Spread the Word

One of the biggest ways you can help us is to tell your friends, family, neighbors and colleagues about our work.

You can post an update to your Facebook or Twitter account that says: “I just adopted Kim the tuberculosis detecting HeroRAT. Check out www.herorat.org to find out how Kim and her colleagues are saving lives.”

You can post a note to your Facebook page or write about HeroRATs in your blog, explaining why you have chosen to support our work. Hearing your personal reasons helps other people to understand our work as well.

You can share our work with your friends by emailing them this text to check out our work:

Subject: HeroRATs save lives and limbs

There are currently 76 countries and territories around the world that are affected by landmines and/or explosive remnants of war. In many countries, mines block people’s access to roads, schools, health care, water supplies, jobs, and opportunities to get ahead. Landmines injure and kill innocent people every day, and sadly many of them are children.

Tuberculosis (TB) is the leading killer of youth and adults in the world, and every second someone new contracts TB. These are daunting numbers, but a local, cheap, and efficient solution exists: HeroRATs!

One HeroRAT can clear 100 square meters of a landmine field in 20 minutes; that same area would take two days work for a manual deminer. In Mozambique, HeroRATs and their human colleagues have returned 1,312,027 square meters of land back to the community and over 44,547 people have benefited from our mine clearance activities.

A HeroRAT can screen 40 samples for tuberculosis in seven minutes, equal to what a skilled lab technician can do in a day. In 2009, the HeroRATs found 561 people with active TB missed in the hospitals. If left untreated, the average person with active TB can spread the disease to 10 – 15 people each year. This means that through their work, the HeroRATs prevented 7,590 people from contracting TB in 2009 alone!

Learn more about the amazing work of these life-saving rats at www.herorat.org or read about the science behind it at www.apopo.org. You can also adopt a HeroRAT, to get an inside look at their work!