HALO is committed to providing women, living in some of the toughest places to be a woman or a girl in the world, with opportunities for training and employment. We have actively sought to remove barriers to working and developing a career at HALO, especially for the women who often bear most of the childcare responsibilities in their communities.
We have teamed up with a private, anonymous foundation to provide a package of funding for childcare, baby boxes for new mothers and school starter kits for children. These packages have been made available to women in Angola, Iraq, Abkhazia, Afghanistan, Kosovo, Zimbabwe, Nagorno-Karabakh, Somalia and Somaliland.
The nature of landmine clearance means our staff are often living in camps far from their families for perhaps three weeks every month, so these support packages enable us to retain and develop the crucial part of our workforce that we celebrate today on International Women's Day.
Ermelinda Agostinho, HALO Angola
"As mothers, our biggest concern has been with whom we can leave our children while we are away, and in what conditions, especially the smaller ones. However, this subsidy has served to assist us in various different situations. When I am in the remote camps the children are looked after by my older sister and the subsidy helps to buy food for them. Of course, we all know that nothing can make up for the absence of a child’s mother, but when I must be absent for work, at least my family and I know that his basic needs are met; it makes all the difference for both the mother and the child."
Alexandra, HALO Abkhazia
Receiving childcare support has allowed Alexandra to grow in her responsibilities and confidence. She started work on the clearance of an arms store explosion where she safely removed and disposed of artillery and ammunition at a place called Primorsky. She has subsequently retrained and received additional training on manual mine clearance. She successfully applied her new skills by immediately finding an anti-personnel mine as part of a team working to clear the village of Lindava, a village located in the mountains north of Sukhumi.
Even before we started the package of support for mothers, having a steady job with HALO has for years enabled women in vulnerable communities to feed their families, build homes and educate their children. This has been especially important in Sri Lanka, where the civil war left many women in the north of the country as war widows.
Sasikumar Kokila is one of those women. Watch her story here:
In Iraq, women choosing to work for HALO are at the very forefront of changing roles in parts of the country that were only a few years ago occupied by ISIS. Read their stories below:
Asida, HALO Abkhazia
“For me, the opportunity to work for an organisation like The HALO Trust was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. To help my community live in safety has been the most rewarding aspect of my career. As the primary breadwinner in my family, having access to the child care stipend has allowed me to pay for remote education for my daughters whilst COVID lockdowns kept them home from school and has helped my husband and I to work two jobs whilst our youngest daughter is in day care now that schools have reopened”.
Rebeca Cupenala, HALO Angola
"When I started working for HALO, I thought a lot about how I could leave my mother in this condition, and whether it was the right thing to do. However, it was my mum was the one to push me to go and work - she gave me all the strength I needed. It has not been easy for me to leave my daughter, for example when I find out that my child is ill. It has been good to work for HALO, and knowing that I still have a monthly subsidy to support the child is amazing. I have used the money to buy nappies, as well as milk and yogurt; at this stage, she needs a lot of protein as I am not there to breastfeed."
