Super HeroRATs Provide Social Enterprise Solutions to Complex Global Problems

This is a wonderful story of social enterprise involving rats that belong to APOPO, a Belgian non-government-organisation, which researches, develops and produces 'rat technology' for humanitarian purposes. APOPO stands for Anti-Persoonsmijnen Ontmijnende ProductOntwikkeling in Dutch, it means Anti-Personnel Landmines Detection Product Development in English; and is a response to the global landmine problem.

Landmines become a barrier to a country's development, turning them into vulnerable communities that become dependent on imported expertise to address the complex problems of landmine detection and the clearance of areas. In the mid-1990s it was recognised that most mine-clearance techniques were slow and expensive. This is how APOPO's founder Bart Weetjens came to the rescue with his life saving social enterprise scheme. He analysed the landmine problem in sub-Saharan Africa, learning that the detection of these dangerous devices was difficult, costly and time consuming.

Bart Weetjens approached the problem from the local farmer's perspective whose resources are limited. While looking at the problem, Weetjens discovered the ability of rats to detect explosives in a laboratory. The rest is history - rats provide a cheaper, more efficient and a local solution to detect landmines. APOPO uses the African giant pouched rats, calling them HeroRATs. They are the driving force behind the organisation's life-saving mission and are trained to save lives by using their exceptional sense of smell to sniff out unexploded landmines.

These mammals provide a low-tech solution to the landmine problem, especially in low-resource environments and are light-weight (approximately 1.5 kg/3.30lbs or less), and crucially do not set off mines when they stand on them. It typically takes 5 kg (11lbs) to set off a pressure-activated landmine. The rats have become true heroes, creating a safer world, inspiring social enterprise and change. Once fully trained, a HeroRAT can pinpoint the location of landmines quickly and effectively. They have also been trained to sniff out tuberculosis (TB) faster than a traditional laboratory. Rats are the ideal animal for this type of work because they have an exceptional sense of smell and unlike metal detectors they can detect both metal and plastic-cased landmines.

HeroRATs provide a social enterprise solution to some of the complex global problems facing mankind today. So far, APOPO and its HeroRats have returned more than 1,312,027 square meters of land to the local population - safe and free from landmines; increased TB detection rates in its partner hospitals, and clinics by over 30 percent. APOPO currently employs over 200 staff in Tanzania, Thailand and Mozambique and has over 300 rats in various stages of breeding, training or implementation. The best thing about rats is that they are sociable, easy to train and cheap to feed, maintain, and transport. African giant pouched rats have a long life span (six to eight years) which means a solid return on the initial training investment!

Update: "HeroRATs have returned 1,312,027 million square meters of land ; the correct figure is 2.7 million. Also, the increase in TB detection rates in partner clinics and hospitals is 43 percent, not 30 percent as originally stated."