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Life

Hidden Heroes: Christine Kachataryan

This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at OK State chapter.

There are so many people that go through their lives and share their story as they help the world in noteworthy ways. There are so many people that should be recognized for these stories, starting with Christine Kachataryan. 

Christine left her job as an accountant and secretary for a local school, to spend endless hours of labor removing land mines from Nagorno-Karabakh. 

Nagorno-Karabakh is an area between Armenia and Azerbaijan that still faces occasional post-war disputes to this day. The war between the two countries ended in 1994 but there were still an excessive amount of land mines remaining. The mines cause many local causalities and are a peril danger to surrounding civilians. The dangerous job to remove the mines is mainly seen as a male job, but among them is a group called Halo Trust.

Halo Trust is a nonprofit mine clearing organization that has 11 brave women working for it. Christine is one of these amazing women. She is 38 years old, a wife and a mother of three. She said the job is extremely dangerous and that her husband worried for her when she first began de-mining, but the organization receives expert training so the job is done safely and efficiently. Halo Trust expects to have Nagorno-Karabakh clear by 2020. 

“When the mines are cleared, life will become safer and people will live without fear,” Christine said.  

 

Makenzie Massey

OK State '21

Hi! My name is Makenzie. I'm a junior at Oklahoma State and I'm majoring in strategic communications. Some passions of mine are cooking, traveling and expressing creativity!