Removing mines to make families safe in Kosovo

Thank you to all of our generous donors! Last year was a productive year for HALO in Kosovo, thanks to our community of supporters and advocates. In 2018, our deminers located and destroyed over 115 landmines and other explosive weapons of war – clearing over 215 acres of minefield in Kosovo. The local Kosovan community can now safely use this land for farming and woodcutting with confidence that each step will be a safe one.

As we celebrate International Woman’s Day this week, we want to recognize and celebrate the incredible female staff on our team. Kosovo suffers from the highest levels of unemployment in Europe, and women are especially affected – in 2017, 57 percent of working age women were unemployed. HALO recently tackled this problem by providing childcare stipends to enable women to access work more easily and, in 2018, the number of female employees at HALO Kosovo increased by almost 12 percent.

Ferdane Musa, one of HALO’s newer recruits, talked to us about how important her new job is for her and her son’s future: “My family misses me a lot while I am working, but I am here for my son and his future – both for his safety and for his education. I am very happy. I never dreamed that one day I’d be doing this, but here I am.”

Xhezire is a deminer who is trained as a paramedic, and her husband also works for HALO as a deminer. She talked to us about what others think of her, as a woman, doing this job: “To start with they are often confused because they don’t really understand what my day-to-day work is like. They think it is something that only men should do, but when I explain to them that I love my job and I love that I am doing something good for my country, then they understand better. Every time I hear something like this I am more determined to do my job well.”

Your donations not only clear landmines, they employ and empower local men and women and strengthen communities. Thank you for your support which makes our progress possible.