Marshall Legacy Institute

The Marshall Legacy Institute (MLI) was founded by General Gordon R. Sullivan in 1997, the 50th Anniversary year of the Marshall Plan, to extend the vision and legacy of Nobel Peace Laureate George C. Marshall. MLI’s mission is to locate, secure, and apply skills and resources to alleviate suffering, restore hope, and create conditions that nurture stability in countries affected by conflict. For many nations, a primary obstacle to achieving sustainable progress and stability is the deadly legacy of landmines, relics of armed conflicts that often ended long ago.

As Americans, fortunately, do not experience the everyday reality of living with the threat of landmines and unexploded ordnance, most do not know, understand, or appreciate the danger, death, destruction, and fear caused by these weapons. Thus, private citizens, schools, churches, community organizations, and corporations across America are unaware of the issues war-torn countries face and seldom get involved to become part of the solution. Through a variety of programs, MLI engages Americans in the myriad issues that are caused by war, encouraging them to become part of the solution. Thanks to these efforts, private Americans have sponsored over 270 life-saving Mine Detection and Explosive Detection Dogs. Through our education programs: Children Against Mines Program, Peace Makers and Problem Solvers, and Peace through Sport, MLI harnesses the unique opportunity to leverage the influential power of youth as an essential human resource. By connecting youth in post-conflict nations with U.S. youth, these programs broaden the horizons of students who may otherwise have limited opportunities to communicate with youth from other countries or even travel beyond their own villages. Taking a two-pronged approach, MLI works to alleviate mine contamination now through the Mine Detection Dog Partnership Program, while paving the path to a peaceful and prosperous future by elevating youth through education.

Over the next five years, the Marshall Legacy Institute plans to provide conflict-impacted countries with the resources and training to help them recover. MLI will continue to emphasize indigenous ownership, local capacity-building and long-term sustainability, with our largest programs: 1) providing valuable resources (especially highly trained dogs through the Mine Detection Dog Partnership Program (MDDPP) and training of local handlers to hasten the pace of landmine clearance operations; 2) providing medical assistance, prosthetic limbs, and vocational training to landmine survivors, and specialized training to doctors & local rehabilitation teams; 3) linking American youth with students abroad to work together to help others; 4) supporting interethnic & inter-religious reconciliation in post-conflict societies by connecting children from different ethnic/religious groups and uniting them in a common cause; and 5) promoting economic empowerment, hope, and dignity for women living in war-torn countries by providing education, training, and mentoring to enhance their job skills and employment opportunities.

MLI has been effectively initiating programs to help war-torn countries for the past 25 years in part due to our ability to maintain a small staff of talented individuals that are dedicated to helping others. Staff members meet with local leaders in the mine-affected countries to determine genuine need, then aggressively pursue awareness and fund-raising strategies to support our Mine Action and Social Impact programs. Staff identify private donors to sponsor life-saving dogs and support landmine survivors, and then win government grants to cover additional program and administrative costs.

MLI’s Social Impact Programs began as a way to assist communities in post-conflict countries live a more fulfilling life. With funding from private foundations and the U.S. Department of State, these programs help to rebuild peace, promote leadership among youth, and put a strong emphasis on the empowerment of women and the improvement of their role in society. Our Inter-cultural Reconciliation program was launched in Bosnia & Herzegovina in 2014, and it has fostered friendship and trust between youth within Bosnia’s three majority ethnic groups (Bosniak, Croat, and Serb). In 2017, MLI established our Women’s Empowerment programs, which launched with the implementation of a program in southern Iraq for war widows. From 2017-2019, MLI helped 80 vulnerable Iraqi women who were facing increased financial responsibility, due to the loss or severe injury of a male provider in their family, with the training, mentoring, and internship opportunities they needed to enhance and develop job skills and employment opportunities. Small grants were also given to the women to help them start their own businesses, significantly improving their position to support themselves and their family. Over the past three years, MLI has focused on expanding youth leadership development with two programs: Peace Makers and Problem Solvers (PMPS) and Peace through Sport. Both programs focus on building tomorrow’s global leaders, equipping educators with tools and resources to implement a curriculum in their classroom that focuses on leadership development and problem solving skills. PMPS has successfully empowered youth in Colombia and the U.S. to create and implement community-centric service projects, such as sanitation stations, mental health presentations, recycling initiatives, anti-violence campaigns, and other unique projects. In its inaugural year, Peace through Sport has exposed students in Lebanon and the U.S. to inspiring sports leaders and encouraged difficult conversations on equality and conflict resolution, encouraging them to think and communicate in new ways.

To support all of our programs, MLI focuses on forming private-public partnerships to accomplish our mission; senior officials at the US Department of State have frequently commented that MLI is among the best in the business at establishing and maintaining these partnerships.

MLI has donated 282 highly trained explosive-sniffing dogs to the neediest of countries; these dogs have searched more than 59 million m² of land. MLI trains local handlers to safely & effectively employ the lifesaving dogs, and none of our dogs have been injured or killed while working. MLI has successfully established and/or expanded indigenous explosive-sniffing dog programs in Afghanistan, Angola, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Eritrea, southern Iraq, Iraqi Kurdistan, Lebanon, Nicaragua, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Yemen. In each country where MLI has developed an initial MDD capacity, the beneficiary countries have greatly expanded their MDD programs, recognizing the immense value that the heroic animals provide.

MLI adheres to international standards for training and certifying each of its dog-handler teams to ensure that the MDDs can safely, effectively & reliably locate landmines and other explosive remnants of war. MLI’s MDD teams typically search up to 30 times the amount of land that manual deminers can search in a given period time, without sacrificing safety or accuracy.

MLI also has extensive programs to assist landmine survivors and other victims of war. MLI has provided medical assistance, prosthetics, and vocational training for over 1,500 survivors, offering renewed hope for their future. MLI has also implemented a rehabilitation program for previously imprisoned women and children in Afghanistan and supported women in Iraq through small grants and vocational training assistance, as well! All of these programs aim to restore dignity and enhance quality of life for people living in conflict-impacted countries.

Additionally, for the past 19 years, MLI has implemented a robust children’s program called the Children Against Mines Program (CHAMPS), connecting 10s of thousands of American youth with youth in mine affected countries and inspiring them to raise over $900,000 to sponsor life-saving dogs and provide medical care and prostheses for more than 1,600 landmine survivors. Through CHAMPS, MLI delivers landmine presentations and simulated minefield demonstrations with its K9 Ambassador (a retired mine detection dog) to engage students in the landmine issue. CHAMPS inspires American children to not only explore the problem, but to also become part of the solution.

Building upon the success of CHAMPS Bosnia, in 2022 MLI expanded the program to Colombia, focusing on schools in heavily mine affected regions of the country. In 2018, MLI launched PMPS in Colombia, an initiative that garnered great support and enthusiasm from both students and teachers in the country. In response to the request for more youth focused inter-cultural programing, CHAMPS will engage younger students than PMPS had previously and help promote youth participation in both programs as they work their way through school.