the RENEW AR app to schoolchildren at the Mine Action Visitor Center in Qu\u1ea3ng Tr\u1ecb, February 2025. On the walls behind her: wartime photographs and a map showing locations of all the postwar accidents in the province.<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

QUANG TRI \u2014 Earlier this year, a group of schoolchildren gathered at the Mine Action Visitor Center in Qu\u1ea3ng Tr\u1ecb for an Explosive Ordnance Risk Education (EORE) session. This is familiar in a province where the dangers beneath the ground have shaped everyday awareness for generations. What felt new was the device in the instructor\u2019s hand: through her phone, a cluster munition appeared on the ground in front of her. Interactive, three-dimensional, and close enough to walk around and examine. No one was in danger. That was precisely the point.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The session marked the debut of RENEW AR \u2014 Safe Steps, Safe Life<\/em>, a free augmented reality mobile application developed by RENEW in partnership with Behalf Studio,<\/a> with support from the Government of Ireland through the Irish Embassy in Vietnam. A video recap of the launch was shared on April 4 to mark the International Day for Mine Awareness and Assistance in Mine Action \u2014 and with it, the app’s download links were made available to the public for the first time.<\/p>\n

8,600 Casualties \u2014 and a Record That Didn’t Hold<\/h3>\n

Since 1975, the former Quang Tri has recorded more than 8,600 casualties from UXO accidents. One in three of those victims was a child under the age of 16. These are not relics of a distant past. They are the accumulated cost, measured in individual lives and families, of living on land that the war saturated with ordnance and that decades of clearance work have not yet made fully safe.<\/p>\n

According to the Quang Tri Mine Action Center<\/a> (QTMAC), cluster munitions \u2014 known locally as bom bi<\/em>, or “bombies” \u2014 account for 21% of total UXO casualties in the province. They are among the most deceptive of the remnants: small, numerous, and capable of lying inert for decades before detonating. Their presence is not merely a safety threat. It is a persistent obstacle to normal land use, keeping fields unfarmed and construction sites dangerous, constraining the economic recovery of communities still carrying the weight of the war.<\/p>\n

The milestone year of 2019 marked the first time since the end of the war that Quang Tri recorded zero UXO accidents<\/strong> \u2014 a historic achievement born of decades of sustained clearance, risk education, and community engagement. The record held through 2021. Then, between 2022 and 2024, five male residents \u2014 aged 15, 34, 43, 44, and 50 \u2014 fell victim to UXO accidents. Three of those accidents were fatal. The work is not finished.<\/p>\n

The age range of those five victims tells its own story. UXO does not target a particular demographic. It waits. It is found by farmers, by construction workers, by young people whose curiosity outpaces their caution, and by men who have lived beside this danger their entire lives and, one day, encounter it somewhere new.<\/p>\n

Half the Land Cleared \u2014 the Other Half Still Waiting<\/h3>\n

As of March 2026, clearance teams from NPA\/RENEW, MAG, and PTVN have cleaned up 46.8%<\/strong> of the total area confirmed to be contaminated by cluster munitions in what is now South Quang Tri \u2014 619,465,479 square meters of land surveyed, of which nearly half has been released back to communities.<\/p>\n

That 46.8% represents an enormous achievement \u2014 years of painstaking survey and technical clearance in difficult terrain. It also means that more than half of the confirmed contaminated area remains. At current rates, clearance will continue for years, if not decades. Communities living on or near that land cannot wait for a cleared certificate before they need to know how to stay safe. Explosive Ordnance Risk Education must run in parallel with clearance \u2014 not as a temporary measure, but as a sustained, long-term investment in its own right.<\/p>\n

Three Objects, Three Lessons, One App<\/h3>\n

RENEW AR \u2014 Safe Steps, Safe Life<\/em> focuses on the three types of cluster munitions most commonly found in Qu\u1ea3ng Tr\u1ecb \u2014 the objects behind that 21% casualty figure, the ones most likely to be mistaken for something harmless, and the ones a person is most likely to encounter without recognizing the danger.<\/p>\n

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An educator shows the RENEW AR app on a tablet to a small group of students seated in a circle, surrounded by free-from-explosive ordnance casings on display at the Visitor Center.<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

Using the camera on any modern smartphone or tablet, the app overlays photorealistic three-dimensional models of these munitions onto the user’s real-world surroundings. A student can place a rendered bombie on the classroom floor and walk around it. A farmer can see what a particular type looks like against the red laterite soil they work every day. The object responds to movement, holds its position, and can be examined from angles no flat illustration can provide.<\/p>\n

The app teaches three core behaviors: identifying the objects by appearance; responding correctly \u2014 maintaining distance, marking the location, reporting to authorities \u2014 rather than touching or moving them; and understanding that any unfamiliar object in the ground is already a reason to stop. Attached to a visual memory of a specific object seen up close, these responses are more likely to be recalled when they matter most.<\/p>\n

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Students gather around a phone as a Youth Union educator demonstrates the app.<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

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Step 2 of the RENEW AR app: \u0110\u00e1nh d\u1ea5u n\u01a1i ph\u00e1t hi\u1ec7n v\u1eadt n\u1ed5 \u2014 mark the location where the explosive object was found. The app guides users through safe response behavior step by step.<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

At the February launch at the Mine Action Visitor Center, children who had grown up hearing warnings about UXO from parents and grandparents encountered, for the first time, a visual representation of the objects described. Educators from both RENEW and Behalf Studio were present. Engagement was immediate.<\/p>\n

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