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Survivor Stories
 Bego Kozlica - Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bego Kozlica was born in 1974 in Bihac, Bosnia and Hercegovina. He stepped on a landmine in 1994, during a military assignment. His leg had to be amputated as a consequence of the explosion.
Bego Kozlica was included in the LSN program in April of 1999. One of the outreach workers learned about Bego through another survivor, and he visited Bego at his house. At that time, Bego lived with his wife and three children in his father’s house. The house was too small for a family of eight. The family’s financial situation was very difficult, and Bego was forced to do extremely difficult physical jobs, i.e., roofing. This caused him a lot of problems with the remaining part of the extremity. The wound would often reopen, and the bone was growing out, so he underwent corrective surgeries.
During the beginning of the work with the survivor, Bego expressed a problem with housing, thus the first LSN intervention was purchasing construction materials. With the help of LSN and his own resources, Bego was able to finish work on his house and thereby provide for at least minimal conditions for life of his family. However, the financial situation in the family was still difficult. Bego and his family owned some land and a sty and were very motivated to produce milk and milk products, because the sales conditions were very profitable. Since all attempts to connect the survivor with one of the organizations that would offer this type of assistance did not succeed, LSN decided to help the survivor to purchase a cow. Bego and his family were very committed to this work and very quickly they began seeing the products of their efforts. Besides improved nutrition for the family, the survivor was able to finish working on the house and provide improved living conditions for his family. They successfully sold milk to the nearby store and only after six months, already thought about expanding their business. Since they were making a profit from milk sales, they decided to seek assistance from a micro-credit organization, which approved a short-term loan that they used to buy another cow and build a bigger sty.
The situation in the family has improved greatly since their expansion of business. The survivor does not have to do difficult physical jobs which were causing him pain, and the business that the family is conducting brings them enough of a profit for a decent living.
View the next profile: Suada Palic
Less than 10 percent of landmine survivors have access to proper medical care and rehabilitation. Please visit our Donate Now section and see what you can do to help landmine survivors around the world.
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