An art show fundraiser will take place Saturday, Sept 28, in aid of the HALO Trust, on the rooftop of the Hollywood Production Center in Glendale, CA.
The works of Hermine Demirtshyan, Voskan Galstian, Emily Halpern, Koko Hovaguimian, Anthony Miserendino, Argishti Musakhanyan, Arshak Nazarian, Kat Shoa, and Zareh will be displayed. Attendees will have the opportunity to purchase art from which a portion will be allocated to the HALO Trust. The evening will include food and beverage, including music provided by the Snake Charmer Ensemble.
The HALO Trust is the oldest and largest non-profit, non-political organization in the world that specializes in humanitarian land mine clearance, providing a better quality of life for people whose routine activities are curtailed due to the risk of land mine detonation.
The HALO Trust was founded in Scotland in 1988, with regional offices in Washington DC and San Francisco, which is registered as a charity in the United Kingdom and a non-profit in the United States.
The focus of this event is to raise money for Nagorno Karabakh (Artsakh) where HALO first became involved in 1995 after the war with Azerbaijan. Deminers were trained for a year and slowly the HALO Trust began to expand its program in the region, with the launch of the full program in 2000. Through March 2013, there are 144 minefields remaining that are in need of clearance.
The organizers of the event are Aline Tavlian and Nare Garibyan, two Glendale residents who were inspired to raise funds for the HALO Trust after, Gala Danilova, the Director of Finance of the HALO Trust program in Nagorno Karabakh presented the demining work the organization has achieved in that region. She will be speaking at the fundraiser, traveling all the way from Artsakh.
Since 2000 HALO has provided the only large-scale mine clearance capacity in Nagorno Karabakh and over the last 10 years HALO has cleared over 236 square kilometers of contaminated land and returned it to previously impacted communities. By mid-2010, HALO had found and destroyed in Karabakh over 10,000 landmines, 10,000 cluster munitions and 45,000 other explosive items.
HALO has reported as cleared nearly 80% of minefields and about 70% of the area contaminated by cluster munitions in Karabakh. The NGO believes the remaining areas can be cleared within the next five years but this timeframe depends on the continued availability of donor funds, which are on a downward slump. Without funding, HALO warns, the removal of all the minefields and cluster munitions will take longer, leaving impoverished rural communities blighted by mines and cluster munitions for years to come.
